To think a 3:20 finish is absurd?

[Itsr]

It’s mostly mums at the school gates. Because the 3:20 finish worked well at a time when most women stayed at home.

now most women work, which means two parents working, why does school finish ar 3:20?! Yes I know there are after school classes etc but some don’t go on for too long and they also cost.

what actually is the reason why the school day isn’t aligned with a work day (like it is with most private schools!)

Exactly. And to force kids to stay at school for 9 hours just so those that work don’t have to pay for clubs/care is so wrong.

True. Plus much shorter terms too.

For a start private schools don't have a full 8-6 day. They have extra curricular activities which they charge MONEY for.
They have
smaller pupil-teacher ratio
smaller class sizes (less than 15)
Less children on CIN/CP plans so less social services reports/ meetings
Paid a much higher wage
Specialist teachers for each subject so teachers are not stretched

Have you not read pp? Private schools finish at the same time but with far more extra curricular options - which you still have to pay extra for. And in fact private schools have longer holidays so you’d have to find more childcare.

Private school teachers get more PPA and there are more activities during the day. Plus they have staff employed to monitor students during their unstructured learning time. Please look into both education establishments before you comment. At the minute you're uneducated so cannot comment on this situation.

School days were often longer in the 70s and 80s because lunchtime breaks were longer. My school had 75 mins for lunch. I teach in an urban secondary school now where we have a 30 min lunch break, mainly because pupils cannot handle social time without behaviour descending into chaos. Hence we finish our school day earlier.

Because the entire school calendar is based on agriculture, hence long summer hols for harvest. The day length made sure kids were back to do the afternoon jobs.

I've lived in France and Germany. In France the primary school finished at 5pm (except Wednesdays) and the day was sooo long. In Germany they finished at 1pm. So 3.20 to me seems ideal.

Schools are there to provide education. They are not a there to provide a childcare service to enable you to attend work.

Uh huh.

Merry Christmas.

I think a lot of people don't appreciate this, which is why they claim teachers get six weeks holiday in the summer. My late mother used to do teaching for A-level age students and she did a lot of preparation work between teaching days. I used to help type up and print lesson-related documents/notes.

Only the self entitled would say you are being reasonable.

This

Because teachers are contracted for 1265 hours a year. This is 39 weeks or 195 days. If you wanted to extend the day for another hour and a half that would be another 292 hours a year they would need paying for. And then when would they actually get Tim to do their marking and prep - much of which is done unpaid at home??

Because it is not a childcare service. The children struggle to concentrate in the last lesson of the day as it is. There’s no way they could manage lessons until 5.30pm. Pay for the afterschool club or for a childminder.

They changed this in Germany though for exactly those reasons. Most schools go until 4 pm now and also cover part of the holiday.

One minute you say you are not asking for childcare the next your on about what works for working parents....so you want childcare....
Working parents have worked it for decades you pay.

Not in a UK state school then and not doing formal lessons .....basically your parents didn't do your child rearing so you want the same for everyone

But most can't....and holiday clubs are the same as school hours if run at school

Opinions are valid. Facts are a different thing. What’s Christmas to do with that? Have a good one though.

I go in an hour before school to prepare/set up for the day and stay 2 hours+ after to mark etc. I work at home in the evenings/weekends to plan lessons and complete assessments.
I understand why you would like the school day to be extended, but if it were then more teachers would leave. By the time I got home from work, my DD would be in bed. There would be extra planning to do for the extra lessons, so that is my weekend completely gone. My DH works nights, so I wouldn’t see him either.
State school hours and holidays have always been the same, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone when they have children.

The issue isn't school times, it's a complete inflexibility in the majority of work hours, for both mums and dads. School is a legal requirement, we can't expect children to be there to match with all parents working hours, and so it should be a legal requirement to allow flexibility to drop off and collect children.

We are lucky in that my job is WFH mostly and I have the flexibility to set my own diary, so when DD is at school I can work around that. DH has a job where he needs to be on site, but if for any reason I couldn't get away for pick up, they would have no issue with him doing it.

Yes, we may need to think about whether after school we need additional support so we can finish up work, but that's not the point I'm making. The point is we can do it. But even 5 years ago we'd have struggled in lower positions/previous companies. We deliberately went for the positions we're in to make sure we have the lifestyle we want, but not everyone is able to do that.

Working culture needs to change.

My children's high school finishes at 2-40..

I went to a private school in the 70s/ 80s. Standard closing bell was at about 15:20. Occasionally there were sports or other activities but the majority of the time you went home.

From age 7 I was often going home alone, which took over an hour, including a walk of about 1 mile, a ferry and a bus. Travelling from the sports grounds was even longer. The school hours haven’t changed, the attitude towards letting children be unsupervised has.

Private schools finish at roughly the same time as state schools, if they are there before and after school, are breakfast and after school clubs. Kids are not in school learning till 6pm in private schools. And private schools if they do have longer days they'll also have much longer Holidays. Kids are in school to learn.