I'm counting down the days to the end of term!

[Satanzlilhelpa]

Counting the days off. We've literally made a calendar with days left. It's that bad. Anyone else?

I'm in Scotland. Our school term finishes at the end of next week. You can tell all the kids are just fatigued now. I don't think DD could cope with another 4 weeks - we are all looking forward to the break.

This is so interesting- I had no idea it was so different. I’m in Wales and we have a different curriculum to England but the same set up with primary and secondary school and GCSEs (although ours are still graded with letters). Our primary schools are also 8 years (nursery to year 6 so age 3-11). I didn’t know Ireland was so different. Transitional year sounds interesting. Your set up sounds better than ours from what you’ve said.

@BCBird I hear you.

@paulhollywoodshairgel lol at your name. i'm sorry it's going to be expensive and tricky xx

@Chocolateorange22 this too shall pass

Roll on the end of term

I love Ireland. Do you have to pay for your own schoolbooks
@RocketPanda

Can’t wait! Leaving teaching for good 🥂🍾

I work in a Middle School in America (equivalent of your Y7 - Y9). Our last day was Friday 14 June and I was counting down for many weeks LOL.
The kids get 10 weeks off. I have 3 weeks off then I will be working Special Ed Summer School for 4 weeks. Then 3 more weeks off.
New school year will start 27 Aug.

That sounds a nightmare! My DD's nursery ran holiday club, luckily. Surprising more don't.

I'm counting down the days...sick of banging my head against a brick wall asking to talk to someone about my DD's SEN/EHCP. SENCo seems angry I applied for a needs assessment - but I tried for weeks to speak to her and she ignored me. Sick of giving my all to get my DD into school and engage with school...and it's all a bit one sided.

You're counting down the days til you have to stay at home as everywhere is so crowded!

DDs school has been 70% closed due to RAAC for the whole academic year. It's been appalling.

The kids have only been onsite since mid January and in portacabins for weeks... no sign of the government rebuilding the school any time soon.

We were promised 100% open by the end of the academic year... pah! They haven't even lined up a building contractor yet!

I can't wait for the school year to end so we can get away from the shit show. Pupils are demotivated, teachers are leaving in droves.

And yet still no mention about when the government plans to rebuild the 200+ RAAC riddled schools across the Uk. I guess the General Election is more important than our children's education.

My dc are y5 and Y7. Not counting down at all, neither of them are tired. Life isn’t that busy and they get a lot of downtime. I really enjoy this time of year when the days are long and we can go to the park after dinner.

I’m sure if I was a school teacher I’d be counting down, but I’m actually a university teacher and the summer is our busiest time as all the international students arrive for summer school!

Yes, always 6 week Summer but we get more breaks at other times.

The other thing is I get the impression (which may be wrong) that school is much more formal at a younger age in the US. Young children getting grades and having to study for tests and do lots of homework and sitting at individual desks? Is any of that true?

You’re going to have to specify what age you’re talking about.

A lot of it depends on your School District. I work in a Middle School (ages 11 - 14) . When my youngest, who is now 21, was age 8 we moved. The school he had been in was not bad. Only homework he ever had was nightly reading. When he moved into his new school in Nov 2011 it was quite a shock for him. The amount of work they did, and level of teaching was much higher. He was not happy that year. The adjustment was hard, but after that he was okay with it. My grandson just finished kindergarten (age 5-6, so like your Y1 except we have no YR so its the 1st year in school) was very play based learning.

Oh, sorry - like 6-11 year olds.

Thank you, very interesting.

I definitely don't think my DD thought she was doing anything other than playing before Y3 (7 years old). And even in upper primary (until 11) there was a lot of play based activities, no formal homework until Y6 (10-11), no tests except the SATs. I remember my DD being fascinated by the grade thing at one point and was trying to get me to mark 'work' she did with a grade. Mind you they don't even give them grades in high school now - it's all changed since I was at school!

I can’t wait to get my babies out of that hell hole (I have no other choices where we live and I don’t have the money for private school. Every school in the area is oversubscribed by at least 20 pupils)
the systemic bulling coming at them from all sides ends.
shame they have to go back to that disgusting emotional well of blackness really

Nope, 6 weeks is too long. Parents have jobs and chores and (shock horror) lives too! 6 weeks of kids clinging to you is hell when you're just trying to keep the ship afloat.

Cut summer hols to 4 weeks, add a week to the beginning of the Christmas break and make the Spring half term 2 weeks.

School is for education not childcare

I know there have been changes in the thoughts of grading the younger kids where I work/live. But remember America is HUGE and each state has its own rules, and then each district in a state may do things differently as well, so I can only speak about where I am. I think they tend to not give grades until around 4th grade A, B, C D and F (your Y5). Before that the younger grades will get things like S for Satisfactory or N for Needs Improvement. As for tests I really dont know for the younger ages. I think they tend to do Spelling Tests and probably Math Tests. Now on top of that they do do what we call State Testing which all schools in our State have to do and its done by all grades (maybe not Kindergarten though). I work in a Middle School so the equivalent of your early High School years. Lots of tests, projects, homework at this level.

In my personal experience with my two kids…

Kindergarten (5-6) doesn’t have tests, and any “homework” is stuff like “bring in something from home that starts with the letter B.” Starting in first grade (6-7), kids might have short quizzes in school (think something like ten addition problems) and maybe a tiny bit of homework, but not necessarily graded homework. Second grade (7-8) steps it up a little, and third grade (8-9) moreso. By then it’s typical for them to have something like a weekly spelling test. I’d say they have at least a little homework on most school nights starting in fourth grade (9-10).

Sometimes the “homework” for little kids is stuff like their parents reading to them for twenty minutes a day - or, if they’re in maybe third grade, reading out loud to their parents for twenty minutes a day.

6 weeks isn't long enough.

You could come to America, we get 10 weeks

Agreed. But as the vast majority of adults need to work to put food on the table, there needs to be greater provision of holiday childcare to facilitate that. If holidays were extended, there would need to be far more childcare providers.

Teacher here. Counting the hours! This year has almost broken me. I'm worried I'll be ill over the holidays & have nothing left for my own kids.

Same for me. Not a teacher but haven’t had any annual leave since last October for various reasons so I’m exhausted. I’ll also have to work most of the summer holidays, bar 2 weeks.

We have a book rental scheme in our secondary school. Books in primary are now free but we previously had to pay for them.
It's €180 this year for locker and book rental. Then uniform is very specific, although the most expensive part is the school coat that's €60 but pretty indestructible and can be used for a few years. There will be a nuclear disaster and all that will be left of the earth is cockroaches and Irish children's school coats.