Do you WANT longer school days and shorter school holidays?

[shadowlily]

YABU- yes I want schools to have longer school days and shorter holidays

YANBU- no I'd rather keep the hours/terms we have.

I keep seeing this is being discussed in the media today, do you think it's likely to happen? Personally I think kids would benefit more from the summer holiday and being able to catch up on the activities they've missed and socialisation with friends. They've been home schooled to keep up with the curriculum (for the most part! I know this might be a contentious statement for some!) but nothing has replaced the play dates, day trips, parties etc. they have missed.

What do you think?

I know schools near me that are cutting their break times further because of issues maintaining social distancing so the idea of a longer academic day with smaller breaks has little appeal.

Schools getting better support to run (or to afford others to run and in some places, space to run) more extra-curricular and co-curricular activities for an hour or so afterschool or during holidays to give greater access to many activities (or any in some areas) I think could be great. Not being raised in the UK, I find especially at secondary level that the choices are pretty slim where I am on after school options, but there was also a lot of fundraising to do them which I think would be harder here.

Alongside other areas, I do think a wider range of physical activities would be great - though I do think they should be taught by well-trained professionals where possible -- especially for those teaching pubescent children where girls in particular are more likely to have injuries and pain while adapting to the changes in centre of gravity among other issues or in areas where there is sign of deconditioning in children which needs a bit more than just running around more to deal with (and the idea of running a mile as fun just reminds me of child-me walking the mile every year that was required). Of course, this would take funding which even with the 'covid catch-up fund' am I seeing schools really getting enough of for something like this.

When I was in elementary, I did go to a 'year-round' school that was 9 weeks on, 3 weeks off, with 5 weeks off in the summer and my family did take advantage that it was an unusual schedule for cheaper holidays, but obviously it doesn't work so much it this was moved more to normal (though maybe having the 3 week breaks would mean teachers and parents would have more options for holidays), but yeah, I think tweaking the calendar wouldn't do as much as the options that would take actual funding like smaller teacher-to-students ratios.

Have not yet RTFT but my first thought was that NRPs would lose out if holidays were reduced.

Thanks to the PP who pointed out that this doesn't just involve teachers, behind every school there is an army of support staff - from admin to TA's, to lunchtime staff, to site staff. Certainly in my school, support staff are paid exceptionally low wages for actually quite a lot of responsibility.
Often, support staff have gone into these low paid jobs in support of their own personal family lives - I know I did.
So, altering a nation of employment contracts in the education sector would be interesting to say the least.

I have worked in schools for eight years. Currently by Christmas everyone in school is so worn out that they are barely standing by the end of term. How on earth is making the term and the day longer going to help with burnout? All the children I know outside of work are suffering mental and physical health issues directly and indirectly caused by COVID. And all the government and media care about is academic achievement.

I’ve been teaching 25 years. Every education secretary has tried to change the hours/ day length/ holidays.

No one has actually changed anything since Kenneth Baker. And yet every new education secretary says this. Gove also said similar. But they all die a death because it’s too hard.

Extending school day affects extra curricular
Shortening holiday times pushes up prices for holidays, which are already high, and most money is made in school holidays. And thus government like the economy booming.....
Longer days means paying more staff

I’ll believe it when l see it🥱 so so many times before.....

YANBU. It's an awful idea.

Smaller class sizes and more investment in education would be a much better plan.

They should rejig the holidays. Summer holidays should be the same as Scotland since June/July has the best weather and needs to be a minimum of 4 weeks imo. Half terms could be 10-14 days instead.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I’ve been teaching 25 years. Every education secretary has tried to change the hours/ day length/ holidays.

No one has actually changed anything since Kenneth Baker. And yet every new education secretary says this. Gove also said similar. But they all die a death because it’s too hard.

Extending school day affects extra curricular
Shortening holiday times pushes up prices for holidays, which are already high, and most money is made in school holidays. And thus government like the economy booming.....
Longer days means paying more staff

I’ll believe it when l see it🥱 so so many times before.....

I really hope you are right.

