For teachers- do your pupils learn something new every day?

[jasper]

I am asking this due to the thread about taking kids out of school outwith holidays, where some of you explained it disrupted the teaching programme.

My question is do you really teach your pupils something different every day? This is a genuine question, not intended to provoke or criticise. I admire anyone who chooses teaching as a profession and the friends I have who teach are , to a woman, remarkable and inspiring individuals.
It's just that my memory of school (particularly primary school ) was of weeks and weeks of repetition of the same things.

That was my biggest compliant about school - it was boring and repetitive and I felt I hardly ever learned anything.

We were taken out of school for a week or two most years and there was never any notion of having to catch up or missing anything. Have things changed or am I suffering from false memory syndrome ? Might I have gone on to acheive greatness if it hadn't been for those fortnights in Harrogate?

So to repeat my question,which was not intended to rehash the holidays issue, do you teach a different thing every single day?

[Dmum]

I can totally understand and sympathise with parents who can only afford to take their kids away in term time (I'm a primary teacher.) However, you have to be aware that they will miss teaching, the teacher will not be able to make up this lost time and will not be able to give the children the work they will miss. The LEA I work for has a policy of not allowing work to be sent with children going on holiday. As a parent, you have to weigh up whether the time they spend on holiday will be more valuable to them. I do have a problem with parents who take children out of school two or three times a year to go on holiday. I teach in a school in a deprived area, but it shocks me how many parents can afford to do this. I wish I could! To answer the original question, the age group I teach are learning something new everyday or, at least, building on something new that has been learned.

[Oakmaiden]

I don't really have a firm opinion in this, to be honest. As a former Home Educator I believe that there are valuable things to be learnt outside school, and that the classroom is not the be all and end all. I also strongly feel that the National Curriculum - especially at infant school level - is inappropriate and doesn't allow for much spontaneity from the teacher (interested to know if Primary Teachers agree?) - and that it is the needs of the National Curriculum which make small children missing school more of a problem.

On the other hand I also believe that if you choose to send your child to school, then you are making a commitment to allow the school to eduate your child, and they cannot do that if you take your child out of school at your leisure. I think, you should have a very good reason for it if you want your child to miss school when she is supposed to attend.

That said, we are planning a trip to New Zealand sometime in the future, and I strongly suspect that we will HAVE to take my son out of school for it - it is very hard for my husband to get a block of leave during the holidays, and a week is not long enough to make a trip of that sort feasible. So we will probably overlap it so it is partly holiday and partly termtime. But as my son has Aspergers this will probably be helpful - He can miss the last week of Christmas term (for example) which he finds so hard anyway, and not much work is done.

[Lara2]

Oakmaiden, I would have agreed with you about the NC taking away all our spontaneity about a year ago. However, last Spring "Excellence and Enjoyment" was published , which has given primary teachers their professional judgement back and 'allowed' us to be spontaneous again.This doesn't mean that we don't plan carefully, or forget about progression; it means that we can do what we think is most appropriate for the children in our classes/groups. Inspectors always gave us the impression that we HAD to teach the numeracy and literacy hour as laid down by the Govt. When I read "Excellence and Enjoyment", I discovered that neither is statuatry at all!!! We never had to teach it in the format that was presented to us - just a 'little' thing that was never mentioned!! In my year group (1), we have kept the majority of the content , but wriggled it all around to different terms so that it is more appropriate to the children. After all, how the hell can I " secure the use of capital letters and full stops " in Year 1 Term 1, if they're not even writing in sentences yet!!??

[sammac]

To give an up to date example. I have 28 children in my class( age 8), as of today, 4 are away on holiday! We've just had 2 weeks. Two have been on holiday since November 17th, visiting relatives in Pakistan, 1 in the Canaries for a spot of sun and 1 in USA visiting relatives. I work in an area that's not great and this is quite normal. Like Dmum not allowed to give work out.
I completely understand the stranglehold the travel companies have over us, and would never criticise parents whose only option is to holiday within the school year. However, to some parents, this is "just a little extra", or it "was a good price".

[hmb]

And an example from me a child in year 11, who has already missed two modular examination is being taken out of school for 3 weeks in two weeks time. She told me today, 'you'll have to give me the work'. I'll give it to her, and I'll be interested to see if it will get done.

[Clarinet60]

I'm interested to know what happens when children get bad colds and 'flu. I remember being off ill for 3 weeks once. If that happens to one of my boys, will they be scarred, educationally, for life?

[Clarinet60]

Sorry Oakmaiden, I've just realised that you asked the same question.
Dying to hear the answers!

[Oakmaiden]

Lara - glad to hear from you that the way the Nat. Curr. is implemented is improving in Primary Schools - I just think it is FAR better to allow teachers flexibility to teach in the way they prefer, rather than to try to turn them all into flavourless carbon-copies of the Government idea of what a teacher should be. Teachers should be ALLOWED to be inspired - and I had felt that the Nat Curr was stifling that in numbers and bits of paper. GLad it is getting better!

[hmb]

Droile. But the point is the child who is going on holiday for 3 weeks is just as likely to miss school for being sick as the children who attend school all the time. Illness and accidents, family preblems will happen. You don't have to make it worse bt taking your child away from school at as well. in addition, being ill doesn't tell the child that school is less important. Taking your child on holiday gives the child a message , that education is unimportant.

I missed 6 weeks in Primary due to illness, and my education was affected quite badly. I never felt that I caught up the things that i had missed and I lost confidence.

Oh and far from the holiday being taken out of holiday time because the family is too poor to go at any other time, the three weeks are in Hong Kong. Nice if you can afford it.

