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"

Then lets send kids down the mines and up chimneys during the school holidays. Two birds…

Honestly if the child forgets everything they've learned after a decent break then school is probably not the place for them! That I will agree on. When I was 7 my family took a year off for travel and it made no difference when I returned to school a year later.

Exactly what BS. Maybe UK kids are just dumber, similar to how so many are now starting school in nappies. I doubt these things are unrelated.

How is chucking a kid in “subsidised wraparound care” from 8-5 a relaxing or enjoyable summer break for them?! That’s not downtime! That is not the answer to this quandary.

The play camps that run from my school are a mix of indoor and outdoor activities, swimming, games, a movie sometimes. If they want to be quiet and read or craft or Lego they can. Noone is "chucking them in wraparound" so they can go to an adult only spa day. The idea that parents doing this are "disgusting" as another pp said is ridiculous. It's life.

Yeah, cause the working parents paying through the nose to keep their kids happy and safe while they earn to pay the bills wouldn't rather they didn't have to. 🙄

To be fair i have chucked my kids in wraparound so I could go on a spa day.

If its fun, safe and relaxing enough for me to go to work its fun, safe and relaxing enough for me to have fun.

I work term time only, and my children still had a week at camp for a few years.

Oh listen I am a working parent and I use holiday clubs etc. I’m certainly not criticising the fact that working parents need to use them, believe me. My kids hate holiday clubs but they need to go anyway because I don’t have other options.

What I’m getting at (very inarticulately) is the fact that there are teachers here going on about how the kids need their break - because it’s all about the kids, the kids are on their knees - and on the other hand there are people saying there should be some kind of subsidised childcare, on school premises etc.

My point is that that does not sound to me like a fun or healthy break for these kids who are apparently “on their knees” by the end of term. I do not believe this is the solution here. Whatever the solution is, I think it should allow kids some actual, proper down time at home with their parents.

Plus, it would probably be shite.

If education was based around what children need and are developmentally capable of rather than a governmental obsession with competing on a world stage, there would be less learning lost over the summer.

Part of the problem is that we are expecting children to do things in school that they wouldn't ever have the need to do in real life at their ages and so it doesn't stick.

A lot of what we are required to teach just isn't relevant to them, so they struggle and understanding is often transient. And they haven't got the basics in place to enable them to understand higher level stuff because the pace is too fast.

The studies look particularly at children living in poverty or deprivation. It's not BS.
Maybe England and Wales have more children living in poverty than other countries where the impact isn't seen.

I don’t understand.

A random Monday off outside of the scheduled holidays is still a day parents need to get childcare.

Correct, and you know about school holidays when you plan your children.

Yes..just as you would have needed a whole additional week than you do now in one go for childcare before the INSET days were brought in. The only difference is that it's odd days, but they are usually at the beginning of end of a holiday.

I'm not someone who wants a shorter summer holiday, things work fine for me as they are.

But I do think the "should have planned for this" narrative is a narrative based in privilege. I was able to plan for holidays, because I'm in a family with two parents in professional jobs, with family and friends who will support us. I have a good enough education to understand and navigate the systems to access childcare and any funding I'm entitled to.

I can see that not everyone is as lucky as I am, and that there's an argument to make changes in society to help out families who are struggling.

Schools are one part of a system in our society, children's education is best served by supporting families. Education isn't this separate thing. Schools are regularly a part of multi-disciplinary teams aiming to offer support.

@Stompythedinosaur but whilst you're aren't exactly wrong, do you not think we should have some minimal expectations of adults choosing to have children when other options are available that they will think about how to handle these things, do a bit research into what's out there, what others do, how much it costs? You see it on here, though less often now, people with an early pregnancy or thinking about a pregnancy and asking these questions and being told "awww Hun, it's a babeeeee, so cute, just do it". I get that circumstances can change, family breakdown, unforeseen job loss, health issues, family childcare not working out but people shouldn't be going into this blindly and then expecting the tax payer to just solve every issue.

I think it can be both! I think most people plan, I certainly did. But unexpected things could happen to anyone - death of a parent, unexpected job loss etc.

I also see that I was able to do that planning because I was educated and in a stable situation. People in crisis have their cognitive capacity reduced.

I just think that this isn't an issue that can entirely be written off with "people struggling should have planned better". I think most parents are doing the best they can, and we shouldn't ignore when people are literally struggling to feed their dc.

Thank you, @RhaenysRocks. It drives me crackers when parents ask why INSET days can't be in the holidays. That's because they already are!

Absolutely. Someone was cooing on another thread recently about how if you got pregnant by accident and weren't sure if you could afford the baby you should just go ahead anyway, because the baby was a blessing and you'd absolutely adore it once it arrived. There didn't seem to be any sense of needing to think if someone could actually afford children.

Well people who aren't in a stable situation AT THE TIME shouldn't be having kids and if you are not educated or sufficiently capable as to deal with normal adulting issues then no you shouldn't be having them either. Raising a child requires so much input beyond love and cuddles...if you have to deal with SEN you need a working knowledge of educational law to navigate the system and advocate for your child, you need to know how to communicate effectively, find out info, you need to know how yo foster good behaviour, habits, diet. If you are intellectually incapable of managing a household budget and navigating adult life, it is irresponsible to think you can effectively raise children. We are already seeing the results of a lack of this in young people now and governments tinker around the edges with breakfast clubs and asking schools to teach teeth brushing because they won't dare say the real problem is lack of personal responsibility.

I agree with that but it shouldn't become a problem for the education sector to solve.

Teachers' employment terms and conditions can't just change because sometimes people's plans fall through. Yes, childcare is a happy byproduct of children going to school but I'm not a babysitter and I have zero desire to be one. However much i love teaching.

There isn't enough money in the pot to pay teachers currently - many schools are making teachers redundant because they can't afford them (mine included). There certainly won't be enough money in the pot to pay for a longer school year and shorter holidays.

So, what, are we just expected to do it from the goodness of our hearts?

Rather than expecting schools to be the solution to yet another social problem, other employers/the rest of society could adapt to allow working parents appropriate time off. The government could have managed the economy so that house prices and living costs didn't escalate so ridiculously that both parents had no choice but to work would have been another. There could be more, varied and better holiday provision. Either way, a problem for parents shouldn't automatically be a problem for teachers just because we educate your children.

I would say I don't feed your children, brush their teeth or wash their school uniforms for them but, silly me, other teachers and I have done/do exactly those things.

Long holidays are the only perk/benefit of teaching to employees. Take those away and even more teachers will leave. The holidays aren't enough of a perk to keep many in the profession in the first place.

Learning doesn't just happen in a classroom, sat at a desk. Children still learn in the holidays, whoever is caring for them. If we want to nurture well-adjusted, healthy, physically and mentally fit youngsters, they need a decent school holiday at the beach, park, woods or swimming pool. Better, subsidised holiday provision is needed so children can learn skills that cannot be taught in the classroom.