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?

@gluteustothemaximus

Poor kids. Poor school staff.

As if they haven't suffered enough. Let them have some fucking downtime over the Summer before the shit storm of winter is back.

It does seem to soon to be talking about changing the whole system I agree. Let them get some normal back first. Though if covid does end up sticking around at low level for a long time. We may need fire breakers to stop transmission at school. So a rejig of the holidays would help. What and see time now though.

I presume you mean as a temporary measure? I think the secondary schools doing 9-2.45 and primary schools closing one afternoon a week should definitely do more hours! Why do some schools do less hours than others? Primary schools not being able to afford to open one half day a week is scandalous (and precedes covid)

@TheHoneyBadger

The teacher should not be allowing any students to disrupt and ruin the learning of the lessons. I would raise this with the leadership team, it’s unacceptable. Our school is an inner city school, and have such a sting behaviour management symptom lessons don’t get ruined. So I think you are majorly generalising.

So 2 teachers English hasn’t been great- that’s not a huge sample size really.

@TheHoneyBadger

It's funny that you think it's a terrible time rather than a day in the life for a teacher.

Not every class has a child that disruptive, some have none, some have three.

Why the need to believe I'm lying?

This is something mostly taken in my stride as part of the job not some strange victim hood that must be an anomaly because Marsha would like to believe that angry, disruptive, attachment disordered kids don't exist

The picture you paint of state education doesn’t match to my experience. No matter how condescending you are.

We’ve had great teachers, dc with great friends, happy dc who’ve learned well and enjoyed school.

YANBU. We all, DC included, need a proper holiday with socialising.

MarshaBradyo😂😂😂😂

I teach in one of the top state schools in England. Her picture of education is indeed correct. Not yours.

Marsha would like to believe that angry, disruptive, attachment disordered kids don't exist

They do exist obviously, we have about 10 per class, but with a good system and support they don’t ruin lessons. In fact they engage and often lead discussions and activities.

Maybe they sense how you feel about them and react accordingly

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Honeybadger, with class sizes of 15 none if this would happen. It’s also the fault if the government. I taught under the last Labour government. After the Tories came to pier, the following happened:

Behaviour management support team axed
Learning mentors axed
Send support axed
Class sizes have risen
Kids with complex and profound needs shoved into a huge class with no support. They get overwhelmed and misbehave. I had 3/4 of a class with complex needs in a y7, with no support. It was crazy.
Equipment breaking or faulty giving rise to bad behaviour through frustration.
Insufficient resources.
Mental health support in schools axed.
IT budget axed. Shit computers equals shit behaviour.

THiS is what is causing behaviour problems, not the teacher.

Yes and increasingly I'm seeing kids who the school and parents know can't manage in mainstream but special school places have been cut to the bone.

And kids who basically would at one time have been removed from the home years earlier because of the levels of neglect and abuse.

But no, that's unpalatable. Let's just pretend teachers are liars.

Or possibly same hours less holiday. If you want mothers to have better employment options and better paying jobs, I think longer hours would be most helpful.

Schools don't exist to provide childcare so that parents can work.

And yes it’s been shabbier than private and I’m sure that there are some challenging dc but all up I’d say the teachers there have done an excellent job.

I don’t know why you need people to see the worst so much. Private was nicer and smaller classes but my dc learnt very well in both.

At some point someone might think yeh state isn’t completely dire and that’s a good thing rather than feel it’s awful.

I know schools differ which is why I ask your area. There are some state better than others.

I thinj this would be very unfair on the children and their families.Also Teachers too! TBH I cant see it happening though ,for years this sort of idea has been floated around and nothing has changed !

No. GV is an utter arse.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

MarshaBradyo😂😂😂😂

I teach in one of the top state schools in England. Her picture of education is indeed correct. Not yours.

Ok all state schools are awful.

God help the dc. The teachers have no hope. They can’t possibly have happy, well educated dc at the end of it.

Fuck it. I no longer care. I’ll leave you state misery teachers to it.

