Extra 2 weeks added to summer term - crazy idea?

[Dazedandconfused123]

So I read in the Daily Fail yesterday that the govt might add an extra 2 weeks to the summer term as there is more ventilation and classrooms can keep windows open. I’ve got to be honest - this filled me with horror! Children are working now, hunched over screens for hours a day. They need time to reconnect with family, be outside, play with friends and do al the things they cannot do at the moment. It also strikes me that this highlights the fact that schools are not, in fact, safe, and the govt is trying to prepare a cushion for a potential lockdown next winter instead of investing properly in genuine covid safe measures that might actually help. AIBU?

Also a lot of the vital support staff who keep schools running normally have term time only contracts - so these would need to be completely renegotiated.

For those who are saying yes, where are the teachers to do this going to come from?

Two weeks in the summer isn't enough to make up the gap between those without IT at home compared to everyone else. I would support some targeted catch up provision for those students BUT it would have been far better to ensure everyone actually had appropriate access to IT as the government promised!

I don't want this, not least because very many schools are offensively hot from about May onwards.

@Flipflops85

I thought it was the whole 6 weeks of 16 hour days? And some kids staying over night, so teachers could stand at the front of the school hall and send them to sleep with gentle lullabies incorporating the multiplication tables?

This.

These threads are so pointless. Daily fail having absolutely no understanding or respect for even the most basics of how teaching works as per usual (contracted hours, contractual issues, holidays booked not just by parents but by staff too...)

@Parker231

For those who are saying yes, where are the teachers to do this going to come from?

Didn't you know? The caretaker comes round at 7pm when they've done their marking, switches them off and rolls them all into the PE cupboard until 8am the next day.

I hate that these threads immediately descend into an argument about his hard teachers work. Leaving teachers out of it completely for a moment, is this best for children and families? No! On a practical level, many of us have booked U.K. holidays already. I’ve booked two, one at each end of the six weeks so my children will neither be attending after the end of the summer term nor going back before September. This will apply to many families.

Next, this is NOT how children learn. I was a teacher for more than ten years and I have kids of my own and I know that when the holidays roll around they need the break. Mine are on their last legs this week and are desperate for half term. Children cannot learn by having information crammed into them when they are fatigued and bored and by the end of each half term, they are! This is a bad idea for children’s well-being, motivation, attainment and engagement.

But some people are so desperate to have any opportunity to attack teachers, all they see is the chance to put those lazy bastards in their place. Apparently those people are happy to sacrifice their own children’s well-being and education in pursuit of this.