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?

The pupil premium thing is a disgrace.

Well, that was over quickly. I expected at least a good 4 days before we found out it was nonsense.

I did hear on Talk Radio, JHB saying teachers needed to step up and it was tough if some didn’t like it...but I think the recently announced pay freeze for teachers (after only two years relief from the last 10 years pay freeze) may not exactly get all the teachers inside and willing to do more voluntarily. What’s that saying? You pay peanuts...

*on side, not inside...bloody autocorrect 😡

@MrsHamlet

The pupil premium thing is a disgrace.

Absolutely.

What enrages me the most is that in addition to cuts to pupil premium damaging those who drirectly benefit, those cuts also damage our nation as a whole, by weakening us educationally and in terms of skills.

I am so tired and frustrated by the short term and low ambition policy approach taken by the Tories. I hate English politics so very very much!

I think I've said this on many threads over the pandemic, but learning all day is v different to working all day. There are different types of tired.
Decorating for 12 hours: physically tired, but able to do other stuff afterwards.
Teaching and associated tasks: tired, but able to drag myself to the gym by 7.
On a course, learning new stuff: attention drifts after an hour, struggle to get through the afternoon, feel zonked.
Teaching all day, meeting, marking all night: good for nothing.

JHB saying teachers needed to step up and it was tough if some didn’t like it...

Does she send her kids private or is she risking her kids being taught maths by a string of non-maths supply teachers because there’s a critical shortage of them?

Making teachers terms and conditions even worse isn’t going to help with fixing that problem.

I’ve also read that it would cost billions to get English school buildings up to a reasonable standard after a decade of neglect. Is that money still in the offing or was that just another Tory headline that comes to nothing?

Kids in crumbling and unsafe buildings supervised by unqualified staff - an extra half hour of that a day is not even papering over the cracks in the education system, it’s completely failing to address them.

New schools being built with Grenfell cladding and no sprinkler systems, just to add to your list. Older schools being refurbed with Grenfell cladding.

Goodwill, which pretty much every school runs on, has gone I'm afraid. When you're told to just go into work with none of the protective measures afforded the rest of the population (December was terrifying) and told you can leave if you don't like it then I kind of lost any desire to give as much extra as usual. I, like all secondary teachers, have been the exam board the last few months as well as a teacher which has meant working stupid hours and being in all this half term to finalise. I've learned a completely new skill of remote teaching and marking with no training.
Lots and lots of resignations on Friday, I'm not sure how we are going to staff the school in Sept. People have indeed left.

If they want me to do more hours the answer is no. Don't care how much they pay me. Not doing it. I'm knackered.

My kids have been asked to stay at school an extra hour for 1 day a week (typically both different days).

Interventions should be specifically targeted. If everyone gets the same thing, that's not intervention.

I'd be happy to have an extra half hour to extend sports before or after school. All our school clubs are still cancelled- no tennis, badminton, gym, yoga, netball, running, athletics. So sad.

@RainingZen

I'd be happy to have an extra half hour to extend sports before or after school. All our school clubs are still cancelled- no tennis, badminton, gym, yoga, netball, running, athletics. So sad.

Unfortunately unless clubs are run by outside agencies then you may find those clubs will never restart. As @mumsneedwine said, schools run on goodwill. Teachers give up their unpaid time to run clubs. I for one won’t be restarting my debate club come Sept. I’m too tired and fed up.

Sadly I agree @motherrunner. Before covid I ran two clubs in my own time. I won't be doing it again. My goodwill is gone.

@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.

My son finishes school at 4, gets home at 4:50 then has homework on top - he is exhausted. I finish direct teaching at 3:15, then 1 hour every day after school of either meetings, exam intervention, D of E, sports club or phoning parents. Nursery closes at 5 so I have to collect the 2 year old by 4:45, then home to cook dinner, tidy up, bath times, laundry etc. Then marking for a bit and/or prep for following day. At some point I would like to see my husband and children and just be a mum but it is insanely pressurised - adding an extra 30 mins to the school day would be a breaking point for many. I absolutely adore teaching, I love my subject and the fact that I guide my students to a better understanding of the world around them, we also get some of the best exam results in this subject across the country despite being a comprehensive in a grammar area. But maintaining this standard requires a huge amount of behind the scenes work and investment in supporting students. I cannot sacrifice any more of my life for this arbitrary add on to the school day that has been thought up by civil servants with no real world experience and will have no impact on student achievement (see Cambridge uni research and work by many others).

