Longer school day, shorter holidays, aibu?

[Damselion]

To think Michael Gove should fuck off? I spend less time with my DC than their teacher's do as it is...

Obviously thought up to facilitate both parents working more hours.

Well we are struggling for people to fill up those thousands of vacant positions in the uk.

Ridiculous. The amount of hours IMO has nothing to do with why we trail behind a lot of other countries education wise. In infant schools the afternoons are already pretty much a write off because the children are so tired. Certainly the more important stuff is done in the morning when the children are alert. Longer days is just going to mean they are tired all the time.
Absolutely insane. I would also be looking to homeschool if this came in.

I live in an area with lots of independent schools and I think there are a few reasons why children thrive in them but its not longer days! Most of the independents have the same overall time in school as the state schools, but the main difference is the use of specialist teachers for gym, art, music etc. It means the class teacher is free to focus on the class topics without having to also plan art lessons or PE classes etc. Also the children benefit from being taught subject by people who are specialist in that subject and are enthusiastic about it eg art.

To make the state sector equivalent they would need to free teachers time so that they can teach.

True about independents... they use far more specialists in schools ime.

Just thinking of DD's primary school, all of the below are within the normal timetable for all children:

Languages - specialist French teacher who comes in just to teach French but to all children from preschool up, and also go on the French residential trip every other year.
Cookery - specialist teacher; throughout juniors
PE - qualified Pe teacher who was also an Olympian twice; throughout whole school
Diving - Olympic diver (see above) - Y6
Tennis - qualified tennis coach - juniors
Ballet - qualified ballet teacher - infants
Judo - qualified instructor - Y3 and 4
Woodwork - qualified instructor - throughout juniors
Kickstart (ball skills) - qualified instructors - infants

That's just some of them.

The juniors also have different teachers for different classes - so they have an English teacher, a Maths teacher, a science teacher, a humanities teacher, a music teacher, an ICT teacher, etc. These teachers all have subject specialisms and then teach throughout the key stage, specialising in their known subject.

And they have reduced class sizes.

Agree with Mrshuxtable. Other European countries have longer summer holidays and shorter school days and have, IMO, more successful education systems.
It's a stupid policy which is trying to get teachers to subsidise child are through the back door with a complete disregard of the welfare of children, teachers and pupils alike

*childcare

My DS is at an independent school and their day is 850-310 for infants, it increases to 330 at juniors and a bit longer at seniors. They still have 4 extra weeks holiday a year plus an inset day each term.

They do sport lessons 4 times a week from juniors, languages from age 4, compulsory imstrument lessons and various other additional lessons that the local state schools don't do.

They have smaller classes of course but seem to get all these things done in a normal school day with more time off and get approx 40% more A-C gcse grades than the local state schools in spite of being non selective.

The answer is most definitely not longer days - this is just an effort to mask the fact that there are too many children in the class room IMO. Surely putting the money into having smaller class sizes would be more beneficial - even 20 at infants/juniors would be a massive improvement.

This document makes a comparison of school hours and how it is spent, across key stages, for a range of developing countries

www.oecd.org/education/skills-beyond-school/48631122.pdf