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?

When I was a kid growing up in the 70s, our school days were longer but we had the same holidays as they get these days.

My mother was trying to bring up 2 kids on her own and only got Bank Holidays and 2 weeks paid holidays each year.

Even now, basic paid holidays are only 4 weeks unless you're really lucky with a fantastic employer and you might get as many as 6 weeks but even with the 8 statutory days that's still less than 8 weeks, so compared with the 13 weeks kids get it's still over 5 weeks short, which gets pretty expensive when you're having to pay for holiday cover especially if you work full time and have to put the kids into breakfast and after school clubs as well.

My youngest left school 9yrs ago so it's been about 12yrs since I had to pay for all this out of school cover but even back then I worked in the NHS, full time on a salary of about £17,000 and I was spending over £80 a week during term time and £150 a week during holidays, costing me somewhere in the region of £5,000 a year and that was only for my younger son, fortunately, I've got a 7yr gap between my kids, so there wasn't very long when I was having to pay to get them both covered.

I couldn't even afford short weekend UK trips, never mind big fancy foreign holiday, I really don't know how people can do it these days, so I'm extremely surprised there aren't more people in favour of longer school days and shorter holidays to be honest!

@Dustyhedge

NeverDropYourMoonCup What age are you working with? That sounds very worrying. My 4yo said they did lots of racing on their running track today so partly interested to see if teachers are checking fitness etc.

Problem with the debate is everyone has different circs and therefore preferences. Longer days would be fine for us as in wrap around care but even though I have to use holiday clubs I’d rather my children had the chance to do new sports/activities than more school. I’d like to see better provision re clubs and holiday activities so not just an option for better off parents.

Secondary.

Kids, teachers & other school staff need a break. Perhaps some catch up sessions a couple of times a week if the school chooses to.

I couldn't even afford short weekend UK trips, never mind big fancy foreign holiday

No-me neither. We didn’t go abroad until I was an adult.

I still don’t want my kids doing longer days at school and having shorter holidays though.

If people want more/cheaper/varied/better childcare-then that’s what they should be lobbying for.

I grew up in the 70’s. We had nearly the same holidays but we used to get 3 weeks at Easter.

@Piggywaspushed

The six week holiday is from when people used to work over the summer harvest,

This is a myth.

I’ll let my Dr of History mother know

Thanks

I have a PhD in Social History. It absolutely IS a myth that the six week holiday was for children to help with the harvest. HTH.

www.oxford-royale.com/articles/a-brief-history-summer-holiday/#:~:text=One%20popular%20idea%20is%20that,the%20fields%20over%20the%20summer.&text=Perhaps%20it%20was%20just%20to,sunniest%20part%20of%20the%20year.

If the summer holidays were supposedly so children could help with the harvest then they picked the wrong dates.
Many families from the East End of London headed to Kent for the hop harvest. The women and children going for several weeks and the men coming down on weekends (doing their regular jobs in the week). The children would then miss the beginning of the school year as the hop harvest wasn't over by the beginning of September. Only older children who attended secondary schools (pre war not that many) would head home 'early' with their Dad's so they could start the school year.
I have read many a book in which the 'older boys' didn't attend school until winter because they were doing farm work.

No bloody way. It's good to gave a life outside of school.

Never mind whether the summer holidays are vestiges from labour intensive harvesting or not. How are we going to manage when we go to a 4 day working week. Better hope the extra day off the school chooses fits with ours?!

cookies does your mum having a doctorate of history mean she ahs extensive knowledge of educational and agrarian history??There was nothing even vaguely like universal education in rural communities when harvest were brought in in September

It is slightly more feasible that the holiday was set by the elite to allow for extensive Europeans travel for rich young men : see also parliamentary recess.

I don't think Gavin has ever taught a period 5 lesson and certainly not year 9 p5 on a Friday!

I definitely don't want longer days for me or my young daughter. She's 4 and already has to go to breakfast club and after school club because of the hours I have to do to keep on top of my workload. One of the reasons I'm still teaching is the long holidays I can spend with my daughter.

@Retired65

I would like to see two weeks holiday in June & 5 weeks in the summer. No extension to the school day but offer, as some schools did before covid, extra curriculum activities.

