ha ha ha... schools to set own holidays

[Theas18]

news on radio 4. hilarious.... not

staggered holidays will allow for cheaper holidays for parents, kids won't regrets over the summer etc...

yeah but what about families with kids in different schools, or teachers with kids in schools other then where they teach, and expecting teachers took work Saturdays and more teaching days? it's all very silly...

we had chaos locally when October half term wasn't coordinated.

Gove is merely restating the powers that the Labour government accorded to Academies and which VA (and foundation?) schools have always had.

If you look at the DfE webpage, you SIL, see at the current situation is that 70% of secondaries and 30% of primaries already have these powers.

Radically different term times also makes it difficult for school holiday providers, surely? I don't get enough time off to take all the school holidays with DS so he goes to activity camps (daily ones rather than residential) that are run locally for all the kids in the area. This works pretty well, but if all the schools are off at different times it wouldn't be viable to run all these camps, surely, many of which are subsidised round our way by the LEA.

Cheaper holidays

The prices will go up all year round, more likely!

We talked about it in a Govs meeting yesterday, our Head though perhaps it would be fun to take a holiday in September when the weather is at its best in most of Europe

In real life, I doubt it will affect most of the local primaries here - and they would all coordinate dates to make sure parents aren't too badly affected by discrepancies.

On reflection we have enough " interesting times" re school holiday as it is as the kids are state educated and DH teaches prep...

the issue about parents who work in schools is one that seems to have missed the press (and the general public if you read the comments on the bbc site); it will be a major issue! If my school has different holidays than my DS's school then when are we supposed to have a holiday? What about the parents who work in a school (I'm thinking all staff and not just teachers) who have children in different schools and therefore 3/4/5 lots of holiday dates to contend with

cricket, could this be another occasion for half-thought out policy and a speedy u-turn?

All private schools have always been able to set their own holidays.

Strangely they have not shortened their summer holidays to improve behaviour - Eton's is so long the place must be a brawl in September

and even more strangely, the vast majority of private school term dates mirror those of state schools

When will Gove learn "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

Because private schools have a different calibre of child in them, Talkinpeace.

rabbitstew
Scarily I quite agree - They almost to a bod have parents who care.

The kids who do fall behind over the long holiday should be offered subsidised summer camps / schools / activities
rather than buggering about with the term dates for everybody.

But the real problem with Gove is that he is not emprical / scientific / evidence driven

he does not check his facts : that there is indeed a problem but he has conflated it to the point of insanity, rather than targeted

eg
make part of the pupil premium be for out of school hours/days learning ....

Yes, it would be nice for state school parents not all to be lumped in together as one big mass of irresponsible no-goods who don't talk to their children, play with their children, taken an interest in their children's education or have time to do anything with their children in school holidays and who therefore need to have their children taken off their hands as much as possible, by force rather than through choice, to be looked after by people who don't need to have qualified teacher status and who can actually only do what's expected by working longer hours for less pay (making them even less likely to have useful qualifications....). Still, it fits with this government's general ethos of providing something very unappealing with taxpayers' money as the State's offering and finding ways to let private organisations get involved to make a profit out of that and ultimately sneak in ways of getting more well off people to pay more to get something better than the deliberate cr*p being offered free at the port of call.