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?

I must be a little thick because I do not entirely understand what fivecandles is proposing and therefore cannot see how it can work.

On the one hand she is saying that I can stick to my "burnout" model but I must also be prepared to give up some holiday. At one point you seem to suggest that rather than working at home in the evening I should store up my work and do it in the holidays, because for some reason I cannot be trusted to do it at home. But I cannot see how me sat in my school working during the holidays is much different from the staff who do that anyway during the holidays and more importantly how that helps working parents You have also said that I should not have to work so many unpaid hours but I think everyone knows that there is no money in the pot to pay for me the hours that I do. And to be honest I happily do those extra hours because I am treated as a professioanal adult and allowed to spread or condense my workload as I wish.

So really you are not asking me to spread my workload and spend time in the holidays planning but you want me to carry on teaching during the holidays - is this right? - as I said I am not sure. But I am not going to get paid any more for extra teaching and the workload that comes from that, because as you admitted the government cannot afford to pay me for what I do now.

But then you have introduced a sort of drift in and out model of schooling, so do I teach all the children who drift in and out or do I only teach one class or a set block and then another teacher teaches another class who are in for a different block of time?

Or am I not teaching but instead running extra curricular clubs? Do I choose to run these extra curricular clubs ( as I have done in the past and therefore again you are not really suggesting anything new - as I am sure you know so I wonder why you are saying that it is new and presenting teachers as unwilling to do this?) Or am I going to be forced to run extra clubs in my holidays - again am I going to be paid for these clubs? - Even though the government fails to be pay me for the hours I do already. If I am not teaching why pay a teacher to do it? Why not draft someone else in and maybe pay them less or take advanatge of their expertise. Lets face it, there are enough people looking for work. Or is it just that you want teachers in particular to work more hours unpaid?

I chose my (poorly paid, compared to other possibilities) profession based on the fact that it would enable me to care for my children during the holidays. My sister did dentistry, my brother chose accountancy- I nearly did law. Choices were made based on such things. Should my brother and sister benefit from free childcare whilst I am left with the comparatively poorer salary?

This won't be the way to attract a high calibre graduate into the profession.

"Why not draft someone else in and maybe pay them less or take advanatge of their expertise. Lets face it, there are enough people looking for work. Or is it just that you want teachers in particular to work more hours unpaid? "

Canoeing instructors, guitar teachers, gym coaches are paid less than qualified teachers. The children have a more interesting time and learn more than they would from extra school. Mixing with a different crowd of children and different adults is good for children. Its nice when children get the opportunity to persue their interests rather than having to follow a set curriculum.

The fact that some families cannot afford interesting activites is an issue. Extended schools have been cut drastically which is a real shame.

One way of doing it - the way that industries requiring continuous cover but in need of flexibility to cover varied demand e.g. some manufacturing - would be for school staff to have annualised hours contracts. To be fair, that is what our pay structure looks like at the moment - in that pay (for teaching the contracted number of hours, meant to be in term time) is divided into 12 equal increments even though the work is not evenly distributed between the 12 months.

So a teacher, or TA, might be contracted for a certain number of hours per year. Many would continue to work these hours within term time. Some might reduce their hours during term time in return for doing some 'non term' weeks. As I say, I think it would require the redirection of pupil premium - and also some 'paying customers' in the form of non-pupil-premium children looking for good quality childcare during holidays.

To those above who say that this is equivalent to state boarding schools, that 5 year olds would prefer not to be in before or after school care - if your family does not live close, and you only have 5 weeks of holiday per year, and you work a 'normal' 8.30 - 5.30 type working day, then the reality is that your child spends that working day away from you in some kind of childcare setting OR unattended / looked after by a slightly older sibling. There is no 'alternative reality' in which these children are swept from the school gates into a warm, supportive, home with plenty of 1 to 1 time with an adult ... so a school-based, professional childcare setting will for many children be at least equivalent, and in many cases better, than their current day to day experience.

My children's school has an after school care club with spaces for 80 - 100 children.

That's a lot of childminders..... (I use a childminder bofre school and after school club afterwards. My childminder has 4 places for children over 5.....so 20 more like her would be needed to cater for the same number of children as the after school club)

ReallyTired.

I'm not sure what instructors and private teachers you know. However, for many unions the going rate is £30 an hour + travel. Is this cheaper than a school teacher?

If my wage is for my directed time of 1265 hours, I earn more than £30 an hour .

arisbottle, I have explained all of those points quite clearly and said that this is one suggested model for improvement.

