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?

It took me a while particularly because I am someone who likes to fill her time. I live a very busy life so I just do not have time to let my job completely dominate my life. Having four children of my own and a stepson keeps me busy, I reads lot, run groups in my community, go the gym a lot which often acts as my thinking time, I have studied, taught classes to adult learners, I am very involved with a few local charities and have lots of hobbies .

Sometimes something does come to me at odd times, I have a little notebook in my bag for those times and I often sit in the cinema or theatre and think "I could use this to teach..."

But I strongly feel that there is little point me flogging myself to death for other people's children if I am not there for my own.

I think it's a mistake to see them as entirely separate. We are or should be workign together for the best outcomes of the kids. When the school year was designed around the summer harvest it wasn't so year 11 kids could rest, it was so they could work damn hard to ensure there was food to eat!

I think long periods of working like a nutter followed by long periods with no structure is unhealtyh for teachers and pupils. There's no other environment that follows this model..

That's interesting, Arisbottle. When my kids were really young I found it easier to let work take more of a backseat. I think there's a point for a lot of working mums where they have to make a definite decision about whether they want to move up the ladder or not and if they do, they have to then redress the balance at least for a while. That's what I'm finding anyway. I'm lucky in that dp is also a teacher so can take up the extra childcare and domestic stuff that I simply can't do at the moment. Also different for me because I'm relativelt new in a job when I'd been in the previous one for years and it worked like clockwork.

Right, I must go. If you see me on here tomorrow will you please tell me to get back to work? It has been interesting though I think.

I work in a school where the culture is work like a nutter and then completely chill in the holidays. It is not for everyone, i have noticed that staff either stay for one year and then bugger off thinking that we are all made or they just don't leave.

It seems to serve us well, our school is outstanding ( not just by Ofsted standards) it is somewhere where many of us choose to educate our own children. There is almost constantly a trip somewhere, a huge number of extra curricular activities and there is just a huge buzz about the place. One of the reasons it is such an exciting place to work and learn is because the staff absolutely make the most of our holidays. Staff fly off all over the globe for the holidays or get involved in all kinds of projects and come back just so excited about life, the children pick up on this love of life.

In all seriousness, very few secondary schools close over the summer. All of the secondaries in my area host holiday clubs- my own kids go to one for a proportion of every holiday. It's not run by the school, but the school does make money out of it.

Re the hours issue. My contract says I am paid for 1265 hours. Anything on top of that is unpaid and optional. Therefore I do those hours to suit myself and my family. I don't really understand why that is anyone else's concern. If I didn't want to do anything over and above the 1265, then I wouldn't. Of course, I'd probably be a shit teacher, but then, we all know that they exist.

I am still wondering why it is considered OK for my local private prep school to end the term on 5th July and start the next one on 2nd September and for them to split the holiday into activity weeks and charge the expensive rate that you would expect for good quality care, of that nature, and yet down the road my local state primary finishes on 24th July and starts on 3rd September and are supposed to do the same for free.

Even if the teachers do work in those holiday weeks they get extra pay and if they do 3 weeks they still have the same holiday as a state school teacher.
Why should a state school teacher work extra weeks without pay and the parents get free child care - bearing in mind that some of the state school parents are very well off and have more disposable cash than those scrimping to pay school fees. The state one has a mixed intake from the whole social scale and a sizeable number who need the special nurture group within the school.

We seem agreed that private school provide good wrap around care, the sort that state school parents would like, and then neglect to mention that it is paid for by the parents as an extra-it is then glossed over that teachers are compensated by getting much longer holidays than state schools. I would say that a 6 yr old is going to go backwards with 8 weeks off-unless the parent pays for extra tuition-the fact that parents have money doesn't make the child brighter.

I will agree that the long school holidays allowed children to work in the fields -but schools like Eton had even longer ones and they were not working in the fields-no one appears to be saying that it is unhealthy for those pupils and teachers. They had long ones to go off to their estates in Scotland, or other parts of the country or abroad-or their parents were working in the far flung places in the Empire and they needed time to get there by boat. Now that the Empire has gone, we have air travel, and very few have estates ,their holidays could be very short too.

When it comes to paying for child care it is very tricky. Many parents who pay for education struggle and can't afford the extras like holiday activities- many with chaotic home lives and dysfunctional parents have got money-they choose not to spend it for extras like holiday activities when the child can hang around the streets for free.

I don't mind spending a week helping those who are really deserving cases -but I don't think that is what would happen. I would be giving up my time for those who could give up their time and help and yet would rather imagine that teachers have it easy because of 'the short day' and 'the long holidays'.

I can't see why fivecandles just saying 'I am a Geography teacher' or 'I am a French teacher' outs her-I rather suspect that she isn't a teacher at all.
I have never met one with her views.

Of course if teachers could say 'open your books at page 23 and do exercise 12', and then sit marking, fivecandles would have a point. That is not teaching!

I totally agree with you exotic

FWIW, I teach Performing Arts and am also Head of 6th Form. Anyone who now knows who I am and where I teach is free to PM me and let me know I'm outed.

