Extending school term at end of July

[NeverForgetYourDreams]

That's not going to work. Another ridiculous idea. What about all those people that moved their cancelled holidays for 2020 by a year. Summer holidays may go ahead if vaccine roll out happens and who is going to cancel and lose their money - I'm not. Will be lots of absent children.

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

I do not see any other public sector worker on here complaining.

Now, let me see...

NHS staff - furious in the media, here is a second rate place to complain, they are perfectly right and everyone clapped them
Social workers - at home waiting to be vaccinated
School linked staff like SALTS and EPs - at home waiting to be vaccinated
Officers in local councils - at home, offices often closed completely
Librarians - libraries closed (I can't believe they locked us out!)
MPs - at home, charging us all for their privilege
Central government - at home, or in work being paid big bonuses to be there, or being told that they only need to work 50% if they have kids at home

No one else seems to have much to complain about really.

Can I add the DfE who got paid an extra £1000 bonus to work over Christmas yet seem to have done fuck all?

As a teacher I have been screamed at by a parent (who was shortly afterwards removed from the building) that I had to do what he said because he ‘paid my wages’.

I'm aware of someone who did this. Said that the teachers were all awful and were failing to teacher her son properly.

Her son was a little shithead who was lazy with it. We were glad when he fucked off out of social circle.

Biggest irony. She was a teacher herself. Awful woman.

*Nothing like it will ever happen, because the government don’t intend to fund anything properly and they know the unions will (quite rightly) oppose such changes to staff contracts, so will tell the press to blame the unions/teachers.

‘Oh look, we tried to do a wonderful big catch up (without spending a single penny doing so) but the meanie unions stopped us and the lazy teachers don’t like children.’*

The Daily Mail are already making it up as they go along reporting that unions are opposed to the idea. Really? I haven't heard anything at all from my union as yet. It would be great if they had to name their non-existent source at 'the union'.

I can't believe this thread is still going - the term won't be extended

@DBML

It’s a complete cop-out.

Secondary won’t want to come in.
Year’s 11 and 13 will be gone.
Yr 12 will have done their learning for the year.
Year 10 are unlikely to come in (certainly not in large numbers).
Year 8 and 9 may come in in smallish numbers and will for the most part resent it.
Year 7 might come in in slightly larger numbers, but still won’t be a full cohort, especially if holidays can go ahead.

It will be an absolute waste of time.

The new years 10, 11, 12 and 13 will all lose out on two weeks of revision and coursework next winter, so they can sit at home, locked in their houses doing nothing.

It is just to placate people calling for action. And the pointless burden will be carried by students and staff.

What will they be doing in those two weeks? I’m a teacher and I have no idea. Killing time probably, waiting for the holiday to start. We’ll all be too knackered to care.

Anyone who thinks this is good for children’s well-being, a good use of funds, or that it would make any difference to learning needs their head read.

In term of primary school yr 6 usually finish actual curriculum by about Easter - after that its revision for SATs and prep for transfer to high school. So losing a term certainly isn't a disaster anyway.

The very youngest kids are going to get nothing from longer days or two extra weeks. Its pointless. They need to just see other kids.

The kids in years 3 and 4 have time to catch up anyway and would benefit far more from better teacher t/a ratios.

The only kids it would make any benefit to are probably yr 5. And even then its arguable. It'd be better to simply axe next years SATs....

@ChloeDecker My DC’s have live lessons from 8.45am to 3.45pm every day.

[quote BunsyGirl]@ChloeDecker My DC’s have live lessons from 8.45am to 3.45pm every day.[/quote]
That’s nice. Exactly what I and my colleagues are currently doing for our pupils too (in a state school)
Hope all is going well.

Just read one of the articles about this.

Am I missing something because I'm overtired, but isn't the plan to add two weeks to the end of this summer and then take it away from next winter?

Even supposing it was a good idea to extend the summer, how does this actually catch anyone up at all? Surely all it does is steal two weeks away from the students starting reception next year?

This is from Sky News:

According to The Sunday Times, one idea is for schools in England to stay open for two weeks longer in the summer, when doors and windows can be left open to reduce the risk of virus transmission.

