To think we should do away entirely with school holidays?

[SkaPunkPrincess]

Just musing and wondering why we don't just do away with them entirely?

Run schools like a regular workplace in that they operate 52 weeks of the year, Teachers and students to get 4 weeks allocated holiday allowance per year and parents can use this at their discretion. Staff would be able to be more flexible and they would have more time in the year to teach children at a more realistic pace?

Am I missing why this isn't a genius idea?

Yes you are, children need to be children it’s not all work work work...they have adulthood to look forward to
I think the inservice days are nonsense though

For goodness sake.

Echt - a very sensible response. I couldn't have put it better myself.

As a teacher I would fully welcome it. I'd be really excited about my massive pay increase. I would look look forward to being able to book holidays in non-peak times. May in the Caribbean sounds just lovely.

Wait, pardon? It's exam prep season? Oh well, never mind...

Because all the teachers would leave. For many, the only thing keeping them there instead of getting a regular job is the holidays

OP, I teach the way you suggest, 51 weeks a year (closed Christmas week), and I get 28 days holiday to take throughout the year.

In practice It's a bit chaotic,:the students come and go randomly making it hard to plan lessons, and there's always a teacher off so we have to fit round cover. Not having set terms mean it can be exhausting with long days and no prospect of half-term breaks.
The all-year-round routine is good for the students, who prefer set patterns and would struggle with changes. They would find the summer very long with no structure and nothing to do.
On the plus side, the pay is very good, we don't take work home, and I can take my holiday whenever I want. I love the job.

However, you probably won't want to send your kids here - It's a young offenders institution ;)

Yabu. Children need a break, they're children. Why should they be force into the rat race. Let them be happy playing and enjoying life before they enter into that world, they grow up too quickly. Don't pigeon hole them let them be who they are and enjoy the experience of being young while they can. Too many adults don't have time for their own children, holidays should be family time.

I don't know about everyone else but I really enjoy spending time with my 3 kids where they aren't stressed out because they are so tired. I enjoy having the time to teach them life skills that the education system doesn't allow for and tbh it sounds like people who want their kids in school for longer, just treat school as glorified childcare. I want teachers and support staff to want to be there for my children and others and not there because they have to be.

I am a teacher at a primary school and this wouldn't work. Teachers and children alike are already burnt out doing the term lengths we do now. We had a shorter Christmas break this year and the amount of children off due to illness around this time was much higher. You could also not work that hard and for that many hours for 52 weeks of the year. It would be completely detrimental to progress, health and well-being. It is hard enough to recruit and keep teaching staff as it is. They would leave in their droves if this was introduced - myself included.

I think children have a long enough life if work to look forward to why on earth would you want them to start that as children. They are children and part of childhood should be about some freedom and a chance to be a child. They do enough work as it is. Ridiculously selfish idea.

I actually want to spend time with my children.

Yabu no teacher would last this constant onslaught of classroom teaching, no lessons would be planned, no marking caught up with, no exam marking ever done ( some teachers mark GCSE and A level papers), no time to reflect.

Kids would have no time to be kids out of the confines of school and to transfer some of what they learn in school to real life.

Some clown comes on here every year suggesting some variation on this. I get that school holidays are problematic for childcare but it really shows how people have not the tiniest glimmer of understanding of how schools work.

You wouldn’t get cheap holidays - they would be expensive all year round.

Teachers are already leaving in droves. The holidays are a massive perk of the job. I know there are people who are so consumed with bitter resentment of teacher holidays that they are desperate to see them curtailed, but you won’t have any teachers left at all if you do. If you’re that jealous, train to be a teacher - given the recruitment and retention crisis, they’ll be glad to have you.

Can someone come on and complain about INSET days now please and demonstrate a bit more total ignorance?

No I don’t this would work at all!
But saying “ I actually like my kids, and want to spend time with them” is a ridiculous response. Many people do actually have to work during holidays so can’t see any more of their children. We need more family friendly working hours so people who do like their children can spend time with them.
Teachers saying that they would be delighted to be able to clock off at 5 and take holidays whenever they want!!! No job allows that. Exam time would be similar to audit time or seasonal shopping time- no ones gets to swan off on holidays st important times of the year.

So you want both children and teachers to take their four weeks hol through the year when they please? So who teaches the class when the teacher is on holiday then OP?

Absofrigginlootly

One of the things that is always missed about Finland (and various other countries) is that schools, teachers and education is respected.

@CaptainBrickbeard me!! But that's because DD's school plan to lump all inset days into a week added to may half term to "improve attendance " apparently.

Here in the U.S. the kids have a three month summer holiday. I loved having them home for all that time because we could do family things, travel etc and the boys learned good work ethic on the farm.

Just musing...my DC are grown up...For those saying the children need the long holidays...how many parents are home for the hols or are the children in childcare anyway...
How many of the kids wouldn't be as tired if they only went to school 9-3 term time and not to breakfast club, after school club, holiday clubs, activities(cubs/brownies/karate/music/gym etc)
I know that this is unavoidable in most cases but maybe this is why we op are looking in the wrong place for the answers..
Maybe OP was being a bit extreme but actually the reality for many DC isn't far off what she is suggesting...only the location..

@feckitall. Exactly this.
I’d love to spend long summer holidays at home but don’t have that many holidays. And am not allowed more than 2 weeks in summer.

That’s ok, Rebel, it’s the posters who pass around one brain cell between them who pop up regularly bemoaning that INSET days don’t take place in the holidays...they would just complete the bingo card of idiots who have no clue!

How would they balance the curriculum with teachers and students always being out of school? Kids would miss random pets of their education

Parts*

That’s ok, Rebel, it’s the posters who pass around one brain cell between them who pop up regularly bemoaning that INSET days don’t take place in the holidays...they would just complete the bingo card of idiots who have no clue!

CaptainBrickbeard - you'll be one of the few who knows that Inset days DO take place in the holidays - the teachers' holidays!

Yep Caribou, but that’s waaaay too complex a point for a certain coterie of posters to grasp no matter how many times it gets explained.

The OP hasn’t got an idea about how the cover would work for the teachers’ holidays or how the catch up would work for the steady stream of missing children and the only reason why has got to be that she has no respect for what teachers do. I’m guessing if you imagine teaching to be handing out a succession of work sheets or getting kids to complete textbooks then you would think this system could work. If you have the tiniest comprehension of how children learn and how teachers teach them you would immediately understand that you couldn’t possibly educate children effectively in the way she proposes. It wouldn’t be slower or more relaxed, it would just be inadequate and unworkable.

There is no way I want my children at school 48 weeks of the year. It’s the world of work which needs reforming; it’s the shocking lack of work life balance most people suffer that needs to change. The solution is not to force our children to adopt the working model that leaves so many adults ill, stressed and unable to enjoy family life - it’s to fundamentally and radically change the workplace so that it works for us instead of the other way around.