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 like this idea. The summer holidays are too long at the moment

@AnnPerkins

I don't disagree. But will losing swathes of experienced teachers, losing young teachers to the international circuit and having those remaining close to breakdown be in the best interests of children?

@ihavethehighground

I like this idea. The summer holidays are too long at the moment

The summer holidays are far too short.

Kids and teens need a break from school.

If you don't want to be inconvenienced by children, why on earth having them in the first place? There's a life out of school, and shortening the already very short summer holiday will remove any chance of travelling, resting, doing different things.

People have been banging on missing family, friends, outings in the lockdown (and they have a point) and some people want to remove any opportunity to do that.

Then the same ones who moan will moan even more because the peak-season prices will rocket, and will take their kids during the school term anyway.

It's a bad idea on every possible level. Those who can afford private school will benefit, those stuck in state school left behind again.

Independent schools are unlikely to make this change. Similarly, state schools with an affluent intake are likely to resist changing the terms unless they are compelled to do so. Church schools will want terms to fit in with the Christian calendar.

The risk is that having a long summer holiday becomes a status symbol - this is already the case to some extent (many independent schools break up for the summer at the start of July).

It’ll be a real arse having, say, one child in primary with the new terms and another in a secondary that stuck to the old terms. Children of different backgrounds will mix even less than they do at present because their holidays won’t match up.

[quote PyjamaFan]@AnnPerkins

I don't disagree. But will losing swathes of experienced teachers, losing young teachers to the international circuit and having those remaining close to breakdown be in the best interests of children?[/quote]
No definitely not. This could only be part of any solution. In a perfect world maybe...

I very much liked the suggestion of losing a week in the summer and creating a 2 week Octover. A great idea when you consider the first term back is such a long term and a big bump to children. And not as difficult to create a sweeping change across all schools.

This very much stands out to me. I went to a school that did this, and yes we did have longer Christmas/summer/Easter too. But our other 2 half terms were only one week. And I honestly can't begin to tell you the value that the extra week in October had. It's the longest hardest term of the year. It's cold, the hours of sunlight are getting shorter and shorter, people are run down. Having that extra week off at October made so much difference because it gave you ample time to relax but also to get things done. I remember doing work experience in this half term once and it meant that after the weeks work experience I still had a week to relax. If you have big projects to do, as you get further up the school applications for sixth form/universities, these all happen at around this time of year. And it's so valuable having 2 weeks off to get to relax and also catch up on these things (and maybe even have a short break). I find with one week off you only get time for one or the other really. And I really think, even if the whole term system doesn't get overhauled, that this should be implemented.

Having an extra week in October only means that some of us will take their kids on holiday in the sun for longer to make the most of it and make up for the lack of a real summer, which is fine by me.

It's a bit shit for the ones who will be stuck at home when the weather is that crap and there's not much to do.

That sort of plans always work for parents with flexible work arrangement and who can afford 2 or 3 holiday a year.

So, will private schools be reducing to 4-week summer holidays or is the plan that it’s just for the poor folk?

we are in Scotland we already have 4 terms roughly

Autumn 14th august to 6th October 2 weeks off
Winter 30th october to 22nd December 2 weeks off
Spring 7th Jan to end March ( normally 1 week mid february) and 2 weeks for Easter normally first 2 weeks in April if easter is outside this then another long weekend
Summer 15th April to 30th June long weekend around late May Holiday
6-7 weeks summer holiday
Nowhere in Europe has less than 6 weeks in the summer most have longer, it is good to get a real break for pupils and teachers as often first week for staff is unwinding and last two are preparing for new year
Children in UK are not fundamentally any different to children in rest of Europe and elsewhere they manage to learn just fine with longer holidays and no uniform and varying degrees of homework from virtually none in Finland ( which has best results ) to possibly more in France
I could suggest further staggering of Summer holidays in 3 large areas
Scotland stays with all of July and first two weeks of August
Midlands and North roughly 12th July to 25th august
Home Counties london and South and Norfolk Cambridge etc last week July all of august to about 5th September
that way absolutely everyone is off from about 25th July to 14th August ( nearly 3 weeks) so family meet ups possible but spreading it over 10+ weeks means less rush for the same 6 weeks
and a further staggering in OCtober so Scotland / North stays with weeks 2 and 3 of october and midlands south with weeks 3 and 4
Christmas and Easter are fixed so remain the same for everyone

But they’re pitching it as covid recovery and a shorter break from summer 2022 isn’t going to come anywhere close to what schools need,

We need better funding for resources, books!! support staff and extra curricular activities. Then we need smaller class sizes and more teachers to teach. We need a better work life balance to make the job desirable, and less people at the top smearing us in the news.

