Idea: SHOULD one be able to pay for Ed. 'top-ups' in a state school? Controversial!!

[faraday]

Read no further if you're easily enraged! But you may not be!

What I mean is SHOULD there be provision for a group of parents to club together- or perhaps SUFFICIENT parents to club together to fund, say, a foreign language teacher twice a week where there isn't one? Perhaps if a school were to 'free up' a certain number of sessions a week to allow such activities (whilst providing some other meaningful activity for the non-participants with a smaller DC:teacher ratio)? I'm wondering how much per DC it would actually cost?! I'm thinking completely off the top of my head: £200 for the teacher, £100 rental of the facilities, £50 insurance etc per hour?? That'd be £25 each for 15 DCs to get that extra tuition? Not truly unaffordable! OR are my fiscal assumption pants??

Thing is, right now, apart from GEMS type schools, it's all a bit all or nothing. It's my belief that there IS quite a lot of almost 'wasted time' within school hours that could be better utilised SHOULD a parent want to?

I sometimes wish schools did 'core' in the mornings til, say 1pm or even 2pm then a willing parent could home-ed the afternoons OR, as stated, buy in an outside teacher to come into the school and teach their subject to the DCs whose parents wanted it.

The concept isn't THAT 'out there', witness peripatetic music lessons!

It's often stated that private parents, in that they're paying for sports halls only the sporty will really utilise, language labs only the linguistically gifted will use, Olympic pools that only the good swimmers will truly benefit from and grounds that often are only there for show- SHOULD perhaps investigate 'state, and fill in the gaps with tutors' but the thing is, the state system has already had your DC from 8.40 to 3.20, delivering home (as it were!) a tired and 'had enough' DC- hardly ripe for further educational enrichment!

What do you think?

Imagine how the child of parents who couldn't afford the top-up lessons but really, desperately wanted to do them would feel?

I'm wondering what your DC's school is like if you believe there's a lot of 'wasted time' in the school day - try telling that to our assistant head who does the timetables & has to fit everything in. Do you really think it's easy to 'free up' sessions for what would presumably be a random selection of children from various year groups? What are you suggesting should be dropped?
And children who take lessons from peripatetic music teachers normally miss other lessons in order to do so.

if one wanted ones dc to have these extra lessons, why not just get a private tutor outside of school. I dont really get your post, sorry.

There is no wasted time in the school day. The constraints of the National Curriculum are very significant. And what do you mean by "some other meaningful activity" - something very cheap indeed? It would be very divisive.

Either go private, or go State, or go State and pay for tutors outside school hours. Don't ask a stretched State school to facilitate "extras" that most can't afford. It goes against what State education should be about - i.e. available to all.

What I would prefer is that the Govt finances an extra hour of schooling each day for all children. There would be a choice between sport, cookery, art, environmental studies, dance, music etc etc i.e. whatever is getting squeezed within the curriculum at the moment. This would free up vast swathes of the population to be able to work (if coupled with a breakfast club) without paying for additional childcare, plus the children would get the chance to do different activities, not just NC prescribed ones. Plus also, you'd start to see the return of teachers' individual passions - flamenco lessons one term, Italian cookery the next.

But no, I wouldn't be happy with topping up within the school day just for those that could afford it.

Most state schools have extended schools where parents can pay for a range of after school or lunch time clubs, or many of the clubs are free. There is also provision to allow children whose families are on a low income do at least one paid club for free.

My son does French every Thursday lunch time and we pay £45 a term for this. Last term he did urdu (a free club)

Other children do football, dance, gymnastics, judo, Christian club, Islamic club as activities.

I feel that what my son does in lesson time is valid as well. I would not want him to miss lesssons.

Rather like Reallytired, children at our school can and do pay for top ups. Paid for extras in the day include guitar and piano. After school, an independent franchise provides French lessons. The school does not charge music and language teachers for hire of the room, so the classes are cheaper than doing them totally privately. There are also other paid for after school clubs eg. dance, tai kwondo, gardening etc.

All children get Spanish once a week as part of the normal curriculum. We are fortunate to have a Spanish teacher on staff.

In fact, all primary schools are supposed to be providing a modern foreign language by 2010 - ours already does French.