Restructuring the school year

[AntiSocialDistancer]

inews.co.uk/news/education/education-catch-up-shorter-school-summer-holiday-ofsted-1005616/amp

A five term school year? With 2 week breaks and 4 weeks off at summer?

What do you think? With the understanding every school, pre-school etc falls into line.

Yanbu - let's change
Yabu - stay the same

I agree-exam timings etc would have to change. I just can’t see it ever happening

Probably not! Which is the depressing thing - we just counter along with how things have always been, even if they’re a bit rubbish, because it’s too difficult to change!

other places outside England manage it!

And even more manage with a longer summer holiday 🤷🏻‍♀️

And even more manage with a longer summer holiday

Not denying it - and I’m not arguing for a shorter (or much shorter - I reckon you could get it down to 5 weeks) amount of holidays overall. I just think the 6 term system with lots of piddling little holidays and only one of decent length is mad.

Interesting Wikipedia page about Sumer school holidays. Typically between 8-9 weeks!

God that was garbled sorry. I’m not arguing for shorter holidays overall at all.

I reckon you could shave a week off summer and put it somewhere else to even out more, is what I meant, but failed to say….

@Howshouldibehave

Interesting Wikipedia page about Sumer school holidays. Typically between 8-9 weeks!

I was just looking at Italy! Only a week at Christmas and a week at Easter outside of that three months though so not much more than the UK overall?

I can definitely see the attraction of the long summer break but not sure it compensates for the rest of the year….

I find it hard enough to get my kid through a 10 week term but if there was only short breaks outside of summer at easter and new year it would be awful.

Where I am in Australia there are four terms, about 9/ 10 weeks each. Terms 1, 2 and 3 have a two-week break each, and the summer holiday is 5 and 1/2 weeks. It works very well, you really get to de-compress over the two-week breaks, far better than the week's half term of the UK.

For context, since PPs have mentioned it, exams are a state monopoly, only one exam board and all exams marked and back before the summer holidays. Uni applications are late in the summer holidays. Another significant factor is that there are no exams at 16, only at 18. This makes huge difference, and having taught both streams, the Victorian model is far better, you really don't need the GCSE.

What’s happening at the moment is the government is throwing out random ideas that they have no intention of implementing but hope might win them some votes. If they really cared about children they would be consulting widely with teachers and parents to establish if a) any changes are needed, and b) what those changes could be.
Teachers have generally commented on how well children managed during lockdown, and how hard they have worked now they’re back. There aren’t the significant shortfalls we worried there might be. If you do want to improve attainment the key areas to target are poverty and SEND. So, a nationwide policy to support lower income families to ensure children are no longer coming to school hungry, and more funding for children with special needs. Funnily enough our government doesn’t seem very interested in that....

Depends how you define managing a longer break.
I went to Spain when my kids were younger and got chatting to a mum who was working, doing a kids activity.
I asked her about school hols in the summer. She said it was a nightmare. They had something like 10 weeks right at the peak of the tourist season just at the point where they needed to work every hour they were given to put money aside for the rest of the year.
Couldn't let kids run free like the rest of the year cos the area was full.of tourists and many kids were at home in front of the TV.

@VashtaNerada

What’s happening at the moment is the government is throwing out random ideas that they have no intention of implementing but hope might win them some votes. If they really cared about children they would be consulting widely with teachers and parents to establish if a) any changes are needed, and b) what those changes could be. Teachers have generally commented on how well children managed during lockdown, and how hard they have worked now they’re back. There aren’t the significant shortfalls we worried there might be. If you do want to improve attainment the key areas to target are poverty and SEND. So, a nationwide policy to support lower income families to ensure children are no longer coming to school hungry, and more funding for children with special needs. Funnily enough our government doesn’t seem very interested in that....

Great post. I agree completely.

Kids do forget stuff over summer. That’s why it’s our job to catch them up - and it works with 99% of children. They’re not machines who need to structure their lives around retaining the most learning possible! Also, 8 week terms are brutal; they’ll be shattered at the end of it.

From a teacher’s perspective I don’t really care about a shortened summer, but for the myriad of reasons others have suggested, this is a shit idea.

I too couldn't agree more with @VashtaNerada. The way we deal with SEND is appalling and getting worse. The Department for Education must know perfectly well that schools and councils don't have anything like enough funding to enable them to meet their legal obligations, but it appears that it would rather that children with SEND were thrown under the bus than do anything to remedy that. Resourcing SEND training and provision properly would be an easy way to raise attainment, but the government doesn't think that would get them votes so it doesn't bother.

I actually like this idea. We have no family support as they all live at opposite end of country. DH and I both work shifts and have to take days off for childcare which eats into our leave entitlement. We have one child
And like days out and 6 weeks of looking for stuff to do (obviously we do usual free stuff like park, bikes etc) can take its toll financially. Even when DC is playing street with friends, toward week 5 and 6 they're all
Shattered and ready to go back.

Shorter summer holidays and long half terms would also help at work where everyone is fighting for days off in summer.

I would support this if there was also a caveat that parents can have a two week window to take child out of school each school year for holidays without getting fined.

And also this is so much better for the neglected children, 6 weeks at home is huge for them

Where we live several primary schools do 5 weeks summer holiday plus two weeks autumn half term. They found children are just too exhausted in December otherwise. Parents voted for this change. Nice to go away somewhere sunny in October.

As a teacher, the shorter summer holiday wouldn’t bother me too much, but the 8 week terms would be HORRENDOUS!!! The children and teachers start to seriously flag by week 6 of most terms (most terms are 6 or 7 weeks long), so to have to go on another 2 weeks from that would be just exhausting and to be honest, pointless.

Anyone working in primary education can tell you how the children’s concentration and behaviour worsens as the term draws to a close because they are so worn out mentally and physically. Teachers would also be too burned out to teach with any kind of enthusiasm by week 8. That last extra week of term would just be behaviour management and crowd control, no meaningful learning would be happening, believe me!

Even when DC is playing street with friends, toward week 5 and 6 they're all
Shattered and ready to go back

How is being on holiday more tiring than being at school?

I would support this if there was also a caveat that parents can have a two week window to take child out of school each school year for holidays without getting fined.

Would you support school staff getting the same 2-week caveat?

@Howshouldibehave

I would support this if there was also a caveat that parents can have a two week window to take child out of school each school year for holidays without getting fined.

Would you support school staff getting the same 2-week caveat?

I was just about to say the same!

^
As a teacher, the shorter summer holiday wouldn’t bother me too much, but the 8 week terms would be HORRENDOUS!!! The children and teachers start to seriously flag by week 6 of most terms (most terms are 6 or 7 weeks long), so to have to go on another 2 weeks from that would be just exhausting and to be honest, pointless.^

I’m not doubting your experience at all but I’m always intrigued that English kids can’t cope with longer terms but kids in many other countries seem able to?

I just don’t recall it being a massive issue when I was at school in Australia, for example (when the shortest terms were around 8 weeks).

The term I'm in at the moment (in Scotland) is 10 weeks long.