If schools worked according to 6 week (or similar time scale) units then children and teachers could continue to opt for one of the 6 weeks as either a holiday unit where they would have the option of going away for the full 6 weeks or a leisure/extra curricular/catch up unit or a comination of the two.

This could be any six weeks during the year but only once a year.

Teachers could therefore continue to work under the model they currently have but with the flexibility of choosing their 6 week break when it suits them

OR

they could choose what would be my preference which would be to work the same number of directed hours but spread over more of the year (and therefore taking less holiday time). This would mean you would have less contact time or more frees during the working day and week, less marking and planning. This would be preferable for me because I could spend more time with my family in the evenings and weekends and less of my holidays working.

So, you see, under this model nobody loses out and everybody gains.

Parents and teachers who still want to take their kids out of school for 6 weeks get to do that (but there is no penalty for not all taking their kids out at the same point in the year) and parents who cannot or choose not to do that have the advantage of year round childcare in the form of education with a 6 week block of leisure/extra curricular etc activity.

Under this model extra curricular/leisure/catch up activities would be run by a combination of teachers with expertise in this area who would choose to swap some of their academic teaching hours for this purpose and coaches/ playworkers etc as is the case with extracurricular activities currently (with the difference that at least some of them could count as teachers' directed hours in negotiatoin with individual schools).

Those kids whose parents can only take them out of school for 2 weeks for example in say March could then make up the other 4 weeks with their choice from a range of extra curricular activities - swimming, cinema, reading, computer programming and some kids could benefit from using at least some of this time consolidating their learning or receiving 1 to 1 tuition where they have fallen behind.

Paid for by whom?

I've done that one Evil. There's no point me just repeating the same thing over and over again. Read the thread.

'gnoring the droves of excellent teaching staff lost'

I don't know why these teachers would be leaving in droves if they were given the option of either continuing to work the hours as they do (but being allowed to take the 6 weeks off at any point in the year) or spreading their hours more evenly.

'chools could manipulate their intakes a good deal more under your system to achieve / sustain high grades and league table conditions.'

Why on earth would a restructuring of the school year affect entrance requirements?

Just imagining the Daily Fail headlines... MY TAXES ARE PAYING FOR CINEMA TRIPS. SCHOOLS ARE HOLDAY CAMPS.

Meanwhile, back in the real world...

Exactly teacher.

I don't get why some people are so worried about what might happen to kids under this new system. What the hell do they think happens to the children of working parents under the current system?

The holidays I can just about cope with but teacher training days take the piss. These imo should all be taken with the school holidays - lets face it even if the kids need regular breaks the teachers certainly don't need as many!!

You sound very negative and oddly bitter Evil.

Do Daily Fail headlines currently complain about taxes being used for extra curricular activity? Or free childcare for 3 year olds?

Many schools do currently offer holiday camps and cinema trips and breakfast clubs and lego clubs after school and at lunchtine.

I have never seen anybody or any headlines complaining about such things.

girliefriend, for the ten millionth time, teacher training days came out of our holidays originally - and we don't get paid for all that holiday you are bitter about. Shorten our holidays if you like - but it would cost you.

Let me put you right on that one girlie - INSET days were taken out of holidays. Teachers used to work 190 days and we now do 195. The amount of time off kids have has remained the same.

Or (as the headlines about the very, very tough school in the very tough area I mentioned above say) 'Pupils' holiday clubs mean GCSE grade improvement' (they are lucky, as the local newspaper has an education correspondant who understands education...rare, I know)

'people who find working and childcare difficult or are keen to dump their kids on the state all year round.'

tiggy, I don't know if you realize how emotive and offensive this sounds.

Many parents can only take a few weeks off work each year. This is so that they can support their families or do a job they enjoy or which is really important.

My kids went to a nursery where they were well looked after when they were little so I could continue to teach other people's kids. The state paid for some of this and they were not 'dumped' anywhere.

In your world are parents simply not allowed to work unless they have the same holidays as their kids (i.e. unless they're teachers)?

If your kids attended football training after school on a Tuesday are they being 'dumped on the state'?

Then what's the difference in having them do extra curricular/leisure activites for a few weeks in the year in a block as well as during the normal school week.

And what's the difference in terms of the parental bond or parental responsibility or state intervention between enabling childcare to happen in a school environemnt (which is obviously geared up to exactly this as well as having cost billions of taxpayers money which would otherwise be wasted for several weeks each year) and enabling it to happen at a childminder's or playscheme or holiday camp?