4-day working week: would it be extended to schools?

[Anothernameforallthis]

Just reading in the Guardian about a big UK project to trial a 4-day working week in a whole range of different businesses / places of employment. The benefits are expected to be clear: “The four-day week is generally considered to be a triple-dividend policy – helping employees, companies, and the climate. Our research efforts will be digging into all of this.”

If it is a great success, wouldn't we want to extend these benefits to school children and teachers? Give them a less stressful life, benefit the environment (one less day a week of the school run), more time to develop interests / hobbies / skills away from the classroom?

Perhaps <dares to whisper> those who can’t contemplate spending more time with their dc should think more carefully about having them (disabilities and SEN excluded)?

Odfod. What an sanctimonious, objectionable thing to say.

This comment literally epitomises the clueless, privileged attitude that is such a barrier to genuinely solving societal problems.

I’d be more able to correct the relative lack of knowledge and learning that the modern education system is producing in my dc

You've got options. Why don't you home educate if your kids are literally leaning nothing?

I guarantee that the school won't miss you.

I'm cringing so badly at your post. You sound utterly insufferable.

It’s an interesting idea and I imagine there were similar debates every time the average weekly working hours reduced over the decades.

Its not something that could work overnight though. I mean, realistically you’d be talking a decade or two to get all new doctors and nurses and teachers and social workers and police officers fully trained so there are enough to allow them all to work 30-40 hour weeks, not what they work now.

Its a lovely idea in the kind of fannying around desk job that I have. I could see my firm going for something like this.

But the actual institutional changes needed to drop everything to a 4 day, not 5 day week? Enormous.

What's stopping you working part time to enable you to job share and focus on your child's education? It sounds as though you are standing by and allowing your child to fall far behind other children who are doing perfectly well in the 'modern education system'.

Money.

Because I’m not privileged. So stop looking for scapegoats in degenerate British culture.

The issue of people who genuinely need extra care - the SEN I referred to - is more complex.

Edinburgh fits in the required hours of face to face teaching by cutting the break times which is a bit shit. Surely break time is an important part of school? It also means parents have to work part time otherwise they would be leaving kids in after school care for a long time on Friday afternoons. Its a crap system.

It would be open 5 days, with job sharing to cover the roles.

You won't get a sensible discussion out of this, though, as people prefer to screech about how their job is too special to share or somesuch rubbish.

In another thread a woman claimed her role was so vital it could never be done as a share. She supervised the after school club...

Wow that's a lot of holidays! How much holiday time do workers usually get - is it difficult for parents to cover holiday time?
We get quite a bit in Finland but not that much, one week each in October and February/March (also for skiing, they call it the ski holiday) about two weeks at Christmas but only the long weekend at Easter and Ascension. Summer is around 9, nearly 10 weeks though.
Don't think 4 day school week would work here though unless they increased the school days but I think the shorter days work better, less tiring and stressful for the children.

Heavy reliance on grandparents - it’s totally normal for even very young children 2,3 yrs and up) to spend weeks with grandparents in the summer.

colonie des vacances and other residential childcare is also very normal. Daycare is widely available and often provided by the local authority and means/
-tested so not Expensive.

children aged 10/11 yrs and up - it’s not unusual to leave them home alone.

But we are looking ‘individually and not at the bigger picture. If the UK was to adopt a four day week, then it isn’t about schools it is about all businesses and working arrangements - how as a society we manage a three day weekend.
Shift patterns, rota’s etc.

My ex DH was a policeman, in his shift pattern he sometimes worked a three day week, a four day week or six nights in a row. It didn’t mean that every Friday the Uk had no police or for six days no police during the day…..

This proposal has nothing to do with using shifts, rotas, etc to manage a 3 day weekend. This is to do with workers being able to the same amount of work in less hours by working harder/faster/reducing waste.

Of course there will be police at all times, but there will be 20% less police officers on duty. I do wonder if many people will have more spare time the police will be busy than ever....

Christ, no.

There barely there as it is.

Not unless every single workplace was doing four days. I have no childcare for one day a week.

No. I don't think that was ever the intention. I'm a big fan and have studied it. New Zealand trialled it. Google. Most of the big 4 Accountancy firms are now. I was saddened at Lord Sugars recent comments. It can work in many industries. But not all.

I wish it could come into healthcare but I think the staffing shortages are problem enough without decreasing their hours.
We have a minimum staff level to run our service which has to run mon-fri, so any gaps would probably require hiring more staff