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?

The longer summer holiday is a must for children and teachers IMO. All need down time.

“If there were different holidays then parents should be able to take children out for 2 weeks of the year so they can enjoy cheaper off peak holidays”

This would be very, very hard to manage. As a parent, I totally understand the desire but as a teacher it would be so hard to do any work that built up or was staged in any way.

@Hollyhead

Longer school day definitely although not all taught - I would take PE out of the school teaching day and have PE for all children 3.30-4.30pm most days a week. Doesn’t all have to be delivered by a qualified teacher - just responsible adults who can get them running around and moving.

I would definitely support this. Plus time for art, music, dance, independent playing and reading. Would really help give state school/disadvantaged kids some of the policy that independent school kids get as part of their school day.

The school day is shorter now than when I was a child and they have to learn so much more

Well indeed zzzebra!

There is no evidence - none whatsoever!- worldwide that longer schol days/shorter holidays have an impact. There is minimal and very weak evidence about summer learning loss.

Things that do maximise attainment cost £££££££££s.

Longer school day -yes.

But I would like it to be lengthened to allow more time for lunch, and for lunchtime enrichment activities (not necessarily led by teachers!)
A bit of time out during the day for everyone from the pressures of "catching up" might make the catching up more efficient.

Shorter holidays - nope! You surely can't do both!
Either longer days or shorter holidays.

I have a friend in America and they have an interesting system in her school district. The class is divided into 6 groups and they are all staggered by 1 or 2 weeks, I forget. Each group does 6 weeks on and 2 weeks off all through the year, and then 6 weeks over Summer (but the 6 weeks start at different times so some start mid May through to July and others end of June to August) Wouldn't work here with our exam set up but it's good there because there isn't a single 6 week block that everyone is booking holidays in, and the school is always 5/6 full.

Hollyhead
Longer school day definitely although not all taught - I would take PE out of the school teaching day and have PE for all children 3.30-4.30pm most days a week. Doesn’t all have to be delivered by a qualified teacher - just responsible adults who can get them running around and moving.
That does rather devalue PE training and skills.

At most primary school around here, PE is delivered by teaching assistants and it's structured as PPE cover for the class teachers.

No thank you. DS13 has had a crap time sitting on his own at a laptop (not even allowed to see any teachers on screen) listening for 5 hours a day with zero interaction and close-to-zero feedback. He deserves and needs his school holiday, and the normal school day is long enough.
No to optional after school activities or school staying open for homework-- unless someone else is going to pay for the 2 lots of school buses required after school every day? I already pay in excess of £500 p.a for the school bus. We don't have a car. He can't walk 5 miles home, especially after an extended school day.

NO to longer school days, unless they ditch the homework!
YES to shorter holidays. I think school provision needs to be updated and more in line with the average working family.

Every teacher knows that by the time it gets past 1pm, the students start to lag a significantly. By 3pm they are exhausted. Their tiny brains can’t concentrate and focus on so much information each day. The last period of the day after lunch is like pulling teeth to get things out of kids. Increasing the school day would be a disaster. If anything, kids need longer holidays.

We already have some of the shortest school holidays in the world. Most of Europe for example have much longer summer and half-term holidays and they exceed our educational levels. Of course there is a big cultural difference in educational value/respect/work/aspiration/behaviour between us and most other countries in the world which also helps and they don’t have to contend with the growing anti-intellectualism sentiment we have in this country.

But on the whole, more time off for kids to socialise, experience culture, exploration and adventure in their holidays and also have more downtime for things to enter their long term memory would help immensely.

Is it unamed?? What time did your schooldays start when you were a child and how long was lunch?

I finished at 4pm as a child (which went to 3.45 at on point) but we started lessons at about 9 and had well over an hour for lunch). We had 8 40 minute lessons a day at secondary (some were 35) and form time was about 5 mins, twice). I think we had almost exactly the same amount of curriculum time and we had more PE, more music and more social activities.

@NumberThirtySix

No thank you. DS13 has had a crap time sitting on his own at a laptop (not even allowed to see any teachers on screen) listening for 5 hours a day with zero interaction and close-to-zero feedback. He deserves and needs his school holiday, and the normal school day is long enough. No to optional after school activities or school staying open for homework-- unless someone else is going to pay for the 2 lots of school buses required after school every day? I already pay in excess of £500 p.a for the school bus. We don't have a car. He can't walk 5 miles home, especially after an extended school day.

If its a dedicated school bus its time will be adjusted for the students

YES to shorter holidays. I think school provision needs to be updated and more in line with the average working family.

No, they don't need shorter holidays for this. Better childcare provision is what you want rather than keeping all children in school longer.

Longer days mean less time for horse riding, violin and dance. I’d like a genuine research piece on which education systems work best with evidence before changing the system.

No and I think it’s a terrible idea. Children grow when happy not when treated like sausages ins sausage factory.

@Morgoth

Every teacher knows that by the time it gets past 1pm, the students start to lag a significantly. By 3pm they are exhausted. Their tiny brains can’t concentrate and focus on so much information each day. The last period of the day after lunch is like pulling teeth to get things out of kids. Increasing the school day would be a disaster. If anything, kids need longer holidays.

We already have some of the shortest school holidays in the world. Most of Europe for example have much longer summer and half-term holidays and they exceed our educational levels. Of course there is a big cultural difference in educational value/respect/work/aspiration/behaviour between us and most other countries in the world which also helps and they don’t have to contend with the growing anti-intellectualism sentiment we have in this country.

But on the whole, more time off for kids to socialise, experience culture, exploration and adventure in their holidays and also have more downtime for things to enter their long term memory would help immensely.

Exactly. I use the holidays to show my children a world outside of education. Okay, they’re lucky in that respects in comparison to some of the children from deprived backgrounds I teach. However, longer days and shorter holidays won’t develop their hunger for education and culture either. In fact, would this increase school refuses?

I think school provision needs to be updated and more in line with the average working family

Do people really think that our children having much shorter summer holidays than the children in every other country is a good thing?!

If holidays are compressed, all parents with school children are going to want the same weeks off.

This. It's already a nightmare in my office.

*refusers

@Piggywaspushed

Well indeed zzzebra!

There is no evidence - none whatsoever!- worldwide that longer schol days/shorter holidays have an impact. There is minimal and very weak evidence about summer learning loss.

Things that do maximise attainment cost £££££££££s.

Absolutely this.

Kids don't learn more in a longer day.

They learn to hate learning more.

Especially if arts and sports are taken from the curriculum and tacked on the end of the day.

The kids this is supposed to be reaching will be more disadvantaged and more disillusioned by education.

Not to mention and child with Sen who will simply not cope.

It's been done m0ther : there is a book on it called Cleverlands. trouble is the high achieving countries all do different things. There are some common factors, however - none related to length of school day or holidays.

I agree with others though that I’d love to see a reform over the way sport, music and art is taught in schools. I’d love it if kids had a choice and for kids to have more variety of sports or musical instruments or art types they’d like to try. I think it would add so much culture to our schools. PE is absolutely loathed by many children but so many actually go on to enjoy running/sports/fitness as adults.

Though nothing like this will ever be funded. There’s barely any money for pencils so I’m in LaLa land.

What would the new school year look like with less holidays?

Nope. Eldest Dd (age 12) is a dancer, currently doing five days a week (mostly but not all ballet). No PE provision which involves her ‘running around’ could replace that but longer school days would certainly impact on her being able to dance.
I also want to be able to spend time with family. My sister is a teacher but lives in a different region to us, if holidays were staggered there is a real risk that she would not have her holidays at the same time as us, and we would therefore never be able to see her.