What's the educational argument for so many holidays?

[TinTinsSexySister]

Just that really.

Are there any educational benefits to frequent school holidays or are they just an historical hangover? Educationally speaking, would we be worse or better off adopting the US system?

And by the way, I can't stand the smug, self-congratulatory tone of certain teachers on this thread. Great, if you think you've got all the answers and are brilliant teachers providing a brilliant service in spite of these pesky working parents and kids who you don't mind leaving to their own devices for 13 weeks of the year, but in my experience really good teachers are reflective and open to change and it is the case that many kids leave the education system with woeful knowledge, qualifications and skills so there is plenty of evidence that things could be better. It's also the case that the cost and accessibility of quality childcare over the holidays is a significant barrier for many working parents and particularly women. You would have thought that teachers, above all, would want to do what they could to rectify this.

What EXACTLY do you want teachers to do to rectify it'? You seem to be confusing teachers and government ministers, FiveCandles. I do not have the power to make changes. I can't change term times or the quality of childcare. I can teach your child. That's my job. Perhaps you should write to the prime minister.

Obviously we are dealing with discussion here. It's the attitudes - defensive, resistant and downright unpleasant to working parents at times - that need to change. Our first priority is to the children we teach.

It's also the case that the cost and accessibility of quality childcare over the holidays is a significant barrier for many working parents and particularly women. You would have thought that teachers, above all, would want to do what they could to rectify this.

And it's this weird connecting of dots that I cannot reconcile - by your logic, I as a teacher ought to be solving all the rest of society's ills aswell, merely because I am a teacher?

I am not sure how I am being unpleasant to working parents, I am one. All I have said is that if they want teachers to give up some of their holidays I would not want to do the job anymore. Teaching is not like becoming the Pope, you are allowed to leave. In fact even Popes leave now.

My priority is to the children I teach. In my school, during term time. No matter how fond I am of them, I am not responsible for them in school holidays. In holidays, I am responsible for my OWN children.

I think if teachers were less protective of their holidays (at the same time as moaning about how hard they work during them) and more open to working with the parents whose children they teach that would be enormously helpful to everyone. That's all.

This is also the case for doctors where their unwillingness to work during weekends means you are 16% more likely to die if admitted to hospital during a weekend.

It isn't a teachers job to provide childcare. Children can't take longer terms- they need a rest. If schools are to be open longer then they need alternatives- lots of sport, drama, art, cooking, gardening- workshops of all sorts. They need different staff - a good money earner for students- but it has to be paid for- it won't come cheap.

As a parent I don't want my children at school all hours- I want the freedom of holidays- time to do nothing- time to be bored and unorganised- time to use imagination.

My priority is to the children I teach. In my school, during term time. No matter how fond I am of them, I am not responsible for them in school holidays. In holidays, I am responsible for my OWN children.

Absolutely-I totally agree.

Why are teachers seemingly held constantly responsible for the problems of today's society?

It is not right that public money and working hours are allocated on the basis of the way things have always been done or to what is convenient for certain public sector workers as opposed to the public who are funding the workers.

I do not moan about how hard I work in my holidays, but I am protective of my holidays. That was the deal when I signed up, I work long hours during term time and balance that with a large demanding family and in return I get to do bugger all for 13 weeks. I do not want to work any more than that. If other teachers are happy to do so, that is their call.

So stand for parliament, fivecandles - you're not going to achieve anything wrongly berating a set of hardworking teachers in the internet.

I apologise, I am slightly leaping in at the end of the thread without reading it fully.

As a teacher, I do have an issue with the long summer holidays. It has seemed to me that it is a case of 'to them that hath, more shall be given'. Children of well-educated, reasonably well-off families get things out of the long summer holidays that enhance their lives - travel, conversation with parents, stimulating holiday clubs or childcare, time with adults, access to books and paints and models and parks. Children from other backgrounds get none of these things,so the inequalities that as teachers we spend so much time addressing in school time - interventions, daily reading, targeted plans - are widened during the holidays.

I don't quite know how we address this, but in utopia, some type of school- based, cheap holiday activities run by qualified staff but restricted to those on low incomes, or a redistributioon of holidays within the year [the difference is not so marked after the shorter holidays], or a splitting of the long holidays to give some 'study weeks' in between might be ways forward.

As long as the public fund the workers properly it wouldn't be a problem. The country couldn't afford to fund longer hours and shorter holidays for teachers.

I don't think that the tax payer should be paying for free full time childcare for every child in the land. Paying for childcare is the parent's problem and not the schools or the tax payers. There is already help through childcare vouchers and child tax credits for paying for childcare.

I would rather that any extra money goes to children who need help with basic numeracy or literacy. Teachers are there to educate NOT provide childcare.

I think that most teachers put up with the work load and not having time for their own children because they have the holidays when they can relax and enjoy time with their family. Take that away and they wouldn't do it.

I do not particularly want my children in school any more time, although I accept that I am lucky to have a job that enables me to be with them. If I did not teach any more I would just do something part time or work for myself. Giving children time for hobbies and to just be , is important to me.

If it was genuinely better for the children to have more time in school then I would not want to say that schools should not change simply because I do not want to work any more. But I would leave the profession or look for a very part time teaching post.

That is exactly how I feel exotic.

(I find it interesting that a school I know of in a deprived area, trying to improve the educational outcomes for its students, runs study days and workshops for almost all its pupils during the different holidays - including e.g. a drama / music / sport fortnight for Y6s coming up into Y7 over the summer holidays. Perhaps there are many schools quietly doing things to address possible educational and social disadvantages of long holidays but just in a quiet way?)

fivecandles - so write a letter to the government if that is how you feel.

'It isn't a teachers job to provide childcare.'

Duh! Nobody has suggested that. There are much more sophisticated and responsive models that are possible such as staggered terms, summer schools tailored towards particular interests or interventions etc.

Why are you so extraordinarily unimaginative. It is very depressing

'Children can't take longer terms- they need a rest. '

But that's a very naive and self-centred view. Don't you understand that some kids don't get 'a rest'. They are either left to their own devices and may end up in a lot of trouble (it's well documented that both petty crime and accidents go up during school holidays) or are put into childcare (which may be expensive and poor quality). That's what I find objectionable: the sense that everybody else has the same choices and experience as teachers do as regards holidays. The inability to step into the shoes of a working parent for whom childcare over the holidays is the difference between whether going to work makes economic sense or not.

And what's so special about British children and teachers that they need 13 weeks of rest where other kids and teachers and professions don't? It's baffling.

It's the sense of going along with the way things always have been without question and without listening to reasons for change that's so frustrating.

I think that there is a huge difficulty in understanding the function of schools. Children are the responsibility of their parents. Schools are there to provide education in child friendly hours. It happens that parents can work in that time because schools are free. However it is not childcare- it was never supposed to be. Childcare is the parent's responsibility. I can't see why it should be offered free- unless your place of work wants to offer the service. Teachers have to get childcare before and after school.