[robinw]

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[hmb]

Well, if it's a very sepcial oppertunity its the second one that she has had in 2 years. She missed modular examonations last year to go to Hong Kong. That time it was for 4 weeks.

The thing that worries me is that this kid is worried at her poor grades and has just started to work hard in my lessons to catch up. She was a hard working child before she went on extended joliday last year. She came back very disruptive. I realise that this could be co-incidence, and possible it is just her hormones kicking in. However the fact of the matter is this isn't a 'once in a lifetime ' job. They did it last year as well. Bottom line is the familt don't think that edication is important.

[hmb]

Oh, and the kids in my classes never get the message that their education is unimortant. I've set up 2 catch up seesions today alone, for sixth formers who are sitting an exam on Thursday. I've also set up a lunch time session for some year 10s who are struggling on Wednesday lunchtime.

I'm sorry that your kids don't have a good teacher. Trust me, we are not all like that. Some of us value education. And some of the generalisations made in this topic have insulted me. (not your last comments BTW)

[tigermoth]

the more I read here the more there seems to be a big divide between primary school and secondary school. Is it really possible to discuss the rights and wrongs of taking a 6 year old out of school for 2 weeks together with the rights and wrongs of taking a 14 yer old about to sit GCSEs out of school for 2 weeks? It seems to me that some posters here ( me included) would feel far more OK about the former, and not feel OK about the latter. Robinw for instance is talking about her primary school aged daughter. HMB is talking about her secondary school.

PS I'm not saying that regular holidays in term time are OK for any age, just talking about the effects of missing school as a one off.

[Clarinet60]

Thanks hmb. I haven't said that it is OK to take your child on holiday in term time. I was genuinely interested in how much normal ailments affect their education. I think the answer is that they do? Therefore, I think we all have a problem looming?

[robinw]

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[hmb]

Re the illness thing. If children miss 2 weeks because of illness, they have two weeks of work to catch up on. During the time they are catching up, lessons will make less sense to them than they should, as we are now encouraged to 'build' our lessons on knowledge gained in the previous lesson.

As an example I taught year 11 today and it was the first lesson of a new module (this is for GCSE Biology). We have 12 lessons planned, an other lesson will go on testing, leaving me with 1-2 lessons (depending on when other subjects have exams/educational trips/ mocks) to recap the topic. So if a child is ill for 2 weeks they will miss 4 lessons out of 12. I'll help them to catch up, but I can't do that in lessons because of the pressure of work. When I recap information, it will help a little, but I will not be able to spend 15 minutes helping one child catch up on last weeks work. After this topic is finised we will have time for revision and exam preparation. Children who have missed work will find this helpful, but these will be revision lessons, structured rather differently from the first time I teach it (eg more worked examples, less practical work and demonstrations).

It is our school policy to request work for children who will be off school for extended period due to illness, and the staff are happy to comply. But to my mind work sheets and text books cannot be as good as having the teacher in the class with them at the time (unless the parents help and understand the topics enough.....I'd hate to be faced with worksheets in MFLs for my Kids because I was rubbish at languages.). If children are in hospital there is a specialist service that provides education.

The bottom line is that if children are away from school, for whatever reason they will miss work. Children in the school I teach at are in lessons for 4 hours and 40 minutes a day. Miss a day and they will have missed that amount of educational experiences. I realise that kids have preferences and dislikes on lessons, but they will be missing the chance to learn for 4 hours and 40 minutes a day (and lets not forget the social interaction , clubs etc that happen in break and lunch time, oh and 20 mins in form time for pastoral development). If the kids are ill, it can't be helped. But if parents take their children away from school in term time they should do so in the understanding that the children will have missed work. That must be caught up, of the child will underperform in exams.

[hmb]

Bottom line to my mind is this. If you think missing 2 weeks isn't a problem, would you be pissed off with me if I took 2 weeks off during term time to take my kids on holiday? Dh is in the RAF and frequently can't get holidays during the holidays. When he came back from the Gulf war my kids hadn't seen him for 2 months. I wouldn't have even thought of asking for the day off when he first came back, as the answer would (righty) have been NO!

[singingmum]

Still in shock that parents have to ask to take their own kids on hols.Ok.As a home educator and ex school goer have to say 2 weeks won't kill if the teacher is a good one who can actually be bothered with the children.It's not repetition that makes kids remember but how interesting the subject is made.If the lesson isn't fun then they are going to be bored and not learn anything.As for learning something new each day,I don't think so in my first year of comp was off with asthma went back a week later to a science test and came top of class even though teacher did not expect me to as they had done the work the week I was ill.I can honestly say that I was so bored at being taught the same thing every day that I started writing essays for fun at home this was in primary school.I left school 10 yrs ago having taught myself more than school ever did.This is partly why I he.We take hols when poss and they are educational.Parents need to spend time with their children more than they need to have the times tables repeated.Family time is more important and it's time schools stopped taking control.
As for the teacher wouldn't take a hol during school term sorry if I laugh and cough in disbelief as I know that a lot of so called sick time my teachers had was used for hols(tanned skin invariably gave it away during winter months)

[hmb]

Well, singingmum, teachers don't take holidays in term time in the school I work at. My MIL is a teacher, most of my friends are teachers, by brother is a teacher, my children have teachers and I work with teachers and I have never known any of them take holiday in term time. Out of genuine interest when were you in school?

[hmb]

Sorry, just saw it was 10 years ago.

[hmb]

And you are fully entitled to your opinion. And you are a home edder, so you have put yout time, effort and money to back your principles. This is a great thing. My point is that people can't take their kids out of school for repeated long holidays and then complain that they don't get all A* in their GCSEs. Most grade bands in GCSE are aound 10 % (gave or take a bit) missing 4 weeks over 2 years could make that much difference.