Thoughts on summer catch up camp for kids?

[AquaFaba]

Listening to Anne Longfield, Children's Commissioner, talk about worsening mental health and exacerbating widening gaps in educational opportunity on R4 got me thinking this morning. We are lucky here in that we have fields and gazebos. It's some time away, but wondered what others thought about an outdoors Summer Catch Up Camp, in August, for local primary school children? Is that a practical step towards constructively helping children to get the socialisation they need, remedial education to help address the gaps, and a respite for parents who are being pulled every which way. Deliver sessions by teaching assts/trainee teachers/retired teachers with DBS.

(Note: I'm not suggesting teaching be delivered by current teachers who are already struggling and overloaded, but finding a mechanism to offer this locally)

Please be nice! Am trying to be constructive
Thank you

Sorry but no. We have done our best with home schooling. This summer will be a break for us. And I’m not sure how useful sessions with an unfamiliar person who won’t know the kids or where the gaps in their knowledge are would be any use at all.

I think it could be a really great idea if the primary curriculum was completely different from what it is, based on my observations of home learning. I don't think any native speaker of a language needs to learn about coordinating conjunctions at the age of ten (for example) and I certainly don't think they need to waste their summer on it when they've been stuck inside for months.

IF it was learning games and activities then yeah, sure, but this current government do not think that learning and enjoyment should coexist, seemingly, so I can't see it happening.

I would absolutely support and welcome any local initiative that would go in that direction. I think it is a brilliant idea.

Costs: would have to be carefully thought as they should be nominal;

Numbers: many small groups for efficiency and some one to one;

Curriculum: games in maths and literacy OR a choice of creative writing, drama based literacy, maths etc;

If you re doing 1h30 in the morning with pack lunch you could then do active games PE style for an hour in the afternoon?

You could also offer the option to parents who wants to of a more formal learning setting for older children (yr 5 and 6).

I think you should talk to your council because I would imagine that they would totally support an idea like that would benefit the whole community.

OR you do it unofficially with a group of friends.

Brilliant! Hope you get somewhere

Good in theory, but who is going to want to host it who is suitably qualified?

Children need a break too. A proper break when their parents are off work too.

I think this would widen the gaps, if anything. The parents who would send their children to this are the same ones who are fully covering the online learning.

Best thing for our children’s mental health us to let them have a fun summer, not working

@CaptainMerica

I think this would widen the gaps, if anything. The parents who would send their children to this are the same ones who are fully covering the online learning.

Absolutely agree.

Fun workshops (science, history, art, music etc), forest school, sports - resounding yes.

Just the same classroom learning but outside? I wouldn't send my child. I think everyone needs a break for the summer holidays, so activities would need to be really fun and engaging.

The children are going to need a proper break when they can relax without worrying about school work. We are all doing our best. DD is working all day every day, following her school timetable but getting so stressed about keeping up at the right pace. She's getting migraines because she's stressed.

I think the OP was pretty clear that she wasn’t expecting teachers to run it Wolfie so you can climb back out of her throat!

I think this is a great idea but I’d focus less on education and more on play, self expression and exercise. There will be loads of qualified kids camp play leaders that could take this to boost their bank accounts.

It’s been a very tough 12 months on children and would have impacted their energy levels and mental health more than some people are willing to admit.

It doesn’t have to be every day they could all take two days a week

It might be better to restructure next year's academic year. So if cases are lower in say, May, but not enough to fully open, I'd move be holidays forward to cover May and June, maybe in to July. And then start back in August if rates are low enough. I don't want rates to get down low enough just in time for summer holidays.

However, you'd need to make sure teachers weren't doing more than 195 days / 39 weeks (as that's all they are contracted and paid for) in the 2020-2021 academic year, and you'd need to move holidays around so you weren't doing last 6 weeks of 2020-21 year then immediately launching in to the 21/22 year.

So it's not a catch up, it's just restructuring the year to work when the rates are low.

Fields and gazebos? You are talking about summer in the uk? And what about toilets, drinking water, etc etc?

I disagree on who would send their children. I am not fully covering online learning because I simply can't persuade a reluctant child and manage to work. I also won't have much time off in the summer so they will be mainly entertaining themselves. If it was affordable then I would definitely be interested in this as an idea.

I would rather see focussed intervention in school time. I have heard there is a scheme starting for individuals with expertise in a subject area to go in to schools to help deliver (I don’t know what this is called). This is more likely to capture those that need it rather than the children of parents organised enough to send their kids to a Summer school. My kids really benefit from unstructured time in the holidays so I would rather see the creative and sporting opportunities in term time.

In a normal year it would be a lovely idea, but I think the last thing a lot of parents or kids will want after over a year of being kept indoors and told what to do is losing their summer to being told how to spend it and having to sit still and do learning, parents not being able to sleep in etc. Their second summer of restrictions, at that.
On a practical level, IDK how this would work because as this shitshow has demonstrated, the only people who really can teach children are teachers. Most other people are finding out just how hard it is to get kids to sit down and do work.

On top of that, those temporary teachers would have to be payrolled and paid and DBS/criminal records checked, references vetted, trained in how to teach children if teachers aren't being used, etc. For a single summer camp this would be doable, but all over the country? The DBS service would be brought to a complete standstill. You'd have to hire people to hire the people to work here.

Children have lost a hell of a lot more this year than education and I think they need to re-discover how to socialize and play out of the house. A sport camp initiative run by local (already vetted) coaches would be a better idea, IMO, although still expensive to roll out nationally.

we have fields and gazebos

How many gazebos do you have? Are you proposing hoi polloi use your gazebos for the outdoor summer catch up school? Because round here, it rains most of August.

teaching assts/trainee teachers/retired teachers with DBS.
This doesn't work the way you think it does. Retired teachers DBS checks run out if they don't pay the annual renewal fee. Trainees aren't ready to be legally responsible for otherwise-unsupervised children (this would be like getting student nurses to nurse... only the final year ones could do it, at which point they're not exactly students anymore, especially given that most teachers train via PGCE and PGCEs only last 1 year and trainee teachers tend to live near universities so rural areas would be left out). Trainees need their time off to do their university assignments so they can qualify. And teaching assistants really aren't teachers. They're not cheap substitutes for teachers. They don't know the content to teach, how to adapt it to different students, how to manage a class etc unless they're a HLTA at which point they're probably already getting roped into filling teaching vacancies at their school. Sorry.

great idea in theory - however- who will run them and where ?
who will DBS the people running them, who will pay wages, will parents pay for this (probably no) as the kids that most need it parents will avoid paying, loads of other issues to consider

I think it's potentially a good idea but shouldn't be focused on academics. We're not likely to be able to get away anywhere much in the summer (imo) so that's potentially 6 weeks to fill with not very much. To have somewhere to go and have fun with other children, catching up on the kind of things we've been unable to do like sports, team-based things, science experiments, drama, educational visits, etc would be a real boost to all the children who have missed out. If the government would invest properly in something like this for part of the summer it would go some way towards helping children make up for the many months of lost opportunities for personal development. Not sure if it would be logistically possible but I think as an idea, it's great.

No we've managed to keep up with the online learning and did extra in the last lockdown when they weren't following the curriculum. Summer will be a break for us.

While technically it is not a bad idea I know my teens would point blank refuse.

as the kids that most need it parents will avoid paying
as the kids that most need it parents cannot afford to pay.
There I fixed it for you @simonisnotme

so who will pay the wages , for the resources then ?