It's for childcare purposes. Get them working again.

@waveajay

It's for childcare purposes. Get them working again.

Well if that's true it's a stupid idea. Who will an extra half hour of childcare be enabling to work?

A damp squib idea with insufficient funding; well, who’d have thunk it?!

A pp mentioned that their school finishes on Friday at 12:30. That to me sounds like the teachers are having their PPA time in that time. I have heard of other schools doing this because they cannot afford to cover everyone's classes or are just short on funds to run the school for that extra afternoon (I can't remember the exact details). Unfortunately that is down to having such a tight budget and the blame should be directed at the government, not at the schools being forced to do this. And the problem will have been made worse by Covid, it isn't a new problem.

My teaching days currently start at 7.45 and I often don't leave until 6pm. If the day were extended, even if only by 30 mins, that would easily be an extra hour a day to include lesson planning and marking. I grab 15 mins for lunch and take no other breaks.
I also do at least 8 hours per week in my own time.
During an average week I probably work around 37 hours. Not bad, you might think.
Except that I'm actually only employed to work 3 days per week ...

@colouringcrayons and I bet it's not the same one teacher teaching her during all those hours! When I worked at an indie, even at infant level, there were far more specialist teachers so yes, the day was longer on paper but teachers had time away from lessons during the day to prepare, plan and mark etc rather than just at the end.
So basically the teaching load was shared between more staff. Plus smaller class sizes and better resources ...
I doubt there'll be money enough put forward to pay for extra staff 🙄

@Macaroni46

My teaching days currently start at 7.45 and I often don't leave until 6pm. If the day were extended, even if only by 30 mins, that would easily be an extra hour a day to include lesson planning and marking. I grab 15 mins for lunch and take no other breaks. I also do at least 8 hours per week in my own time. During an average week I probably work around 37 hours. Not bad, you might think. Except that I'm actually only employed to work 3 days per week ...

This is exactly the same as me.

@mumsneedwine

Goodwill, which pretty much every school runs on, has gone I'm afraid. When you're told to just go into work with none of the protective measures afforded the rest of the population (December was terrifying) and told you can leave if you don't like it then I kind of lost any desire to give as much extra as usual. I, like all secondary teachers, have been the exam board the last few months as well as a teacher which has meant working stupid hours and being in all this half term to finalise. I've learned a completely new skill of remote teaching and marking with no training. Lots and lots of resignations on Friday, I'm not sure how we are going to staff the school in Sept. People have indeed left. If they want me to do more hours the answer is no. Don't care how much they pay me. Not doing it. I'm knackered.

Schools around here had that, too; many resignations on Friday deadline. Sad, but not surprising with the increasing criticisms of and demands on teaching staffs while being told to be in regardless of how safe they felt doing so.

Anod not helped of course, by the terrible treatment of and attitude towards teachers on here and in the wider media.
I've devoted 35 years of my working career towards the children I teach, always going above and beyond. I know I'm not a lazy shirker, but blimey, it was depressing to have such accusations hurled around on the threads at the time. And today we have Julia Hartley-Brewer spouting off about teachers needing to "step up," as if we haven't been all along.
My goodwill is gone, and I will NOT be extending my teaching day. I will resign before that happens.

I can’t see this working, my son is in his last half term of primary and they should be winding down and doing fun stuff not staying in school an extra half hour. My daughter is at private secondary, they had live teaching from the first day of the first lockdown and their school day is quite long enough, 8.35 to 4.50.

My dd now finishes secondary at 2.30 each day and is home by 3.
It works so much better than when she used to finish later she has time to come home, relax and complete her homework.
Not in favour of extending the day at all but I'm pretty sure it won't happen anyway.