Say it with me...

[TesChique]

School. Is. Not. There. To. Be. Free. Childcare.

All this talk of bringing the school summer holidays down to four weeks is boiling me as not one argument is child education centred. Instead its all focussed on making parents lives easier

It is six weeks for more complex reasons than "oh its from when we had farms and we dont have farms now lol oh also itd help me"

Learning doesn't just take place in school.

Plenty of uni students would love that kind of work and actually there are teachers who would do a couple of weeks for sure. How arrogant to assume that there are suitable summer camps in all areas. Plus, I'm a teacher so don't need childcare..not sure why you were so rude to me.

Thing is, school obviously IS childcare. Who else is responsible for the child during school hours?

Given that children are required to be in school those hours, which do not correspond with regular working hours, then thought needs to put into making up the gap at a societal level.

Other European countries manage this much better. We need to watch and learn.

It’s not school that is the problem. It’s both parents having to work, the breakdown of the family and extended family relationships (GPs still working, moving away from family to get decent work) and basic shite services and support in this country that rakes in taxes and syphons it off to everything but its own society.

It's just a building. All of this can be managed. Just approach this with a solution focused mind set rather than looking for ways to shut it down.

Like it or not, that's where we are.

With cost of living, cost of housing, cost of retirement planning - two working parents will be necessary for many families to survive financially.

We aren't going to change that overnight. We can support working parents better, like other European countries do.

Why would we be having the conversation about women in the workplace?
Just because one parent would be able to stay at home full or part time doesn't mean it should be the woman.
By assuming that child care is ‘woman’s work’ we are letting men off the hook and doing a great disservice to our children in the process.
The choice is not between being looked after by a mother, or paid childcare. Fathers can stay at home to parent too and we should be normalising this.

There are other sorts of learning gained by having a break from school. Learning loss is not significant over a 6 week period. Private schools have good outcomes on 8 to 10 week summer holidays. Some parts of the US have 12 weeks. Kids go on summer camps and gain all sorts of extracurricular activities there.

You're right, but it's sad that society, especially the parents see children as the first option to be the collateral damage

@MightyDandelionEsq could I just correct a common misunderstanding regarding INSET days. Pupils did not lose any time in school as a result of them, because when they were introduced in the late 1980s teachers lost a week's holiday to facilitate them. INSET days don't create an additional burden for parents, because your children would have been on holiday anyway.

Oooh I have mixed views. Things have changed a lot in society - where once most mums stayed at home or had low paying part time jobs that fit in with the childcare, the norm is now for both parents to work. This is primarily because they now need to work (and also because our expectations have changed? Bigger topic not for here!)

So school does offer childcare - and any government needs to consider the bigger picture and can’t see one part of the system ie education in a silo.

We are a family with two working parents - both in full time senior positions. Childcare is easier now as the dc are older - and also because as a result of the pandemic we are both able to wfh some days per week. WFH with older tween/teens is manageable. But I remember the juggle of having wee ones and it was hard. We used a childminder some days and family on other days but it wasn’t easy. And the guilt was very much there for me.

But actually I think my kids benefit from the big break. Especially as they get older and school becomes full on with studying and exams.

So even as a working mum I am in favour for keeping it as it is tbh.

Unfortunately the reality is that many (many!) British men do not parent equally, or anywhere near. It starts with just two weeks off on paternity leave and the mother doing everything on maternity leave because 'he's working', and continues throughout the children's lives. She goes part time, he continues to work full time. She deals with all the nursery/school stuff because 'it's easier if one person is in charge of it', and he works full time and doesn't think about the kid stuff. I see this over and over again in my friends - all educated, professional women with men I used to think were decent human beings.

Well, I wouldn’t choose to be a nurse, because I think they are underpaid and overworked. I really appreciate what nurses do and think they need better pay/conditions. My friend became ill doing nightshift when nursing. Another friend of mine thinks the four days on/four days off pattern is a good benefit, but I wouldn’t enjoy that.

As much as I love teaching, it is a job and it’s only going to be my job if it suits me. If there were a solution offered that seemed reasonable, I’d consider it, but most suggestions don’t sound like they’d make up for losing six week summers. I’m qualified in a different field that has far less holidays, but much better pay, I can sit at a desk, I could go to the dentist, I wouldn’t have to take any work home.

It doesn’t take place at home for many children from deprived families

I’m in an area where we have a slightly shorter summer break (5 weeks, usually 5.5 with inset days) and we all get an extra week off at the Whit holidays instead. We love it here - nice ‘cheap’ holiday week for us to get away! And the 5 weeks still feels like a good break.

So what? That's obviously not a good thing, but it applies to a minority

It really isn’t. It is education for children which parents use as childcare (most of the time - excluding homeschoolers).
Any decisions made around schools should be made on the basis of what best serves the children, NOT their parents.

But it is also childcare. Because who else is responsible for children's care when they're at school? We don't do ourselves any favours trying to deny that, it's just fact.

I agree with everything that you say, except that taxes ‘siphon off’ money.
No no no. No.
The wealthy are ‘siphoning’ off the money by paying stock dividends to themselves rather than raising pay for employees. They do it through tax avoidance. Buying up housing and charging exorbitant rent. Buying up public services and gutting them for profit (see Thames water).
It feels like taxes are being taken and nothing good comes of it. This isn’t because taxes are used improperly (on the whole, although I have big issues with HS2…), it’s because of the massive siphoning off of money that is happening elsewhere in the system that is actively damaging the fabric of our society.

Sorry that is totally tangential, but I couldn't let it slide.

And do they in reality? They don’t. It’s the mother that does. And that may not be right but it’s what happens.

Well the evidence doesn't support this. The whole point is that children from private schools are likely to have enrichment activities in the holidays, like museums, libraries etc. Children from educationally deprived families won't.

Many deprived families care about their children’s education and many middle class teens think they are fucking roadmen

Yes that is reality right now, but I thought we were discussing how things can be improved and what to do about it, rather than just complaining about the way things are?

No, we don’t do ourselves any favours by thinking of it as childcare, because then you get into ridiculous conversations about why school isn’t on for 48 weeks a year to support working parents.
School isn’t for educating children, NOT giving parents a failsafe childcare supply.

It isn’t best for children to have very long breaks from school IMO. I actually don’t think 6 weeks is that problematic, but I think 4 would be fine and still give childen the sense that they’d had a break. The holidays in Ireland are much longer.