4 weeks of extra school in the summer

[noblegiraffe]

Justine Greening (former Ed sec you’ve probably forgotten) has asked that every child get a guaranteed 4 extra weeks of schooling over the summer.

Practicalities of this aside (imagine it is a fully funded army of well-trained, eager and willing tutors, fresh and full of energy rocking up to your kids’ school), do you want this for your children? When you saw the thread title were you ‘yes!’ or ‘god no!’?

Personally I want my kids spending the summer taking advantage of lower restrictions to visit people they haven’t seen since last summer and doing outdoor, fun activities. Education isn’t the only thing they have been missing out on.

However, I know that others are very worried about the missing education and may consider the summer better spent catching up.

YABU: I want 4 weeks of extra school in the summer holidays

YANBU: I want my kids to have the summer off to do other things

I wouldn't want 4 extra weeks of "school" for my DC (primary and lower secondary) but I would definitely be all up for signing them up to 2 weeks of quality summer activity provision of the type where they got to do sports, drama, coding, art and all that stuff that isn't bloody literacy & maths.

Are your kids not getting to do any of those things in lessons? Coding in ICT is happening as normal for us, as is art. Obviously sport and drama are different although my kids don’t like drama so are happy about that and would rather go for a run than do team games. It would be great if they could offer something like you suggest to those that want it though.

I have no idea how that would even work. We’ve got a holiday booked for part of week 2 and week 3 of the holiday. So my school are not available for lessons then (even if I wanted them to go). I imagine other dc in their class have holidays booked for the other weeks of the holidays. So it would be completely impractical.

My experience as when I was a pupil and for my dc is that they need a long break in the summer to unwind properly. That needs to include some time of just not doing an awful lot.

That is important for their health both mentally and physically.

@blahblahmeh

I would personally rather Easter was cut to 1 week and summer cut to 3 or 4 weeks

As a teacher I wouldn't want this. I've been working much harder to teach online than I would have been in normal circumstances. I'll be looking forward to my holidays. Why should I lose a week's Easter and 2/3 weeks' summer holidays?

My heart sank tbh. Are parents supposed to cancel booked holidays to accommodate this? DS is in Y11 and won't appreciate another 4 weeks of school. DH is a teacher and wouldn't work an additional 4 weeks in the 6-week summer holidays regardless of how much extra money he was paid. It might be nice employment for supply teachers and tutors if it's funded adequately by the government. Particularly those who've lost out on exam marking revenue.

No way. I want them to have a break and some freedom.

I wonder how many head teachers would resign rather than have to be on site and responsible for a scheme like this over the summer. My HT goes off grid over the summer for at least 3 weeks with a camper van and dog-it’s what gets them through the rest of the year!

No way - the gvt needs to get schools open asap and stop talking about BS like this.

@TwelvePaws

I wouldn't want 4 extra weeks of "school" for my DC (primary and lower secondary) but I would definitely be all up for signing them up to 2 weeks of quality summer activity provision of the type where they got to do sports, drama, coding, art and all that stuff that isn't bloody literacy & maths.

Are your kids not getting to do any of those things in lessons? Coding in ICT is happening as normal for us, as is art. Obviously sport and drama are different although my kids don’t like drama so are happy about that and would rather go for a run than do team games. It would be great if they could offer something like you suggest to those that want it though.

Well, yes and no. Yes there's "art" set for them - but it's mostly drawing, through necessity - there's no access to an art studio for different mediums or all the equipment other than what we have at home. I can encourage art & craft stuff but it's not the same thing as being able to do big scale stuff. ICT, yes, things are set (for secondary) but again, equipment at home is not school...

Drama, team sports, music ... mine aren't so fussed about team sports, but that's why I'd like them to be doing them! Because they're never going to sign up to football camp but will enjoy a kickaround at playtime with their friends or racing about playing tag. I want them to have the opportunities for learning in an atmosphere where it's encouraged socially alongside their friends and not forced upon them by me insisting PE is important so do a circuit on your own in the garden.

I can't replicate the social aspects, and whilst I'd like to have the summer holidays to visit people and go places and not "do school" I'd also love them to make up some time with their friends developing their relationships not through a screen. I worry for my lower secondary the most on this score.

They are already recruiting staff for this. But be warned before you get too excited- these are brand new tutoring companies (provenance unknown) who are actively recruiting retired teachers and NQTs. I’m not sure the quality is going to be quite the same as school provision

I would put money on this being online provision.

They can't have a school full of kids being supervised entirely by NQT's, unqualified volunteers or people who used to teach but haven't set foot in a classroom for years. There would still have to be members of LT onsite to oversee everything, pastoral support would have to be in, TA's would be needed to support kids with EHCP's, Safeguarding leads, catering, first aiders, technicians, admin staff etc. I can't imagine many of them will be willing to give up their holidays.

