Changing the school year

[Pugdoglife]

I've just seen a petition on social media calling for the school year to be restructured.
I can't imagine the government would consider it, but it seems to have some merits.

In essence pupils would go back in the September in the school year they are currently in, they could then properly cover the work missed over the summer term.
They would then move into a new year (in some cases school) in January.
The school year could then be split from January to December with school holidays split more evenly to make the summer break shorter which might benefit working parents and children.

Year 11 and 13 students could maybe be given time to do work experience, learn life skills, do voluntary work, do more studying in school/college in preparation for exams if they dispute the grades they receive in the summer. (This would only affect them this one year)

I apologize if this has been discussed on here in detail before, I hadn't seen a thread yet.

I'm sure there are many reasons it won't work, but it seemed like a reasonable idea to me.

As an aside, why is the curriculum different in every school? Wouldn't it be better for it to be the same everywhere? So that children can move school more easily. Am I missing an obvious reason why it isn't done that way?

They tried to restructure the terms in Wales, but the teaching unions blocked it of course.

@Kittywampus

As an aside, why is the curriculum different in every school? Wouldn't it be better for it to be the same everywhere? So that children can move school more easily. Am I missing an obvious reason why it isn't done that way?

The curriculum is the same, but the units are done in different orders. So GCSE history might be cold War unit, WW2 unit and American West Unit. By the exam all units will be done, but some might do cold War in autumn and finish with AMERICAN West. Or vice versa

KS2 curriculum- certain topics are done by the end of the key stage, but some schools might do Egyptians in year 3, some might do it in year 5.

The teaching unions are not a separate entity. They are the mass of their members. Union policy comes from conference which is put forward by and voted on by members.

The recent push to keep schools closed until safe was preceded by a huge survey of members and the union carries out their wishes (the majority). In thta case 95% of those surveyed (over half the membership) voted to keep schools closed. If members change their minds, the union represents the new wishes.

Obviously its always by majority. But unions don't take a position, they take the position their members want.

DD is due to start school in September. She turns 5 at the very beginning of September.

Her staying in nursery for another 6 months to a year isn't feasible.
She would be furious. She is more than ready to move up to a more 'mature' learning environment - to hold her back would be incredibly unfair.

So no, the plan should stay as it has been for the last 20 odd years; with in year adaptations for those who need to catch up.

Year 11 have already had no meaningful work to do since March. By September they will have had 5 months off. No-one is offering work experience, and many of these kids are really bored. Another 4 months in addition to this before they can start 6th form would just be too big a gap. Some of them will have done a bit of reading for 6th form, but with no deadlines or feedback many of them wont.

How are poorer families going to afford having a child in school for an extra year instead of being earning or at university with student finance ?

However it would ensure current year 10 and 12 students actually have time to complete their studies prior to exams.

Only if the exams are delayed, they are in may 2021 regardless of whether the pupils are year 10/12 or 11/13.

That would mean extra fees for private schools too so not sure that would work.

My DD has done full days of online live lessons so I actually don't brink she's missed much. Not saying others haven't but harsh for her to have to redo it.

Our current Year 6s would hate the suggestion of delaying their start to secondary.

Not necessarily saying they're right, but in my experience they're more than ready to move on in this point in the year normally, and I have been surprised to find out that they actually seem more ready to move on this year than they even normally are. Not sure if this is universal, obviously.

@sleepydragons

However it would ensure current year 10 and 12 students actually have time to complete their studies prior to exams.

Only if the exams are delayed, they are in may 2021 regardless of whether the pupils are year 10/12 or 11/13.

If the school year was Jan - Dec the exams would be near the end of the school year, maybe September/October ish? Not May/June.

As I said in my very first post I doubted it would happen. For years I have seen posts arguing for reform, now would be a perfect opportunity to at least consider it and to all of those expecting children going full time into reception in September you might want to make back up plans.

I don't expect DD to start full time in September, what a ridiculous suggestion.

I've spoken to her teacher and they've plenty of contingency plans in place to integrate different groups at different times depending on the situation at the start of the term.

I trust a qualified teacher who knows the system inside out to settle all the kids appropriately instead of delaying them by 6 months to their detriment.

What about children starting reception whose parents are key workers? Would they also have to somehow find childcare or else give up their jobs?

@Kittywampus Seems they don't deserve consideration either.

The majority of people will be back to work in some form or another by then. Nurseries will be full with the younger cohort, same with childminders I'd imagine.
So we're back to relying on family to look after small kids or to stay at home with them and unfortunately not everyone has the luxury of those options.

@Kittywampus

What about children starting reception whose parents are key workers? Would they also have to somehow find childcare or else give up their jobs?

They would stay in nursery with the funding they already get. I'm not sure if people are choosing to not actually read my post or just jump to the position of perpetually offended by any suggestions of change.

I was responding to your last post where you said to all of those expecting children going full time into reception in September you might want to make back up plans

Okay, so where do the spaces come from for the children of nursery age whose parents need to return to work?

No space in the 3-4 room because the school aged children have been left behind, domino effect on all the other rooms - no one can move up, no spaces, parents can't go back to work.

Kitty, I literally just answered the question, the children of keyworkers expecting their children to start reception would continue in their funded nursery places. The same as any other children expecting to begin reception.

The likelihood of schools being a stable and reliable source of full time child care for any given pupil in the autumn term seems slim, so why would people want to rely on it? That's why I said about back up plans.

I imagine nurseries would struggle financially too if they had to keep on all of the 4 year olds with funded places so that there would be no room for full fee paying babies.

Apologies, I had the impression from your post that you expected the 4 year olds to lose their nursery places.

However some of the parents of babies who were expecting to start nursery in September will also be key workers such as nurses on maternity leave. So the issue is still there.

Perhaps what we would need is more childminders to care for babies, with nurseries catering for ages 2-5ish.?

I think a lot of nurseries will have some capacity due to those who will unfortunately have lost jobs not requiring childcare anymore or those on reduced hours needing less childcare.

As I've already said it seems to be an issue exclusively for those ending maternity leave between September and December who would be affected and the government could look at helping those people in someway. In comparison to the figures for furlough we would be looking at small amounts of financial help for a short time.
The wider issues for years 10, 12 and universities seem to be bigger.

Interesting point made about international students at some point in the thread, without knowing the start and finish times of the academic year for every country across the world I couldn't make an informed comment.

It feels like you just don't get the point plenty are making which is funding for nursery places will end and what then? Also in private provision the nurseries which haven't closed ( currently 90 @ week folding ) the children can't stay as their places have already been contactually allocated to new children. Where would those children go?

A delay would be horrible for years 6 and 11.
Im not over worried about my year 12 who has been set work by her teachers and has kept up with it. I think they are already talking about some minor adjustments to next years exams, especially coursework elements.
I would be very worried about my year 11 if she didn't start 6th form in September. I don't mind if it is partially online but they have to start something. These kids have had NOTHING to do since March as they had finished GCSE courses, so would have been revising and doing exams.If they started in Jan that would be 9 months with nothing to do.. Most workplaces are not taking work experience at the moment, and volunteering opportunities are being taken up by fuloughed workers.

As an aside, why is the curriculum different in every school? Wouldn't it be better for it to be the same everywhere? So that children can move school more easily. Am I missing an obvious reason why it isn't done that way?

It's the same reason that even different teachers in the same school, teaching the same subject to the same year group do different things, i.e. different topics, or different text books, or different worksheets. Teachers seem to prefer to do their own thing.

Now we have the likes of online homework systems where you can see what other forms/classes are doing, it really highlights the massive differences between teachers.