Like some schools already have? Na piss off thats our 'cheap' holiday week!

@Standard

Never mind whether the summer holidays are vestiges from labour intensive harvesting or not. How are we going to manage when we go to a 4 day working week. Better hope the extra day off the school chooses fits with ours?!

I like the idea of a 4 day working week

If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.

Most half terms are 7-8 weeks long these days and kids are flagging...6 weeks gone and behaviour gets worse cos they are tired out. Same with staff.
Yes it could be tweaked but Easter dictates the Hols. Leave it as it is. Longer days would not help at all.

Sounds awful.

My Son who is a teacher thinks so too. He works flat out already, this wouldn't do anything but stress the kids out more.
I'm so glad I unschool my other kids so they can enjoy their childhood and I don't have to worry about the awful ideas our cr**p Govt. put forward.

Honestly if you went by what works in countries doing well you'd be inclined towards shorter school days, longer holidays and no homework oh and not starting school till at least a cuople of years older.

However many of these countries have very different attitudes to parental responsibility and input and to class sizes, teacher pay and qualifications, school facilities and tech etc.

Things that cost a lot of money and/or require mature societal conversations. Neither of which go down well here.

No. The curriculum, its purpose and the way it is taught needs complete overhaul. What is actually taught in school does not require more time anyway. For example, we are told 4 or 5 A levels over two years is strenuous. I did an entire A level course in two weeks or home study alone and got an A in the exams.

Likewise the actual information or skills imparted in years 7-11 could have been covered in two years with time to spare without all of the wasted time. And then much more could have been learned. It's too constraining, poor quality, one size fits all approach and incredibly slow paced, and importantly stifles creativity. School was frustrating and boring and almost destroyed my desire to learn anything. I honestly feel I'd have learned far more just studying on my own at home for 5 years than being at secondary school, and it would have been far less stressful.

In a world where we are moving towards increasing technology, more free time etc, creativity and original thought is required. This requires a completely different type of education to the one we have which was designed to fit Victorian industrial society. Creativity requires space for thought, not more institutionalisation and forced interaction. We have a chance now to reimagine it and do something that is useful instead of just repeating what's been done before. I hope we do so.

I agree so much with what Sir Ken Robinson said here, even though it was some time ago.

https://www.ted.com/talks/sirkennrobinsondooschoolskilll_creativity/up-next

Nope I don't want children to be loaded any more. As such they are doing really well. Its very important for every child to return back to their cosy nest and spend some quality time with their family. Denying this will only put them in more stress and will further contribute to mental health issues.

I appreciate much of what you say Polka but you can surely recognise that you were unusual amongst your peers? You can see that it would be very few kids who'd find it that easy to fly through content and get A's?

I share your frustrations in terms of my own secondary experience where at primary I'd been allowed to go ahead and no restraints placed on me and then got to secondary and sat around waiting for literally years to get to where I was at before I started. It was indeed frustrating and pointless feeling and I wagged school a lot and got into trouble but was capable enough to pull it out of the bag for my exams and get good results.

For sure there should have been facility for me to keep learning and branching out but it would be silly to pretend that there weren't a majority of students who needed it to be that basic and that slow.

The downside of 'inclusion' is that often it seems like no one is best served in the interests of trying to serve everyone.

Urgh. Ken Robinson.

Try being a creative engineer type without a solid grounding in maths.

No way!!!

Of course people do. We've already ascertained that many people see it as childcare and would love more of it...

@Findahouse21

I think they should start again with the school arrangements. 6 terms of equal length, seperated by 1-2 weeks of holiday. Work out what teachers are paid now and then change it to reflect that it's a full time job.

This is being done in many places in the USA, and although everyone screams about it at first, once they've done it for a year, everyone loves it. The children don't have time to get "out of the habit of learning," and it is far easier to schedule vacations in popular places when not everyone in the country is trying to schedule for the same time. Some of the said popular places are also quite happy as they are not frantically busy for a couple of months, then struggling.

I want my son to enjoy his childhood. His late afternoons and evenings should be free for him to explore and engage in activities that he likes. Extended school holidays should be spent immersed in the world around him, not stuck in a classroom learning a bogus and overly academic government-written curriculum. Children have their entire adult lives to be a slave to work. Let them be themselves before it's too late.