10 hour day

[stupidgirl]

Not sure if this should go here or under 'in the news'.

I read in the paper (read today, but paper was about 2 weeks old!) about a proposal to increase the school day to hours. So school would start at 8am, with the school providing breakfasts, and not finish until 6pm - in order to make life easier for working parents.

What does anyone think of this idea?

Private schools charge extra, pay their staff extra for doing it, and also emply extra staff. My son goes to a before school creche from 8-8.50, so that I can get to my school briefing at 8.30. He also sometimes goes to after school crech for about 10 mintes if i get caught in traffic in the afternoon. Sometimes he goes for longer whenI have a meeting. He is not looked after by his classroom teacher, but by other classroom assistants who are employed for pre/post school creche.

I will not be taking after school homework clubs etc till 6. I would leave the profession first. I already do way over 40 hours a week, I have no intention of adding another 10.

My oldest son has experienced a 10 hour day, when he was in years 1, 2 and 3. He went to breakfast and afterschool clubs and was fine. But he had hardly any homework to do on top of this. Times have changed - primary schools seem to give out more homework. Attempting homework each evening after 6.00 would have made his day impossibly long IMO.

tbh, my son experienced more stress and tiredness tbh when I started to collect him from school and take him to all the extracurricular activities he said he wanted to go to. Life became a blurr of cubs, judo, swimming lessons, journeys all over the place, diffferent people to meet each night, an hour or so jampacked with organised activity, essential kit to remember. And as he moved up the school, homework kicked in. We had to prune extracurricular stuff to a couple of things a week to make life bearable again.

Going on my experience, I'm in favour of a 10 hour day (for parents who need this) as long as children get the chance to chill out with schoolfriends at a play club or finish the week's homework at a homework club (the latter not run solely by teachers)

Sounds similar to my dd's school SueW, drop off at 8 am no charge (registration at 8.30) and again charge of approx £3 per hour till 6 pm (including tea). dd's official school day finishes at 4.10 anyway now she's in Yr 3.