to expect teachers to make children work in the last week of term?

[shellingtonboots]

Play Connect 4 on the last day of term, yes. But watching DVDs, drawing and general "fun" activities a whole week before the end of term is really winding me up!

Oh, I sound like such a meanie...

Add this heat into end-of-term-it is and you have a room full of hot, grumpy, exhausted children who can't concentrate for toffee if my family's lot are anything to go by. I wouldn't envy any teacher trying to get serious work out of any of them.

OFSTED are in at DS's primary tomorrow. I will be very interested to see what his lessons are like for the next two days.

I plan my teaching to fit with end of term. We have studied Shakespeare this term in years 7-10 so after reading, performing and studying the plays we are watching films based on Shakespeare. The last lesson I do a quiz. So many pupils are off on trips, activities etc that I don't feel anyone is missing out - had 11/32 in Year 7 today and only 12 Year 10s out of 25.

Ds3 is still working hard and getting homework.

No rest or the wicked!!

*for

My (Y1 class) are still working! We don't finish until next Wednesday. However next week we will be finishing bits off, doing some fun games and lots of kick-rounders (no DVDs). Oh, and data handling. I still have three lessons of data handling to cover. :)

It's natural for them to wind down and so if you finished the term a week earlier, the wind down would just end up happening a week earlier too.

Our school is still doing lessons in the morning, with activities in the afternoon, eg streetdance, talent show, rounders, odd dvd. They are winding down and it is hard to keep a class of hot tired kids motivated all day. They work hard in the mornings knowing they have fun things after lunch. At 7-11 years old i think they are allowed to have a bit of fun. It is still teaching them social skils, sharing, following instruction etc. its also nice for them to relax a bit with staff and not see them as just the evil people who give them homework all year :)

Like a previous poster, my DS is doing a GCSE controlled assessment on Thursday - and he breaks up Friday

All of our summer milestones are done - concerts/plays/open evening/reports/sports day. We now have until next Tuesday to fill, but there is sod all point in trying to teach anything solid at this point. They're exhausted and hot, we're exhausted and hot, but we're not allowed to show videos, except maybe once per class.

So, we're doing more sport than usual, and maths will be made up of investigation-type activities, or interactive PC games. We staff have mountains of admin to do to wind up the year (deadline end of term) and prepare for next, in addition to what we'll be doing in the holidays, so there will need to be some "get on with it and leave me alone "activities factored in too.

I know that "hot" countries manage to teach in these temperatures, but they're used to it and perhaps have air conditioning. I shudder to think what the temperature was in my classroom this afternoon. We were melting. Had to weigh up whether keeping the blinds down was worth shutting out the effect of the open windows.

Mine are still working. Tomorrow is sports day and yesterday we went on a trip but i'm setting tests this week which I will then mark and get back to them before the holidays (next Wed). I'm afraid although there might be a bit of a relaxation of homework etc I also believe that if we're going to be strict about term-time holidays then teachers should be continuing to teach, even if that is using educational games.

why does learning have to be at a desk.

DS has been learning but in a fun way, Plus his teacher is 37 weeks pregnant and wanted to be there for the end of the year. with 3 days left I want his last few days in infant school to be fun.

YABU and a meanie
Learning through play perhaps? My DD is 6 and emotionally on a knife edge she is so tired! I'm happy for the teachers to do whatever they need to do to keep the kids happy and if they're learning stuff too - bonus.

I'm in a Y2 class. We are srill doing some learning activities, but with a fun element too.

Tomorrow is quiz day - all three classes coming together to work in teams to answer questions set by the teachers and TAs based on things we have done this year. All presented as fun, but actually still work based.

Have done Literacy - chronological and non chronological reporting.

Done Numeracy - lots of work based on the entrepreneur work last week, so profit and loss, etc (lots of maths word problems, money work, calculations)

Art playing its part too, as it music and drama, and PE.

Phonics still went ahead and still reading.

It's just being presented as more fun based activities this week. They have worked really hard all year and deserve a bit of slack. Plus it is so hot inside the school building, by the afternoon the children aren't really up to anything too taxing!

We are having toy/DVD day on Friday though, and there is a simple party of Thursday afternoon for their "leaver's party."

Mine are mostly working - other than sports days they are still on the same schedule, so DD2 is still doing long writing, maths, science - albeit
around a more 'fun' topic but still educational.

DD1 is also still working, still has considerable homework this week (Yr7) including designing and providing core code for a computer game, spellings, science and maths (design a logic puzzle, much harder than you would think). In addition sports day is on Friday and the classes have to plan among themselves who is going to provide the necessary drinks and nutrition, so lots of budgeting and planning going on, but it's still fun.

Not all schools plonk them in front of a screen.

Been doing normal work rest of weeks btw, although we did have sports day and we had our end of year play, which necessitated practise. However - drama, music and PE are all aspects of the curriculum after all.

blondefriend I'd be curious to know if you get the best results you're hoping for by setting tests this week. How old are your students?

Yabu and are too tied up into thinking that sitting writing notes = learning.

YABU my DDs are grown up now but they used to love the last week just being able to wind down and do activities with their friends.

My ds (year7) went to Legoland on Monday, had a day's fishing today, and who knows what tomorrow. I think it's fantastic that thy get the opportunity to do lots of things they mightn't otherwise do.

my year 10s have all been doing Controlled Assessment, year 9 finishing off their last project, year 8 a bit of fun but all curriculum based, year 7 I don't see this week due to assemblies...

At my old school kids asked two weeks before any holiday if they could watch a DVD , current school they don't know any different!

I really don't mind the wind down, but ARGH, let the children wear what they like, it's hot, the work for the year is done, reports have gone out, it's a 'fun' week for my sons and the teachers are (busily) closing up shop, so if the academic side is allowed to slip, fair enough, but let the uniform slip too, allow the children to be comfy, allow them to be taken out of school by the parents for the week, allow them a frozen FRUBE for god's sake! (Yeh, I thought it was a marvellous idea, it would still be cool at lunchtime, unfortunately, the spangly lunchboxes I bought are a little too good).

My eldest is adoring this week, he's very emotional and is loving the long goodbye from one year group to the next.

My youngest has turned from angel into devil spawn as his structure has gone to pot and he's expected to sit and watch films he got bored of years ago. When asked what his choice was (for choosing time) he said "I choose to go home and never come back". Oh to be 5 again.

Must add, neither of their teachers are sat on the backsides, they're furiously busy wrapping things up, but my youngest is certainly suffering for it.

YANBU that it should be optional whether or not to send them when they are doing bugger all.

I'd love to be able to keep DD2 home on sports day, she won't wear a hat or put on any sun cream and she won't drink enough, but she's a Y7 not a tiny primary child so no one will look out for her.

She isn't in anything, she doesn't need to be getting fryed.

Yes, I'll try and plaster her in sun cream in the morning, but she will moan.

It's odd.

It seems like the collective mindset on here is that every moment spent in a classroom should involve po-faced dedication to scholarly duty and yet when I was at school the dominant view amongst my classmates was to capitalise on any opportunity to ditch the textbooks and have some fun. Now there are a number of explanations for this, including the possibility that MNers are a fundamentally different demographic to the people I went to school with but I do often find myself wondering when I read threads like this whether people have forgotten what it's like to be young.