The holidays at autumn half-term and Christmas would subsequently be extended by a week each, the newspaper said.

It doesn't work. It'll also cause contractual issues since teaching staff who are leaving at the end of the academic year will rightly point out that you can't add 10 days to the 195 they're contracted to work because they won't get it it back.
I especially like the "when doors and windows can be left open line" - strangely, our doors and windows were all open in the autumn term. They don't only work in nice weather.

I'm just getting sick of bbc pushing and pushing ministers for definite answers. Half watching this morning and the gov minister was v non committal. But he did say he didn't expect schools back before Easter. Think that slipped out. Wasn't jumped on either.

Boris has apparently said yesterday that he “isn’t ruling it out”.

If the government want it to happen contracts can be sorted quite easily, employment law often doesn’t offer the protection some people seem to think it does.

To answer @Nellodee and others maybe the government are thinking that summer means less cases and spread so more likely all dc are in whereas in autumn and the eleventybillionth wave dc will be isolating more anyway due to bubbles bursting, because of more cases and spread, so just swap the planned holidays around to avoid this.

Not saying that I agree it’s a good idea though as overall probably causes more problems than it might solve, but anyway!!

So the government are basically saying that they still expect to have isolations in school by next December, despite the vaccination schedule? Even though every adult in the country should have had a jab by then? Isn’t that really the big story here, then?

@Nellodee

So the government are basically saying that they still expect to have isolations in school by next December, despite the vaccination schedule? Even though every adult in the country should have had a jab by then? Isn’t that really the big story here, then?

I guess they can’t rule it out, but that is hardly news, just part of the monumental covid drip feed!

Also, and I feel a little like Columbo here, one last thing.

If the reason 2 weeks in summer is better than 2 weeks in winter is because we can have windows open and teach outside, then what about the remaining 11 weeks of the winter term?

Should we still have windows open then? In which case, we're disrupting the whole school year so that kids won't be cold for 2 weeks, but will be cold for the other 11?

Or should we have windows closed? What will be the adverse effects of that? And again, what will be so bad about those effects that it's worth disrupting the whole school year to not have them for 2 weeks, but for them still to be there for the other 11?

This seems like a really bad idea, with no real benefits...

UNLESS...

The ENTIRE reason for this suggestion is to make teachers and their unions look bad by coming up with a long list of very sensible objections. This is literally the only thing that this suggestion could possibly succeed at.

@Nellodee

So the government are basically saying that they still expect to have isolations in school by next December, despite the vaccination schedule? Even though every adult in the country should have had a jab by then? Isn’t that really the big story here, then?

Well if we aren't vaccinating children what else are you expecting?

There has been a few bloody awful stories in the press this week about kids with long covid and how its been really over looked.

To get full community protection from covid we need to vaccinate children. If we don't plan on doing this, we have little alternative but to continue isolations...

Who wants to run a covid vaccination trial in kids? Hands up who would volunteer their child.

And this has been said for a while now, and has been stressed given the info that the vaccines may not offer as much protection against new variants.

Puts hand up.
Healthy 14&16 year olds would love to be vaccinated and would happily sign them up to any trial. Physiologically they are adults and are likely to have very good immune responses.

Surely it makes so much more sense to extend the school day, this has been a subject of discussion for ages as it makes it difficult to work, especially for single parents. Extending by an hour , at least at secondary and upper primary, seems a no brainer .

I also heard the minister say schools not back before Easter and thought I must have misheard as it wasn't picked up on.

Extending by an hour , at least at secondary and upper primary, seems a no brainer.
Well, it depends on the reasons behind it. It needs to be for the benefit of the students themselves, not a solution to childcare for working parents.

But you can keep your kids in school after 3- mine are in after school cubs until about 6. You just have to pay for it. Kids' brains cannot cope with being taught that long. I think attention span is their age+1 or something. As an adult, being taught new things all day is different to doing a job all day.

@tootyfruitypickle

I also heard the minister say schools not back before Easter and thought I must have misheard as it wasn't picked up on.

You didn't mishear, it has been confirmed that the minister 'misspoke'.

Ffs they're so fucking useless.