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

@Geamhradh

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.

This is absolutely true. Children are all fired up and raring to go in September. By the end of every term and half-term they are dragging themselves along, tired.

Disadvantaged students would be better in camps / forest school / enrichment activities over summer, having structured days, reading and being regularly fed healthyish meals. But there is absolutely no need for all students to have reduced time off when they could be pursuing other interests. Not all children are disadvantaged. And also, by treating everyone the same, how does that level the playing field at all? Focus intervention where it is needed. Giving it to everyone does nothing but widen the gap.

@CassandraTrotter children do need down time, being in a camp isn't the same as time off at home. I'm a big fan of forest schools, but I think we need to look at the making school more balanced.

The quality of the downtime is the issue. I will do some reading, a little maths and try to do some writing but my DC hate that, but I'll try to spin it as postcards and journals, but mainly they will play, no rushing out.

To those saying about cramming into summer hols - is the point not that there would be multiple 2 week windows across the year in which you could go away on holiday?

I like the idea but not if everyone is on the same “flow”

I think you’d have even more teachers leaving the profession or not even joining. Nope. Shit idea.

I think I’d quite like more frequent 2 week breaks. It gives more opportunity for different holidays. I’m not much of a summer person so would prefer a chance for a longer break when it’s not too hot.

It may spread holiday demand through the year as a 2 week break in May and October could make a long haul trip more doable.

This doesn't solve a single thing that is wrong with state education, its like a child pushing food that they don't like around a plate to make you think that they have eaten it.

@FrippEnos

This doesn't solve a single thing that is wrong with state education, its like a child pushing food that they don't like around a plate to make you think that they have eaten it.

Yep.totally agree-it’s smoke and mirrors. The holidays thing is really about childcare not anything else.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-considers-buying-360000-abacuses-to-aid-maths-catch-up-in-schools/amp/

Yet someone has decided that buying 360,000 abacuses is now a real priority! Would it be cynical of me to suggest that a friend of Boris, Matt or Gavin will be given the contract for making the things and then schools will have to buy them directly from one place and have to access the (compulsory and expensive) training program that comes with it!?

The school holidays are keeping many women in low paid part time jobs or even keeping them out of the workplace. I think education does need to change hours, less activities and holidays.

@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.

Horrendous

@hopingtobehappiness

The school holidays are keeping many women in low paid part time jobs or even keeping them out of the workplace. I think education does need to change hours, less activities and holidays.

Which activities do you want to cut? This isn't about changing hours, and we already have shorter holidays than most other countries, it's about rejigging the timings. I think better childcare, government funding for it perhaps would be a better solution to the issue you raise.

Think the summer should be longer not shorter.

Am in Scotland and in my area we get 2 weeks in April, 6.5- 7.5 weeks in the summer, 2 weeks October and Christmas.

Would really hate to see the summer being shorter. Kids really benefit from being able to kick back in the summer. Working parents would really struggle to get time off in shorter holiday periods as everyone with kids would be scrambling for these weeks.

Agree with the posters who say this is just a smokescreen for underfunding.

I sometimes wonder if we should just accept that a major role of schools is childcare and parenting responsibility. Open the schools every week of the year and extend the school day so that they can offer healthy meals, exercise, safe spaces in the evening etc.

And once that decision is made, figure out how the school is staffed, cleaned, maintained etc.

@Paperreceipt

I sometimes wonder if we should just accept that a major role of schools is childcare and parenting responsibility. Open the schools every week of the year and extend the school day so that they can offer healthy meals, exercise, safe spaces in the evening etc.

And once that decision is made, figure out how the school is staffed, cleaned, maintained etc.

We already have some children who do 5 days a week, 7.30am - 6pm at school / wrap around on the school site, then attend holiday club for every week we offer. I suspect many other schools are similar, and we can't possibly offer more than we already do, due to site maintenance and staff holidays.

Children can lose a massive amount of learning over the 8 weeks. Some children don’t engage their brain at all for the full 8 weeks and have been shown to lose up to 6 months of learning. I make mine do an hour of work every day of the holidays which is nothing out of a full day of leisure. I would say that they are probably 3 months extra ahead by the time they go back in September. That’s a massive discrepancy.

and we can't possibly offer more than we already do, due to site maintenance and staff holidays.

It would need a big re-think but it would be possible (hospitals operate full time, for example). As a teacher, I often wondered if a reasonable working week and freedom to book holidays whenever would be a good swap for the current situation. I mean, the holidays are lovely but the all-or-nothing lifestyle is not healthy.

I sometimes wonder if we should just accept that a major role of schools is childcare and parenting responsibility. Open the schools every week of the year and extend the school day

Sounds rather like some of the ideas Aldous Huxley wrote about!

Children can lose a massive amount of learning over the 8 weeks. Some children don’t engage their brain at all for the full 8 weeks and have been shown to lose up to 6 months of learning

Do you have a link for this?

Why don't those in independent schools have this problem?

Some children don’t engage their brain at all for the full 8 weeks

You know they'd be, like dead if they didn't.

I think some people would be happy with a two-tired structure where private and public school children get long holidays and can take time out during the term to go away whenever they like, but the state school children are in institutions 24/7 with teachers being responsible for every inch of their development and any rights or responsibilities removed from the parents!

@echt

Children can lose a massive amount of learning over the 8 weeks. Some children don’t engage their brain at all for the full 8 weeks and have been shown to lose up to 6 months of learning

Do you have a link for this?

Why don't those in independent schools have this problem?

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0907568218779130

@Paperreceipt

I sometimes wonder if we should just accept that a major role of schools is childcare and parenting responsibility. Open the schools every week of the year and extend the school day so that they can offer healthy meals, exercise, safe spaces in the evening etc.

And once that decision is made, figure out how the school is staffed, cleaned, maintained etc.

Er, just no.

If people want to do that they can pay privately. I am not paying through my taxes for something so dysfunctional. And I certainly wouldn't send my children, we all enjoy family life.

The UK has some of the longest school days and shortest school holidays in the world. And still manages to educate children to a totally mediocre standard! In my childhood, the standard school day started at a 8 and was finished by 1 pm. School holidays were three full months - June, July and August. And not a single person in my class graduated while being semi-literate.

Nice article. But the problem here is not schools. It's poverty. No amount of fiddling with the schools is going to wipe out the effect of poverty. At best, it will mask some of the effects. Why not focus on eliminating poverty as opposed to making schools as some kind of substitute for parenting?

Sorry, post fail. The previous post was about this previously mentioned paper: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0907568218779130