This is all distraction from the fact that this government don’t spend enough on education.

I expect you are probably right. But loss of 'perks' for staff isn't a good enough reason to hold onto a system which isn't working for many children

The perks of longer holidays is what encourages teachers into a profession that is generally lower paid than other professions requiring a similar level of education. It wouldn't be of much educational benefit to children if there weren't enough teachers to teach them because nobody was willing to do the job.

Yeah I wouldn't stay in teaching if the dc didn't share my holidays. They would be in childcare for all of them - and before anyone says "just like the rest of us" no it wouldn't be, as we couldn't take a single day of annual leave to spend with our children.

I’m confused as to when GCSE and A-Level exam papers would be marked?

The examiners for these are teachers, and those of us who participate in examining rely on the summer holidays, and also the winding down of the school year in July to get all of that done.

No, 4 weeks too short. Teens would miss out on so many great opportunities- say working as an aupair abroad or volunteering or holidays.

I do worry about the educational dip of having so long away from lessons in the summer now. I personally can't afford to go on holiday during school holidays, I can't afford day trips to places unless low cost and local or free, so it's a very long time for us.

I did enjoy the two weeks at Easter, as the first week my DS was still tired, so I think 2 week holidays make sense.

Most likely Mumsnet are all going on multiple holidays and therefore it would seem a short break.

In life you just don't get six week holidays or 13 weeks a year, so why so much for kids ? Integrate some more play, forest school type skills, sports or art so they are less tired.

I would be happy with less holidays. 13 weeks a year is too much for both parents leave even if taken separately. I don't see how sending your child to an expensive club that usually runs a much shorter day than work helps parents.

@SachaStark

I’m confused as to when GCSE and A-Level exam papers would be marked?

The examiners for these are teachers, and those of us who participate in examining rely on the summer holidays, and also the winding down of the school year in July to get all of that done.

Well my MIL marks exam papers and she's retired, so she's not teaching. She goes on a course and follows the marking guide. She does it every year for the money.

But so many education secretaries have tried this and failed. Michael Gove was obsessed about it. But for all the reasons listed it didn’t work. And it won’t work again.

I can see the holiday companies being really happy about this after losing nearly all their business through Covid. Just 4 weeks to squeeze the entire school population in.

If anything it should be longer holidays not shorter. It will never happen

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow nice username but there would be 2 weeks holidays to use too. Depends were they land with the longer half terms, but potentially your main "summer" holiday could be taken in June half term instead.

[quote hopingtobehappiness]@ArseInTheCoOpWindow nice username but there would be 2 weeks holidays to use too. Depends were they land with the longer half terms, but potentially your main "summer" holiday could be taken in June half term instead.

[/quote]
A longer half term at May/June would be a nightmare with those teaching/with children in exam years. They would have to make big changes to when the exams are done which will never happen.

And today it’s announced Pupil Premium will be cut: www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57188815

Yup, let’s just have pupils in school all of the time and not bother to deal with the real issues at hand. Under funding.

@motherrunner

And today it’s announced Pupil Premium will be cut: www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57188815

Yup, let’s just have pupils in school all of the time and not bother to deal with the real issues at hand. Under funding.

This is EXACTLY why they talk of school terms. To distract.

This government are dreadful.

Well my MIL marks exam papers and she's retired, so she's not teaching. She goes on a course and follows the marking guide. She does it every year for the money.

Don't think she does them all though

Many are working teachers.

I do worry about the educational dip of having so long away from lessons in the summer now

Don't:

www.educationnext.org/is-summer-learning-loss-real-how-i-lost-faith-education-research-results/

Also, how come this learning loss isn't a thing in the independent sector?

The educational dip comes not, as you might think, at the end of a long summer, but as you get towards it.
Which is slightly unfortunate when you think about where the exams are.

Would this mean that there are still 13 weeks school holidays as there are currently but they would be distributed differently or is it reducing the amount of holiday time?