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.

Haha, obviously on the same page!

How will this work with exam dates for y11 and y13? Or mocks etc. Will exams be later? Will results be later? What does that mean for sixth form entry offers, for university offers?

To avoid a repeat of last summer's university admissions chaos, the government really need to change the admissions procedure until after results are issued.

It is also currently utterly pointless to be issuing predicted grades to y12 students who have had 1 term in person with their teachers. There are going to be so many students predicted unnecessarily low grades because they had 1 term of face-to-face teaching after 6 months without school.

Likewise this year's y13 are going to get offers based on predicted grades without a proper exams process, without mocks, without end-of-year12 exams.

I'm not sure where you live, but here its practically August before the holiday start, so the nights are practically drawing in.

@StarCat2020, and your theory is....?

How about some funding for some targeted support for pupils who need it, either through not being able to access home learning for whatever reason, or who were struggling before hand and still struggling now?

I know my DD can learn more sometimes in a 15min small group of other pupils needing help, than an hour in her class of 30+. That's what she's missing right now.

I think it makes sense to have a shorter 4 week summer holiday with a 2 week October half term and 3 week Christmas holiday - even without covid!

It won’t happen-it’s just a catchy sounding headline.

The government won’t pay staff any extra for this, so it’s a non-starter.

It won’t happen

JUST CHANGE THE GOALPOSTS. I am so, so, so fucking sick of the handwringing over kids falling behind an imaginary target set by a government and prone to change, depending on what agenda each government is currently pushing.

Besides, we all know that unless you have an O'Level and an A'level from before 1990, your grades mean fuck all anyway.

@Gobbolino7825 I'd be happy with that but would have to be implemented from the start of a school year ie September so not from this summer.

BareGrylls Thank you for offering to work it so teachers can have a rest.

My DC’s private school has extended the summer term by two weeks so they now break up at the middle of July instead of the beginning of July.

The teachers I know are absolutely exhausted now.
It’d make sense to cut short the Easter term and add that onto the beginning of the summer term. Especially for secondary schools who are unlikely to go back on March 8.

Who is going to run it?
I am a TA and in every day supervising the vulnerable and key worker children, just like I have been throughout all of the COVID year. It's really stressful and hard work. I feel unsafe.
No way in the world am I working over the holidays.

I’m a teacher - I have booked to take my own 2 kids away then. They have had little of my time this term anyway while I am working pretty much continuously! No way!!

Why would there be an extension to term at the end of July, when term finishes at the end of June?

flowersarebeautiful the average is 22% of kids in school .
In secondary school only 5% are in currently

If the government want to recruit and pay people to staff schools over the summer then that will be great.
If the parents want their children to continue with their lessons over the summer full time then that will be great.

however in the real world, no one will want to stump up the cash for this. The people who will be willing to do this need to be trained and need to be managed.

In the real world, children won't want to spend the summer working in school and the vast majority of parents won't want it either. The only parents who want this will be those who would want to use it for a bit of childcare and will no doubt say that they would like their kids to attend two days a week and they won't be there next Thurs as they are going out for the day...

It is baloney and will not happen.

@DumplingsAndStew

Why would there be an extension to term at the end of July, when term finishes at the end of June?

Not in state schools in England.

@Appuskidu

Ah, I forgot this was Mumsnet.eng - where all other nations must announce themselves, but England is the default centre of the world.

How about some funding for some targeted support for pupils who need it, either through not being able to access home learning for whatever reason, or who were struggling before hand and still struggling now?

I know my DD can learn more sometimes in a 15min small group of other pupils needing help, than an hour in her class of 30+. That's what she's missing right now.

This ^
If the Government is willing to put any money into the Education of our children and young people, the best way to do this is to give schools the funding to employ targeted support. Be that supply teachers, additional TAs, or Graduates they can direct to support small groups of learners over the coming year.
Like programmes such as Reading Recovery, but obviously across more subject areas.
It can be linked to areas of deprivation or other data to get the most support into areas where it is most needed. But this is going to be over a whole year. Nothing can be achieved in two weeks of Summer holiday, or by adding an hour on to the ends of the days.

@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!

Absolutely agree.

[quote DumplingsAndStew]@Appuskidu

Ah, I forgot this was Mumsnet.eng - where all other nations must announce themselves, but England is the default centre of the world.[/quote]
Well, in fairness, the media reports on this are saying that this applies to schools in England, hence the thread.

Well, mine won’t be doing 2 weeks extra, we were due to fly to Spain on 29/7 last summer and i rolled it forwards. A couple of weeks ago, I booked 2 weeks in Devon at the same time. The Devon trip can be cancelled if we can go to Spain.

I will not cancel because the govt choose to amend term dates after I have booked.

I’m properly teaching my classes online. Not sure why I’m bothering when MN and the media keep saying children are missing out on their education and we need longer days and shorter holidays. Maybe I should just stop bothering because I am not doing all this online stuff and then doing an extra chunk of work on top of it for free.

That would be an enormous waste of money if applied across the board. Many children aren't behind. Far better to target resources at those who really need it and not waste it on those who don't.