I love having the children for the long summer holidays they need to relax and unwind. It’s not good to work without having a rest teachers benefit from a good rest and it’s lovely for everybody to be able to go on holiday without a fine.There needs to be better and less expensive holiday clubs for working parents though.

Child in Year 10, in a secondary school that is only teaching 4 1/48 hours each day so yes I would like my child to do a longer school day instead of finishing at 3pm to go on to 4 pm as would normally happen. This is not extra time just normal time. I think this year an extra week of full time education would help catch up. I would be happy for tutors or supply teachers to provide this.

Schools should have days that make it possible to work a normal 9-5 job. Other countries in Europe do it - school (and study) from 8.30 to 5.30 or 6. It's hard enough sorting childcare for the summer without the ridiculously short school day.

Drastic time calls for drastic measures. We need to look at education and see how if can be improved to rectify at least some of Covid damage. The damage to children's education, physical as bd mental health can be addressed through establishing routine . We have had a year of random education and life by reducing summer holidays this can in part be addressed

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@TheHoneyBadger

The teacher should not be allowing any students to disrupt and ruin the learning of the lessons. I would raise this with the leadership team, it’s unacceptable. Our school is an inner city school, and have such a sting behaviour management symptom lessons don’t get ruined. So I think you are majorly generalising.

So 2 teachers English hasn’t been great- that’s not a huge sample size really.[/quote]
Ks3 is 2 years here and ds has had 2 maths (core subject) teachers without basic command of English. For his education that's 100%.

I work in the school he attends and have spoken to the department and they hands up know these teachers weren't fit but could recruit no one else.

When there's a ten year under recruitment of maths graduates what do you think that looks like on the ground?

For us in maths and science it means a lot of African teachers. Some of whom are fantastic such as ds current maths teacher. Some of whom are atrocious and have no tool kit for managing challenging kids because that behaviour wasn't an issue where they trained.

@MarshaBradyo

Fuck it. I no longer care. I’ll leave you state misery teachers to it.

Well I’m a state teacher in a school in the most deprived area of a large city and I love it. Great facilities, great kids, outstanding and caring teachers, leaning mentors, academic mentors, intervention teachers etc

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@MarshaBradyo

Fuck it. I no longer care. I’ll leave you state misery teachers to it.

Well I’m a state teacher in a school in the most deprived area of a large city and I love it. Great facilities, great kids, outstanding and caring teachers, leaning mentors, academic mentors, intervention teachers etc[/quote]
Over thank god. I’m sure there are more like you.

I’m glad it’s possible that you and teachers like you are positive.

I could get behind longer days tbh, running school until 4pm would make a big difference to me.

I can also see sense in breaking up the school year differently but if they’re going to make it longer than a 39 week academic year maybe they could drop the fines for holidays. My parents live in a ridiculously expensive and busy seaside town, travelling is not easy for them for health reasons, so seeing them with the kids is much much easier in term time.

No state schools aren't awful-society is pretty fucking awful currently and as a state school teacher we see the whole lot.

10 years of austerity writ large.

Out of interest, OvertheRainbow, is your school behaviour management system more along the zero tolerance/ready to learn, or the Paul Dix line of things?

I love it too Marsha or I wouldn't do it and I'm relentlessly positive at school. We're all adults here though and you'd hope capable of facing society's problems.

If nhs nurses were telling you a&e was full of addicts and pissheads and domestics etc I doubt you'd call them negative and interpret them as saying state hospitals are shit. You'd presumably be able to see society's issues were turning up in hospital. Schools are no different.

@Flamingolingo

I could get behind longer days tbh, running school until 4pm would make a big difference to me.

I can also see sense in breaking up the school year differently but if they’re going to make it longer than a 39 week academic year maybe they could drop the fines for holidays. My parents live in a ridiculously expensive and busy seaside town, travelling is not easy for them for health reasons, so seeing them with the kids is much much easier in term time.

Honestly I would take my kids out if needs be. I do personally. If the pandemic hasn’t taught us that the kids can survive I don’t know what will.