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?

Teachers are seen as god-like entities in that they can accomplish anything with no input or resources. And also be blamed for anything that goes wrong.

It would be a good idea to see teachers as fellow humans first not demi-gods. They need resources and funding and the idea that politicians have a clue or at least seek reliable sources who do.

(speaking from someone who was also seen as a demi-god to the pion that my nickname should have been Piccard. Only no-one at school watched Star Trek TNG)

A longer day till, say, 4pm would really work for our life but I'm not sure that teachers will agree given that they don't just stop working when the kids go home, so this plan would just make their days even longer!

@noblegiraffe

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?

See we're a restorative school. We bend over backwards trying to keep kids in. I worked at an academy briefly where you didn't even have to talk the kids about why they were getting a warning. You just ticked their mandatory planner and 3 ticks meant their parents had to come and collect them.

I don't want to go that way not least because the kids I'm most concerned about wouldn't be picked up and their parents wouldn't give a shit.

I don't want to get rid of these kids. I want the time and the space and the specialists to actually help them meaningfully rather than just bouncing them in and out of the classroom to their own and everyone else's detriment

I'd like some clarification on where in Europe there are standard school days which run form 8.30 til 6pm!

If they change it so it's more like a normal job the pay better be better. I chose to teach to have more time with my family, so I'd want more pay to go part time, or I'd be out!

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.

You can’t compare the 2, it’s insulting to compare with needs with pissheads and drug addicts.

@noblegiraffe

More the Paul Dix, and about relationship and trust building and then a big focus on reconciliation. It’s taken years to get to where we are now.

We spent a lot of time in a school doing the ready to learn which was really working wonders for them ( after initially resulting in about 10 kids per class not being In lessons) but their dynamic and intake was very different to our school so we didn’t think it would work here!

@OverTheRainbow88

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.

You can’t compare the 2, it’s insulting to compare with needs with pissheads and drug addicts.

@noblegiraffe

More the Paul Dix, and about relationship and trust building and then a big focus on reconciliation. It’s taken years to get to where we are now.

We spent a lot of time in a school doing the ready to learn which was really working wonders for them ( after initially resulting in about 10 kids per class not being In lessons) but their dynamic and intake was very different to our school so we didn’t think it would work here!

Who do you think the addicts were before they turned 18?

But deprived areas get more funding, that’s why there are still behaviour teams etc.

Leafy suburbs get practically none, because those little middle class darlings don’t need it. Except they do.

Honey I’m sure there are challenges that, say, a selective school with small classes doesn’t have. But I didn’t recognise your initial post. I have used very mixed primaries with a wide range of dc and on the whole dc have been happy. The secondary is one people move to get in to so area will have an impact, but still more mixed than non state.

There was a thread on here how to make state better and many said smaller class sizes. I agree this would help and also pull people back in from private sector. Also managing very difficult students via specialist provision sounds good.

It would cost to provide but also cost more as private would shrink, I’d welcome an election looking at education policies.

If the summer holidays were shortened to 3-4 weeks, there simply wouldn’t be enough time for exams and tests to be marked or uni places to get sorted out in that period of time. It’s really tight for examiners to get it all finished as it is.

It is difficult to see how the lost learning can be retrieved in part without action ， there will be a not insignificant group of children who will never catch up despite this but we need something

Haven't read the whole thread so don't know if others have mentioned this, but shorter holidays would be a much better option for vulnerable children who go unseen for long stretches in the current system.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

A huge chunk of our funding goes on providing breakfast and a snack for all kids every day. We used to just do it for kids in the days of their exams!!

Seriously do you not think addicts and pissheads and people caught in domestic abuse weren't on schools radars before they left and became the problem of a&e and the cjs?

Wouldn't it be better to have the right support and intervention at school rather than end up in a&e?

