School to be built with no playground or breaktimes because if children are enjoying lessons they don't need breaks - Has the world gone mad??

[coppertop]

The link is here but it takes a while to load.

A new secondary school is being built without a playground and the plan is to have no breaks either. I found the following quote quite disturbing:

"Project manager for the academy Miles Delap also defended the decision and said: ?This will not be like a traditional school, and we are setting it up like a business. You would not expect office workers to be allowed outside to run around."

My children aren't yet at secondary school age but this seems like complete madness to me. This is a state school btw.

Does this happen in other schools?

And of course people don't ever get up from their desks to wander to the water coller, share a joke with a colleague or walk down to the seet shop or pub? maddness - imagine teaching children who have not been let out all day!

contribution to a nation of obese kids !

They need to stretch their legs, and heaven knows I need a coffee!!!! I don't think that nation's teachers could cope without coffee!!!

be Ok if they have lots and lots of PE/games/active lessons.

have always wished school was only half a day, not a whole day - think that'd ever happen?

That's awful. Children need time to relax and refresh themselves between lessons - space to breathe a bit and let off some steam.

Business is all very well, but schools aren't offices, and children aren't office workers.

Don't office workers have coffee breaks, chats with colleagues, things like that? Work is not always intensive in the same way that school classes are. And what about pee breaks? Are the children expected to miss parts of their classes if they need to go to the loo - because they won't be able to wait until breaktime.

I would lay odds that Miles Delap doesn't have children ...

They will all get rickets from vitamin D deficiency if they're not allowed outside! Loopy idea.

How will they make friends with no breaks?

The idea of running a school like a business is evil. Why not just send them out to work and have done with it?

Sounds completely mad.

A teacher friend tells me she hates wet playtimes/lunchtimes as the childrens' behaviour often deteriorates

Even if you are enjoying your lesson your brain needs a break. This is just silly. Its not good for the teachers or the students

Mercy, dd's teacher says the same. If the kids can't go out at breaktime they get wound up more easily, more boisterous in the classroom, tempers fray, and there's more bad behaviour.

I know that's only a Year 1 class, but surely the same applies to older children as well?

I think you should tell him

Gardiner & Theobald LLP

Main contact
Miles Delap

Address
32 Bedford Square
London
WC1B 3JT

Telephone
0207 209 4312

Fax
0207 209 1979

Email
[email protected]

This is a state school !!??

Personally, I don't agree with this strategy at all.

I will prob be sending my DS to a Steiner Kindergarten as the current state system does not offer any variety in style of education....

....and then this happens at the cost of goodness knows how many millions of pounds!!??

I am genuinely upset at this.

This kind of school may work very well for some children, so I do not wish to condemn the idea. I hope for a future of variety within the state system which could well include this kind of school, but what about the other end of the spectrum ?

Employees? Setting it up like a business? If my kids are gonna be employees they better be paid. And my kids are pretty darn skilled so they better get more than the minimum wage so they can pay the big old rent I will start charging them. Oh, and workers have a statutory right to breaks and annual leave. And if I have a daughter who becomes a pregnant mother i hope she's going to get a good maternity package.

Hmm. How come this shower got permission to build a school like this? Is this a joke?

Well if parents are supine enough to send their kids there... I wonder who will be organising the boycott?

What a crap idea.

"You would not expect office workers to be allowed outside to run around" Well perhaps not, but office workers aren't usually aged between 11 and 16 either. Miles Delap is an arse.

we didn't have a playground at my secondary school but we did have the sports field where we could go if we wanted. most of us preferred to stay indoors unless we wanted to sunbathe.

I think it is bad enough that some employees don't take a proper break, and have lunch at their desks etc, never mind kids ffs!

And I agree with ScummyMummy re: employee status. Pension, right to join trade union, the lot.

do think they should be allowed to have breaks though.

NOt read the whole thread, but I hope they get no applicants.

Are you sure Miles Delap isn't an anagram of something? OK, I haven't worked out what yet, but I really can't believe this is serious.

' we are setting it up like a business'

says it all really.What a wanker.

The only thing I liked about high school was break times, and sitting on the grass in the summer. With so many school playing fields being sold off for housing, is this the governments idea of the new way forward?

I live in Italy where children only get 15/20 minutes play a day generally. However their school day is normally 8-1 with 15/20 minutes for snack at 10.30ish. I teach primary school and yes they are much more difficult to control and you have to make the class more fastpaced. However they all go home at 1 and do another 1/2 hours of homework in the afternoon. Without the afternoon I think the kids would go crazy. I know plenty of kids from the high school and the situation is the same there.

You can't treat children as you would adults and expect reasonable learning outcomes. I think its disgusting treating children and little more than product on a production line, which is how it appears to me.