Extending the school day

[LemonSherbetFancies]

What are your thoughts on this?
Many are saying it is pointless and won't achieve much if an extra half hour or so is tagged onto the end of the day. Others have said that it should be based more on sports and free choice activities but my thinking is, isn't that what after school clubs are for?

*shorter!

We changed school for our DC mid Covid (long story, had not choice and wasn't what we had planned), going from a state to a prep. The prep school is 45 mins longer than the state and my word, they fit so much in to each school day compared to the State. So I would support a slightly longer school day if it meant it was actually teaching and not just 'filling' time.

@GameSetMatch

My children finish at 3.00 I’ve never know school to finish so early, the local high school finishes at 2.45, the extra half hour would do no harm. I’m easy either way but schools do finish ridiculously early these days.

But those schools have to provide a certain number of hours of education each day so the schools may start earlier to accommodate the early finish or there will be shorter breaks during the day. Either way, this idea is awful and unnecessary and pointless, and obviously suggested by someone who has never worked in a school/with children, and has no understanding of how children learn.

My son is 8 and starts at 8 and finishes at 4 which changes to 4:30 next year and then all but one day he has a club after school too (his choice). He manages just fine so I am sure the kids will cope with an extra half an hour and it is important for them to catch up, I just hope the teachers are paid for it.

Those of you who are saying you wouldn't comply, is it optional?

As a teacher, by about 2.45, children tend to be less engaged and tired. Adding half an hour on to the bed of the day wouldn’t result in much extra learning unless they had an afternoon break which would almost make the extra half hour pointless.
Many teachers already work a 50+ hour week. I don’t want to add an extra 2.5 hours to that plus the extra planning and marking time it would require. Even if it was paid, I would choose work-life balance and a life outside of the classroom.

My thought is that it won't happen, and is just being floated as an idea either because Michael Gove likes it, or because then the teaching unions can be blamed for it not happening and then any poorer educational outcomes later on.

Same as for the five term idea which would harm large parts of the UK tourism sector, given only four weeks summer holiday.

It's based on spurious and selective evidence.
schoolsweek.co.uk/warning-over-dfe-evidence-backing-extra-school-time/

For those saying their DCs have a longer school day already, we could play the compare the length of lunchbreak game!

I used to help with an after school club. Solve of the younger ones were clearly utterly exhausted after the standard school day. Maybe for secondary school pupils, but certainly not for primary.

Waste of time for my child who has not dropped behind plus would miss out on their current after school activities that are beneficial.

As ever - this is an idea intended to appeal to pensioners voting Tory, it has absolutely sod all to do with helping kids.

Due to covid, our primary has shortened their day by 20 minutes and our secondary has shortened by 45 minutes for dd and 25 minutes for ds.
I'd just be happy if we returned to normal pre covid timings. Primary has cut out their afternoon break time to finish early. I feel that play time is a crucial time to socialise freely with peers after being isolated for best part of a year.

I can see it working for secondary age pupils, but not primary because of the exhaustion factor. But before it can be implemented the DfE will have to renegotiate teachers' contracts and even with the promise of a pay rise I can't see the unions agreeing their members should be forced to work even longer days. Yes, it may be "only" 30 mins in class, but that will mean more lesson prep and more marking, so that 30 mins could end up being more like 1-1.5 hours extra a day, if not more.

They’d be better off spending the money on hiring more teaching assistants so focus can be given to children that need to catch up during the existing school day

I would not comply with this. Its stupid.

It's really rubbish for after school activity providers, many of whom have been closed a lot this past 18 months. I run a dance school with classes running 4pm until 8.30pm each day, and children in allocated class slots. Even if I combined some groups and used less slots and started later to accommodate, if the school day is longer children would not want to then attend a dance class afterwards. We already run classes throughout the day on a saturday and cannot accommodate every student age group and level, and my customers have made it clear that they do not want Sunday sessions,
and if I am honest I dont want to work on a sunday. The same will apply to most out of school activities if this goes ahead. This is my business and full time job, not a hobby for me, the lock downs have already seen nearly 50% of my students quit from losing interest and I am having to rebuild up my customer base again. I just feel like it will be the final nail in the coffin for me if it does go ahead.

Our school day (secondary) wasn't shortened but it was made earlier for Covid related reasons:

Originally, children would come into the school from 8.00am and mingle in the dinner hall supervised by a few teachers on a duty rota, before being sent to form rooms at 8.30am. Teachers therefore had until 8.30am to get set up for the day.

Now, students have to go straight to their form rooms as soon as they arrive, so teachers must be in their form rooms before 8.00am as well. To balance this, the end of the day was moved from 3.30pm to 3.00pm. Five minutes was shaved from each lesson, but as children don't now need to move between classroom, this hasn't really made a difference.

Absolutely rubbish for any activity providers plus schools themselves who charge for after school care and now will lose much of that income.

I will trust the teachers of our kid's schools to make an informed, best decision possible for the majority. As always.

Depends what the Gov want our of this. Quality catch up? No way. My school finished at 3.40 and then meetings til 5. An extra 30 minute lesson? I’d stick on some Oak lesson. The good will is running thin. It’s just something Gav can say ‘look what’s we’re doing to help pupils catch up’, forgetting 3 weeks ago the Pupil Premium budget was slashed. Again,

Longer than what ? There is already a descripency ;grammar schools go from 8:35-3:35 round here the academies ( non selective) from 9-3, private schools 8:30-4:30.

No idea what format this is going to take and suspect it will be another pie in the sky notion that will come to nothing.

I don't know of any teachers who would be happy with this - I certainly wouldn't do it and there's no way they can make it compulsory.

Gosh, some of these kids aren't very resilient! When I was at school, the day started at 8.40 am and finished at 4.20 pm with a couple of hours' prep every evening. Finishing at 2.30 sounds ridiculous.

@traumatisednoodle

Longer than what ? There is already a descripency ;grammar schools go from 8:35-3:35 round here the academies ( non selective) from 9-3, private schools 8:30-4:30.

Private schools have longer holidays. I will support a longer day if we get private school holidays!

How long was your lunch?Expectations around teacher workload and lesson delivery have also changed massively.

2.30 is not the norm.

The longer holiday is a red herring for private schools ; the longer lunch produces the longer day.

@Piggywaspushed

The longer holiday is a red herring for private schools ; the longer lunch produces the longer day.

And we did homework/activities after when I was at private - the day finished later but lessons finished at normal time.