This poll is really interesting. It's clear that Justine Greening has made the assumption that because parents are worried about about their children not being in school at the moment they'd be happy with their children going to school in the summer and that's not necessarily true. It's missing the point that the summer holidays aren't just an educational wasteland, but also an important part of childhood, particularly after the year we've had.

I can see that there would be demand for summer camps and activities, but if only a quarter of parents actually want to send their children into school it wouldn't be worth the massive effort that it would require to organise. Catch-up money would clearly be better spent in term time.

No because children have other developmental needs. They need to see family. They need to play. But I’d jump at the chance for my infants age child to repeat the year and stay in that year group. Yr 1 children have barely been to school in many cases.

So, rather, the Tories have finally found a way of some of their donors monetising the crisis in relation to education?

shouts Justine, if you are reading this, we the parents don't want any bullshit online private tutoring over summer thanks!

If there's cash going to address the huge gap emerging, inject it into schools who know their pupils and communities best, for additional TAs, short summer schools with brilliant fun activities etc.

No chance, I have been working all the time and my children are at school. We need family time together , they have missed out on so many other things too.

4 weeks is loads!

If it was going to be sports, art, science experiments, museum visits, outdoor activities, creative subjects (maybe even putting on a concert or play) - the stuff you actually miss out on learning at home, then yes, I would be delighted to send my primary age child.

Or if in secondary it was the things they have had to miss - textiles, food tech, sports, then maybe I would send them, yes.

Core maths, grammar and literacy, not a chance my child would be going.

It's missing the point that the summer holidays aren't just an educational wasteland, but also an important part of childhood, particularly after the year we've had.

Only for the privileged.

I think providing good quality tutoring support for maths and English online would be a good idea. A much more focused and streamlined Oak academy basically, without all the waffling and with better interactive practice sessions, which follow short instructional videos. Families can then chose to make use of this in their own time.

No.

I'd be up for some sort of playscheme though so they can socialise and do lots of arts and sports. If there was the option for targeted intervention in specific things maybe (DC1 for example has awful handwriting and we really struggle to get them to write themselves- if they could sit down with another adult to practice it would be great).

I'd probably feel differently if they were older and exam years, depending on how much work they'd got done at home.

How do you define privilege, pingpong?

Because financially disadvantaged kids can have good summer holidays too.

The BBC are reporting that an Education think tank say a limited number of children should be allowed to repeat the year. What are you thoughts on that @noblegiraffe?

From what I've seen of the research, getting kids to repeat a year isn't a great educational tactic and it tends to mainly be applied to disadvantaged kids, disadvantaging them further rather than helping them catch up.

That's in countries where it's a feature of the system though. Maybe in extreme cases here? I don't know. Year groups have their numbers and class sizes so to have large movements of kids wouldn't work.

There have always been kids who are massively behind their peers in each year group. Do we repeat the year for them, or for kids who are behind their peers only because of the disruption and a genuine reason for not having accessed any learning?

I think practically as a policy it has a lot of problems.

As a teacher I’m not sure how this will work, my son doesn’t have childcare arranged for the summer and intend to spend it with him, not in a classroom. They’d have to pay me to go in (I’m not contracted to work in the holidays and can’t be forced to so it would have to be voluntary) and I’d be exhausted the following academic year so I’m not sure it would be completely positive anyway.

Yes to two weeks.

So who will be teaching for these extra 4 weeks over summer? Where will these thousands and thousands of tutors suddenly appear from to provide these extra 4 weeks? Or are you expecting teachers who are currently run ragged trying to teach kids in school and provide online lessons to give up their summer holidays?

My husband is a teacher and has been doing MORE work than he would normally do and isn’t currently sat at home with his feet up. We have a summer holiday booked (if we can go) 4 weeks abroad (we didn’t go anywhere last year) as I’ll be on mat leave, I guess he won’t be able to come on our family holiday we booked last year if he now only gets 2 weeks holiday. I’m sure he won’t mind though.

@LasPingPong

It's missing the point that the summer holidays aren't just an educational wasteland, but also an important part of childhood, particularly after the year we've had.

Only for the privileged.

I think providing good quality tutoring support for maths and English online would be a good idea. A much more focused and streamlined Oak academy basically, without all the waffling and with better interactive practice sessions, which follow short instructional videos. Families can then chose to make use of this in their own time.

I grew up in an inner city slum, no way was I privileged particularly when my father died and my mother was left to bring 3 of us up on her own. Summers were still important to me, mainly spent in the park with loads of kids spending the day having fun. Frequently playing in the river having got over the railings so we could play in the water. Where I lived we could also get a free pass for the swimming pool, the council set a test, something like swimming a width unaided at 7 to a length at 11 and being able to climb out unaided and if you did it you got the pass. Great motivation to pay attention at swimming lessons and many many days in the holidays at the local pool, if you were lucky and had a sixpence you could get a hot chocolate and a biscuit before you went home.

So not privileged but summer's were brilliant.