@Macaroni46
The thing is you can't 'catch' children up by cramming them. Learning doesn't work like that! Children need time to process what they've learned and to assimilate. Just piling on more and more 'learning' will not achieve anything other than adversely affect their mental health. As a teacher social opportunities and playing together is what I want children to catch-up on. It is what I worry about them missing. All the social interaction.
I am also utterly sick of hearing all the angst in the media about children 'catching' up. Catching up with what exactly? Arbitrary adult conceived 'targets'!
As for working extra weeks in the summer. No. Just no!
Said so well. All these ideas ignore why the school day isn’t longer already and why children often repeat what they’ve learnt later. If days or the term were extended, it’s highly unlikely children would learn much more, especially those who most need it. It also discounts a lot of the effort they’ve made to learn. Yes, you could do an optional ‘summer school’ for those who’ve not been able to learn much at all outside of the classroom environment, but you’d have to find teachers with no summer commitments or outside lives they want to lead. I’m not keen on that, they’ve worked throughout the pandemic already, most of them putting in huge effort both on and offline with higher concerns around safeguarding children. They must be knackered! Also even in that idealistic summer school situation, you wouldn’t want too much uptake, as theoretically targeted teaching of very small groups would be actually helpful for those who haven’t managed to engage at all. Otherwise, it’s too broad.
Also, children tend to catch up naturally. You can often see that in children who’ve had to miss school for one reason or another. I’m not sure why the summer is being totally discounted as a learning experience in itself. Obviously, it’s not the case for all children, but for many it’s a chance to get out and learn about nature, sport, nurture friendships outside the classroom, visit historical sites, perhaps go on a summer camp etc. All those things teach children too. (Yes, I know there’s likely to be less of it this year, but hopefully outside activities will at the very least be able to be done.) None of the ideas the government leaks to the media have yet really targeted those who need them, but of course, the government don’t really care about that - they just shove a wilted half carrot at them for ‘lunch’ and blame parents/teachers/anyone else who might be available.