Most parents don't have the large summer holidays anyway so it solves the issue of childcare

@purplejungle

Our mentors and support staff aren’t term time only and check int throughout holidays and do day trips and 2 weeks at school in holidays for most vulnerable

You had kids who went to school Marsha.

Does that honestly mean you're better qualified to speak than someone who has taught in three counties over 20 years and has additionally worked in secure adolescent units in psychiatric hospitals?

Hmm, I’m going to give some crude maths a good, considering only school teachers (because I don’t know how much other people earn).

So let’s say that there are half a million teachers and the day is extended by 1 hour. That’s an additional five hours a week, at a cost of around
Let’s average it at £25 an hour. So
£62,500,000.

Ok, now let’s address the fact people want the summer holiday reduced by 2 weeks, so that’s about half a months pay, so call it £1500 per teacher (average). Across all teachers we get:
£750,000,000.
And that’s not considering other school staff.
So total cost to extend the day by 1 hour and remove 2 weeks holiday....

Somewhere in terms region of £820,000,000.
And that’s if there’s no more than half a mil teachers.

This could get quite expensive...and who has to pay? You. The tax payer

Honeybadger, this is why the ACE scale was invented. To intervene before kids became adults.

Except no one does.

www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/activities/adverse_childhood_experiences/en/

Im just amazed at all these schools with support staff and mentors. My school has virtually none.

@Totallyfedup1979

Oh don’t be silly. The working an extra 2 weeks a year and extra hour a day wouldn’t be paid!

Have read all this no one has addressed the mental health of children being forced into longer days. So do we want our children to be pushed into more lessons with more assessments in our heavily exam-focused curriculum? Schools are judged on exam results, teachers are judged on exam results

All of this just so it makes it easier for childcare.

Are they to have even less opportunity to just hang out with their friends? Or must everything be so structured that they do not get the opportunity to learn outside of school/clubs? No freedom from adults? No

You only have to look around MN at the threads where people are dependent upon parents/grandparents for stuff, children expecting to stay at home longer (not just down to house prices)

@TheHoneyBadger

You had kids who went to school Marsha.

Does that honestly mean you're better qualified to speak than someone who has taught in three counties over 20 years and has additionally worked in secure adolescent units in psychiatric hospitals?

No I am saying your blanket statement doesn’t apply here.

I am not unaware as you put it. I am pleased at how much is good about state. Remove the gloss and there are actually a lot of happy dc learning well, still. Dc with very mixed backgrounds and very able teachers.

Why is it such an issue that I didn’t find with your very negative first post right for all? Maybe if you’d qualified it with - not all schools or experiences are like this.

There is a big range for state. Thinking of some primaries on London they are hard to get access to due to house prices.

Anyway the last thing you can do is post a different experience on mn, so I’ll leave you to it. They’re all bad I’m sure.

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@Totallyfedup1979

Oh don’t be silly. The working an extra 2 weeks a year and extra hour a day wouldn’t be paid![/quote]
Then it wouldn’t be worked

@Totallyfedup1979

Hmm, I’m going to give some crude maths a good, considering only school teachers (because I don’t know how much other people earn).

So let’s say that there are half a million teachers and the day is extended by 1 hour. That’s an additional five hours a week, at a cost of around
Let’s average it at £25 an hour. So
£62,500,000.

Ok, now let’s address the fact people want the summer holiday reduced by 2 weeks, so that’s about half a months pay, so call it £1500 per teacher (average). Across all teachers we get:
£750,000,000.
And that’s not considering other school staff.
So total cost to extend the day by 1 hour and remove 2 weeks holiday....

Somewhere in terms region of £820,000,000.
And that’s if there’s no more than half a mil teachers.

This could get quite expensive...and who has to pay? You. The tax payer

Even vastly more than that when you account you’d have to pay cleaners, teaching assistants, caterers, ancillary staff more too. Not to mention extra costs for heating and electricity and resources and lost revenue for times halls or parts of the school are loaned or rented out. We’d easily be looking at over 1.5 billion