No to the longer hours unless lunch and break has been extended. My kids come home from school clearly needing a break so wouldn't really learn anything later.

@Chaotica

YANBU. It's an awful idea.

Smaller class sizes and more investment in education would be a much better plan.

hahahahahaha

And absolutely not to the poster who suggested 8-term school weeks as a norm. That’s way too long. Normally the terms are 6 weeks long and that’s hard enough. The fist autumn term of the year up until October half term is always brutal for kids and teachers because it’s the longest

I don't think I can share this but the last research paper done by parliament on this was in 2015. Gove's name is all over it, although Raab also seems to be a pusher of these ideas.

There is little evidence of impact, various research papers including Policy exchange and Education Endowment Foundation have said.

If you google The School Day And Year (England) UK parliament you should find it.

Completely agree op. The catching up should be about sport, art, drama, music, fitness, volunteering, trips and activities with others. That is what they have missed during lockdown. I would much rather mine get back into the normal school routine and have weekends and holidays to pursue their hobbies and hang out with friends. What happens to their after school stuff, if the school day gets longer? Either exhaustion or they yet again miss out doing the social activities that they love.

I want family holiday time in the Summer when the weather in this country is nice enough to enjoy.
Winter holidays are so expensive, an extra week at Christmas is all very well if you fly long haul.

This would be the nail in the coffin for a lot of teachers who are already at the point of choosing that coffin....I certainly wouldn't continue and I suspect many of the colleagues would do the same - those of us in our 50s can perhaps decide to lose a few years of pension for the sake of an early retirement away from this shit.

You will have to start paying decent money which means an increase in taxes if you want to continue recruiting to the profession.

Not sure about longer days but more evenly balanced holidays would make sense I think...

No to longer days. But I would prefer shorter summer holidays. With very little family support, 6 weeks always feels like a long slog balancing childcare with keeping work going. I would prefer 4 weeks in the summer, 2 in October and 2 in May/June.

Absolutely ridiculous idea , it has a knock on effect not just with teachers but with all staff ! Cleaners/ caretakers for example, they are already there till late . Then the after school activities in leisure centres for example having to re arrange classes for swimming, gymnastics etc for children that will be too tired to attend . It’s not just going to be schools that would have to adapt , but all after leisure time activities . You can forget bedtime being early stick an extra hour and half on top of that!

Children need time to be children. They can't spend their whole lives in school, the long summer gives them time to just live their lives and relax, forget about education, which they need.

Imagine a 4 year old in school till 5? They've got no time in their day for other things other than school. Its exhausting for them, and then youve got a classroom of exhausted 4/5 year olds.

It would be better to invest the money into smaller class sizes, which they won't do

I don't think children actually need classroom time to catch up following this pandemic. They need time when they can relax and play with their peers, play sport, brownies/scouts, gymnastics, parties, holidays. The classroom learning is actually such a small part of the education school provides and all long hours will do is add stress to already stressed and unhappy children, takimg away time they can be playing and interacting with their peers.

The school day is shorter now than when I was a child.

When I was at school, the day ran from 08:50 to 16:50 but with Wednesdays afternoons off, or most of it.

We got two day half terms and longer holidays.

How would it work for children at schools where they already do 8.30AM - 5.30PM, as my DC's (independent) schools do? They also have Saturday school, so I'm not sure how they'd find any more time.

I wouldn't say no to shorter summer holidays, though. 10 weeks is too long.

This whole pandemic people have been talking about the importance of children's mental health, this policy would have a detrimental effect on children's mental health. They do not need more stress in their lives, long school days are not forthcoming benefit of children. Its a policy for parents that does centre children's needs at all

Definitely not a longer school day, they need time outside of school to do other activities. I could maybe support something like reducing summer holidays to 4 weeks and adding a week onto a couple of the half terms, but again they need time for other stuff too, life isn’t all about the academic.

In primary if they dropped year 6 SATs they would have more teaching time to get through the curriculum, from what I saw when my eldest was year 6 they did little new and just practiced how to do SATs.

@Nimello

I wouldn't say no to shorter summer holidays, though. 10 weeks is too long.

10 weeks?