Schools should close early on a Friday

[Goolagoo]

I know this will be very mixed opinion - especially for working parents .

But , I’m a teacher . Over the years I have seen so much in schools regarding PPA time and really unfair practices . I have seen , and experienced , teachers having PPA taken away due to staffing issues . I once saw a teacher have a day of PPA ( a whole day because she wasn’t having it the week after due to staffing issues so would need to plan 2 weeks work in this PPA session ) taken away - it was a Friday too so she was supposed to be having that day to plan for lessons beginning on the Monday . It was taken away due to staffing issues and she was in tears - she had plans that weekend that she had to cancel so she could plan for the week ahead ( I didn’t work in that school , she’s a teacher friend ). I have also had PPA time taken away from me before and I also have never had a class that didn’t get upset at me not being in class and having a supply or a Ta cover . Usuall work that’s done during the cover whilst class teacher is out on PPA isn’t ‘important’ work - it’s a lot of filler work , or work that doesn’t go in books . A lot of children also get anxiety over their class teacher being out and children with SEN especially suffer with this .

I read about a school that decided to close at 1pm every Friday to allow teachers to all have their PPA time . They said that they made the time back with a slightly later finish time / slightly earlier start time and they found that behaviour improved massively. Fridays are usually the end of a long week and filled with behaviour issues and this reduced along with attendance improving . I know some schools around the area do Finish at 1/2 on a Friday and I wonder if this is the reason why .

It seems like it would really make sense !

Maybe even , as TAs don’t get PPA time as they don’t plan , they could offer a kind of after school club ( until normal pick up time ) where the TAs watched the children who’s parents couldn’t do an earlier pick up time .

At my current school I am normally on the premises 9-10 hours - you are right, this is a very short day, and the only reason I have stayed in teaching is this finding a school with this early finish. My previous school I was there 13-14 hours a day, and in the school were I taught before that, I frequently worked straight through the night- as in several times a week. Not on the premises, though, true! I would only have been on the premises around 10-11 hours a day.

I think you should apply to teaching - the education system is currently being propped up by a stream of temporary candidates who last a couple of years at best - but leave with sought after skills so it would be to your benefit.

you think we have an easy life and finish work early every day? Come and join us! PLEASE!! we need more live bodies willing to stand up in front of a class, you obviously think you can do it, you will keep the system creaking along a tiny bit longer, and learn a lot!

Who finishes early? The pupils?

My kids schools does, 2.15 on Fridays.
I bloody love it, we roll into the park for a massive play and catch up.

I’m a teacher and I would hate to have PPA on a Friday, it is when I am at my most tired and drained in the week, so the lesson planning etc would not be at its best. Lastly if you have had PPA time taken away to cover lessons then you need to get your union involved as that’s not allowed unless you are under allocation of lessons. Next time the Ask- tell them to put it in writing in an email as evidence.

It's a different bunch of 30 children each time - they all have different needs, abilities, and personalities to the class the year before. Lessons/topics are tweaked and updated all the time.

@MumonabikeE5 Guessing you're not a working parent?

@Hellodarknessmyfriend I work a 0.8 contract. And thus don’t work Fridays .

Hi, teacher here, some lessons we reuse, but I can give you some reasons for having to plan the same lesson again. 1) the first time you did it, it was rubbish because you had so many other lessons to plan you had to do a bodge job of it. It takes a few years to get 5/6 lessons for every day for however many weeks of the year. If you’ve managed to produce perfect lessons in your first year for every day and week I bow down to you! 2) the lovely government likes to change schemes of work which means changing lessons. Eg I teach History- the GCSE curriculum completely changed in 2016, that’s two years worth of lessons I needed to replan again. 3) expectations from management/ ofsted seems to change every year!- a few years ago differentiation was the big thing- three separate resources for three separate abilities, now it’s all about teaching from the top, so every one does the same lesson (sort of) but with different access points. More change! 4) the more you learn as a teacher the more you realise that a lesson you taught in the past was actually rubbish and you want to improve it or maybe just make it less boring.,I’ve been teaching 12 years I still lesson plan every day to make new resources. If you were ever at school and given a video or textbook lesson - most likely that’s because the teacher hasn’t planned a solid lesson yet for that sub topic. It’s why websites like TES and twinkl ( lesson resource websites) are a god send for new and old teachers when you need to fill a gap which until you can make a great lesson. Imagine having to make 5/6 presentations a day for 30 odd weeks- impossible.

Our highschool finishes at 1230 on a Friday

@wellington77 You've written such an accurate account, thank you.

Mildly worse

needed to delete this message but mn’s would let me , so ignore!!

No problem 😊

What is PPA? What does it stand for? Why does everyone know this?

I would be so against this. The number of teaching hours children get has already reduced over the decades.

@Frangipanyoul8r PPA is Planning, Preparation and Assessment time. Often covered by support staff such as teaching assistants.

Coincidentally, I was missing this idea to myself as a parent the other day.

At our school, teachers get an afternoon off to plan and a TA teaches the class. Every week. All classes

I thought maybe all planning could be done Friday afternoon with a Friday afternoon club .. fetch your kids if you like. Many will!

Kids are burnt out so the wind down would help TAs coverings fun or art or drama or other lovely creative subjects or something would be better than them teaching another day as happens here

@Whatjemimadid All teachers on PPA at the same time (especially in large schools) wouldn't work.

I think the standard working week for all professions should be amended and Friday afternoons should officially become a part of the weekend.

Aah thank you!

Fair point. Thanks for explaining. Perhaps it could be a fortnightly or monthly thing so it's not all at once. Kids could look forward to their short week and some parents with flexible busses could plan to make the most of those Fridays. I used to work in a job that demanded long hours but gave me every third Friday off and I used to really maximise that time.

Ex supply teacher here. I worked in a school that did an early finish on a Friday.

Pros, for the school they only had to pay me a half day on the Friday.

Cons, everyone knew which kids were on free school meals as the canteen made up a packed lunch for them to take home. I don't know it the canteen staff were paid less for the Friday.

It's useful if you have Muslim and/or Jewish children as they can go to a mosque or get home before the start of Shabbos. If you are in an area with a large Muslim population then you will find mosques running classes for children on Friday afternoon.

I'm fairly sure McDonalds made more money that day.

I'm sure for some parents it wasn't ideal. Having attempted to teach a 3-5pm class on a Friday afternoon I much preferred the earlier finish.

It was an interesting school, breakfast was compulsory and free for staff and students. You didn't have to eat, but you did have to take your class to the canteen.

Water, tea and coffee were all free and available at all times but you couldn't take the hot drinks away from the canteen.

Just to add to the great explanation from @wellington77 Sometimes things change fast in the subject you arte teaching. One of mine was, Health and Social Care.

So there is often new legislation, guidelines or something happens and is in the news that is relevant to something you are teaching eg a few years ago there was a Panorama programme about abuse in care homes, the students are learning about safeguarding so something like that might be included last minute.

It can also depend on the cohort, I love teaching equality and diversity. In Birmingham I would often have a class where I was the only white person and most of the class were multilingual.

That's an absolute gift because we can start with making a spider diagram of the diversity in the class.

The same subject when I taught on the Welsh border the class was entirely white, all English speaking but had done welsh as a second language at school.

We ended up doing a spider diagram of 'equality and diversity for the zombie apocalypse'.

Our primary does this, it's great! My DC never have school Wednesday or Friday afternoons.

No, I completely disagree with this. I find the school day to be long enough already for primary school children. They won't learn anything extra in an extended day, they'll just be more tired.