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?

You know that outside London teachers get paid the same across the uk.

Which means it's a much better salary somewhere where salaries are generally low and house prices also low.

Nothing is wrong with them, they are children.
Have you met children?
You know how primary age children go to bed earlier than you and fall asleep in the car on the way home from a day out? That is because they are children and not adults.

Have I met children? Well I have a house full and so does everyone I know, so yes. None of them are terribly worn out at the end of every half term, desperate for a rest like the ones described here. They're kids, they have loads of energy.

(perhaps you are working them too hard?)

And where on earth would the money come from, to pay for all those extra hours of teaching? It would be ruinously costly, especially since the government already can't fund schools properly!

Miggeldy

What do you think is wrong with children being up and out the house every day by 8.30am or in my case 7.30am for breakfast club and then finishing at 3.30pm after constant new knowledge, conforming to school expectations and standards, not being with parents. Maybe an after school club or too or just after care for those parents that do work later than school hours.

And doing that 5 times a week for 8 weeks in a row.

Some children have much more tiring lives than others. If you have no journey to school and live somewhere reasonably peaceful where children can play at their own pace, children won’t be as tired as those who have a long journey to school, intense days, a busy environment, lots of ECs ec.

I don't think there is anything wrong with, it sounds like a perfectly average day which shouldn't particularly tire out healthy children. Not to the point where they are so exhausted that they need a week or more off every 8 weeks!

I'm not at all agreeing with OP, I think the suggestion is ludicrous and holidays are fine. Just wondering why the insistence that your kids are so wiped out by school. What are they doing to them?

OP what you're talking about is less formal than schooling

It is effectively childcare or activities so could be done separate to school

Also the children who already struggle to cope with the physical environment of constant people around would need to be able to opt out for their mental health

So add it up and really what you're saying is you want extra stuff for children, presumably while their parents work. A) that already exists B) adding it to school would be impossible c) when are children going to get quiet time or alone time?

There'll be a huge market for more childcare but you can't magic up the staff. This is another sign that some people need to think a lot more before having children. I am so tired of parents complaining about school holidays.

And some children tire easily some don't.

Partly it's the sensory overload of school for mine.

Extroverts are energised by a typical classroom environment, introverts are drained by it.

Schools are not ‘regular workplaces’ though. How would your suggestion benefit the children?

Kids like to learn the way they learn. Those long summer holidays are for them to focus on learning about leaves, or dinosaurs or football or riding. They do it in that intense obsessive day long way that kids do - not in the half hour blocks they get at school.
I wish school could be geared up to cater for how children truly learn.

YABU .what people don't necessarily realise is a lot of preparation work for next term s classes is done over the holidays.
Teachers do not sit at home idle for 6 weeks or go on a mega overseas break.
What about the maintenance work schools schedule for the summer break and the general freshening up of the buildings? Caretakers can't paint and varnish floors with students classes going on.
We have just come out of a 6 week term in warm weather with extensive revision classes for important exams.
The kids need a break. They are exhausted.

thatv extrovert introvert stuff is simplistic bollocks even for adults, its even sillier applied to children.

Miggeldy

Learning and confirming to high expectations.
Intervention groups becoming more and more and for the younger classes.

There is a reason why the holidays exist and why reception aged children begin school with a staggered approach. So I would say you're children are the minority here. I've seen it with my own eyes, and the meltdowns they have the minute their parents pick them up because they are sooo tired. In fairness this is infant classes. No experience with juniors. But it is very common

MiggledyHiggins - the extrovert/introvert, sensory overload stuff is absolutely, categorically true for children and adults.

MiggledyHiggins - the extrovert/introvert, sensory overload stuff is absolutely, categorically true for children and adults

It's pop psychology, its not even slightly "categorically true". Its bunkum, at least on that superficial level. Ask any psychologist (or anyone who can think) if you can split all humans into 2 easy boxes like that. Answer is pretty obviously NO.

There is no such thing as a regular workplace.
HTH

For those saying that the summer holidays are to long, you are aware that England has the shortest holidays?

Many countries don't do half terms so this is tacked onto the summer.
I think summer is too long based on my opinion that Christmas is too short. I think that most kids would enjoy more time before and after Christmas rather than break up as late as the 22nd and return as early as the 3rd. (Oldest is in y12 so 13 years of schooling in this house)

I really think that ppl who want extended hours need to pay for holiday clubs and after hours tbh.

Ds3 (11) and I were talking about school hours yesterday. He would quite like to do away entirely with school! We both agreed that we would prefer more holidays not less. I can't wait for the summer holidays.

Miggeldy
Obviously saying people are either extroverted or introverted is an over simplification. However that doesn’t make it bollocks. The only bollocks is your black and white reasoning. I need to spend time alone for my mental health. Before I was ill, I would say I was more of an extroverted introvert.

''I would be in favour of shortening the summer break and distributing those weeks elsewhere in the year. The ‘summer dip’ is well-documented and disproportionately affects disadvantaged pupils.''

In ireland and canada summer holidays are much longer, no ofsted, no mindless streams of paperwork, no strings of lesson observations, no list of unreachable targets.... And guess what? Their countries still do well and neither are suffering from an exodus of staff and a recruitment crisis..., infact Ireland is in the top ten and is known to be much more relaxed than England's system.
Love how people buy into this OFSTED/Government rubbish that the only way to improve England's education is to keep it intense and monitor it within an inch of its life and hold teachers accountable and somehow this rigid system puts us above other countries.... The clear evidence is that none of these strategies are working and that we have got it wrong.

I love the holidays! So do my kids! They would find school for 48 weeks per year a miserable concept.