Why can't they change the school term?

[onedayinthefuture]

No one is willing to make a case for a pretty obvious solution. Schools close, bring down infections significantly and get the vaccinations ramped up. The winter was always going to be bad, keep the schools closed throughout January and February. That's 7 weeks that then needs to be made up later in the year. There are MORE than enough weeks in the spring and summer to do this. Cancel exams, the current cohort have had too much disruption this year and last but ensure a fair and proper accountability for exam grades awarded by teachers / exam boards.

I work in a school and don't want to lose my summer holidays but surely this makes sense? Have the kids in school in the warmer months where the virus will be less of a threat. No teachers will need to teach throughout this shutdown. ALL learning will be resumed in the classroom. The online provision causes even more of a gap between rich and poor.

Teachers working to supervise key worker children to be paid extra. Working parents (especially mothers are stuffed I admit, but aren't we anyway).

Socialisation I would argue is more important than education (which can be made up) that's the main issue for kids of all ages. That's my sticking point but in the main most kids are with loving families.

Can anyone tell me what I am missing?

Yep!

From this pandemic we’ve learnt that society can’t function properly without schools/nurseries/child minders.

or delivery drivers

@Goodbye2020Hello2021 he gets paid a lot more as a teacher! Only slightly more when he was newly qualified, but now double what he was earning in industry. He definitely gets more holidays now!

herethereandeverywhere

You’ve done the job yourself have you?
Did you have to give it up?

@herethereandeverywhere

Teaching doesn't attract robust individuals. It attracts people who need 13 weeks holiday a year. People who think a 12 hour day (doing parents evening) is something so exhaustingly remarkable it requires a social media post.

All very well meaning and mostly good at what they do but seldom compatible with enduring sustained hard work and stressful challenges. Compare a working year of a Dr/nurse with a head teacher/teacher.

Someone's not having a good 2021! Did you lose your job already? Can I suggest retraining? Teaching is a great job and I love it.

@HancocksSexTears, what inflexibility? It’s less than a week until the start of term. Saying this cannot happen is not inflexible, it’s realism.
Either we admit that primary schools are just childcare to allow us non teachers to go to work or we collectively say that we want good quality teachers who aren’t stressed out of their minds. I don’t have a problem with PRP if it is indeed linked to teaching performance but I don’t believe that exam results tear on year are necessarily indicative of that. How can we say to teachers that last year’s results were x so next years much be x+1? It’s like telling an A&E dr they saved a given amount of people this year so they must save an extra 5 next year. These sorts of targets don’t work when your job is dealing with real people.

Just to be clear again, I am not a teacher.

If the online/at home provision is decent this time, then the vast majority of students won't need additional teaching time over the summer. For those DCs struggling to get access to device or the internet, there maybe is a case to have some provision- which would need additional and therefore paid for teaching resources- over the summer holidays.

Someone on a thread a while back had suggested longer teaching days in the summer term and I think that's a more feasible idea - assuming of course that schools were fully shut earlier in the year and teachers weren't doing online teaching or looking after key worker DCs.

Exams are trickier and maybe just need to do what Scotland has done and say it's course work assessments this year.

We can't just say oh it's one summer. By the time summer rolls round this will be the second summer impacted. Make holidays two weeks only and demand vastly outstrips supply so very few will get to go anywhere. Also many people have holidays carried forward from 2020 . I think we just have to mop up as best we can and hope that things will get better in a few weeks when vaccines start reducing hospitalisations and deaths.

@herethereandeverywhere, actually I can now understand a 12h day in teaching is more exhausting. I never understood before when friends and family would say this. But it’s the emotional exhaustion. It’s the way SAHPs feel more exhausted by lunchtime that the parents who left for work at 7am. It’s draining. I totally understand that now having spent a few years at home.

Bunsy
That’s good (and I mean that genuinely!)

It depends on what you compare it to.
I wouldn’t swop my job for many many other careers.

However, my cushy 9-5 office job (upthread) was a breeze. It was boring as hell though. Hour by hour I was paid more but it was soul destroying.

Plus I’m thankful I don’t need to talk all day in my job. Having to talk to and be talked at, not to mention touched constantly all day must be so draining.

I'm not a teacher. I work in pharmaceutical logistics.

The thing about this idea is even if it were possible it would never happen. Because the gov are running on last minute decisions right now. Logistical planning of school year change of plans is just so unlikely.

I would be happy to change the year but I feel for the exam years.

Plus, I’ve just been reading more on this South African strain that affect the young far more. If that makes it’s way over here by late spring/early summer then no parent will want to be sending their children to school.

I have a DD in Y11. They need to either cancel exams now or go ahead absolutely whatever happens. They cannot decide to cancel at the last minute. No way.

@herethereandeverywhere

Salty maybe reaching isn't for you. It's ok to admit you can't cope with the demands and do something else. It's not for everyone 🤷🏼‍♀️

It was before this. I'm not free to leave without another job though, am I? The reason it's no longer the job for me is because I can't cope with the constant slating from people who haven't got a clue how risky our classrooms are.

I know you’re not a teacher. I was saying why I understand that exhaustion felt by teachers.

Plus, I’ve just been reading more on this South African strain that affect the young far more. If that makes it’s way over here by late spring/early summer then no parent will want to be sending their children to school.

It's already here, but yes, some of them will. Many parents arrange things contrary to their children's best interests in lots of other ways, don't they. I don't imagine this will be any different.

It’s the way SAHPs feel more exhausted by lunchtime that the parents who left for work at 7am. It’s draining. I totally understand that now having spent a few years at home.

This.

And by the way @herethereandeverywhere, at some point your DCs will inevitably be taught by people like me, who are just going through the motions (and achieving performance targets nonetheless). I suggest you stop disparaging the profession if you want them taught by enthusiastic teachers.

@herethereandeverywhere

I'm not a teacher. I work in pharmaceutical logistics.

Pharmaceutical logistics isn't exactly tough and stressful either, is it 🍿