Of course if teachers could say 'open your books at page 23 and do exercise 12', and then sit marking, fivecandles would have a point. That is not teaching!

How extraordimary is it that a fellow teacher of anything doesn't know that?

Extraordinary, obviously. Although I quite like extraordimary aswell now.

Or possibly have had too much .

Fivecandles is a teacher.

Of what?

I am not going to out her but she is a teacher.

How - do you know her in RL?

I think the bar is set far too high for teachers. I would think keeping a class of 30 entertained for 30 hours a week is a fairly high achievement in itself. The fact that they all know who Picasso, Shakespeare and Florence Nightingale were by the time they reach secondary school, can read, write, do their times tables is enough for me.

It is absurd for teachers to be ground down and forced to constantly 'improve'. There should be a limit to their attainment, whether measured in hours worked or standards reached.

Morebeta, are you the teacher husband of Fivecandles?!

This thread has moved on a little since I last posted, but another issue I would have with schools being utilised all year round is that building work, deep cleaning, decorating and basic maintenance will never get done and the schools will decay! In the last four years at my school, something huge has been done in ever summer holiday (condemned classes pulled down, new playground floor installed, new building erected, classes completely redecorated etc) These are things that need to be done to keep the environment safe for children and just can't be done when they are on the premises.

I am sure she is a teacher, maybe just a very private one. I meet teachers who I don't agree with. I suspect I am very easy to spot if you know me in real life, house full of children, late entrant to teaching but in senior management, husband very identifiable etc.

I think her ideas come from a desire to do good and for some reason a sense of guilt or a lack of confidence.

And again-saying that just because teachers work many hours over their 1265, they might as well be at school teaching is utter crap. These extra hours have to be done when there are no children around. It is not a reason for teachers to teach more.

Arisbottle, what you say about staff going abroad is interesting, my dds school got every teacher to take a photograph of themselves reading a book where they were on holiday, they put it on a map etc etc. The kids loved seeing pics of their teachers on holiday - they have a lot of respect for their teachers and it's a very very challenged intake of kids (secondary).

I see that fivecandles has backed away from the year around school idea, which is good because it was quite nutty. Apart from anything else it would drive every other provider of out of school or holiday activities out of business, either because there would never be a reliable cohort of children to offer it to (all taking time out at different times), or because they would be completely unable to compete with free school based care/activities. Plus of course it would be impossible to timetable.

My children go to school in Canada and have two months in the summer and very little the rest of the year (two weeks at Christmas and one for Spring break). Their equivalent of INSERT days are scattered throughout the year, which as a parent is a bit of a nuisance. Families here have much shorter holiday allowances too (and in the States two weeks is abut average). But there is no stigma to taking holiday whenever you want, and the children tend to get less tired during term time, so I assume that the school day is less intense (when we were in the UK they were flaked out by half term).

At secondary school they are taught in blocks (two long semesters), and if you fail any course then you have the choice of summer school or repeating the next year. Summer school is taught by teachers who are paid extra for it (and I think mostly come from the supply roster). In the States the primary school they went to had summer school too, work in the morning and play in the afternoon. Again staffed by paid teachers. I can't remember if there was a cost to parents or if the equivalent of the LEA paid for it.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with the government investing in summer schools of various sorts, or bringing in vouchers or extra help for poorer parents to access good childcare. I don't think it should have anything very much to do with teachers. My children's out of school activities are important to them, in particular because they are in a different setting, with different children and different adults. It's one of the few areas of their life where they get to choose what to do and I think that's important. And I don't want them to do something every night, twice a week is about all they can cope with on top of school and homework.

I can see that Fivecandles ideas come from a desire to do good and she is very concerned about children from dysfunctional backgrounds with no money, however I don't see why teachers have to be the only ones with a social conscience who give up their time for free.
Private schools appear to be let off the hook entirely and yet they are the ones with the charitable status. They could open their doors in the summer and give free childcare!
I am in agreement with schools opening their doors. However I think that money could be given from businesses and staff could be employed at a proper rate of pay. Teachers and TAs could apply if they wished. We had that sort if thing about 20years ago- it was for 10 to 15yr olds and run by the police- I think they had 2summers but it proved too expensive to continue- they had to get the funding from local businesses and it was staffed by volunteers.
The other option is to ask for volunteers and then teachers could volunteer if they wished. I volunteered at my local library last summer for their reading safari - I shall probably do it again this year. I wouldn't do it if I was told that I had to do it.

I agree very strongly with nooka - "My children's out of school activities are important to them, in particular because they are in a different setting, with different children and different adults." And I would add that my children's out of school activities are also in a different format ie not classroom based, and that it is really important that children understand that important learning happens outside the classroom/exam format.

I think that is a very important point- holiday activities are about complete change, who wants a continuation of the term with the same teachers and same children. e.g. when I was a Beaver leader I had some of the DCs that I taught on supply. I was a very different person with them - it was a different relationship being 'squirrel' to being Mrs X. They wouldn't have wanted to come along and have an extension of the school day. It was a different venue, different adults and different children. You need that. It is why I feel sorry for 5yr old in after school club - they need a complete change after a school day.