Gove says lengthen school days and shorten long summer holiday

[juneau]

Here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22202694

I think it's a great idea and I'm sure working parents will welcome it. I also think it's bollocks that teachers need the six week summer break to recharge their batteries. Do they work harder or longer hours than other workers who only get four or five weeks a year then?

Having just endured a bored DS1 over the Easter holidays I think any break of more than two weeks is actually pretty dull for kids and I'm sure poorer kids really suffer from lack of stimulation and/or money to do stuff.

Stop the teacher bashing. Unless you have experienced teaching you have no idea what you are talking about.

What it suggests to me is more family friendly as the hours between 315-6 wouldn't be spent driving to various clubs/sporting events and then persuading reluctant children to do their homework. They would come back at 6 ready for a family meal and a chat about their day.

hahahahaha! No, they would be back at 6 bored, tired and grumpy.

Again I feel like I am living on a different planet

Possibly because you are indeed living on a different planet.

Sorry from POV of parent.

It seems like a lot of the people in favour of this just want extra free childcare.

I expect they do SoupDragon. Children are inconvenient. The proposals allow them to have them in an institution, for free, and just have them out for 'quality time'. ( ignoring the fact they will be overtired and grumpy).

exotic I understand how a teachers pay works, its very simple! Do I get a sticker?

And I don't want my children to have a longer day, we get in 4pm or later if there are clubs or we go to the park on the way home etc. If we got in at 6pm it would just be a rush to get dinner, homework and them in bed by 7:30 so I would see my children for an hour and a half after school and if they morning stayed the same I would see them for an hour before we want out to go to school! Less than. That for ds1 who has a bus to catch.

If you work and choose to do that fine, do so using CHILDCARE after school. Don't expect all children to have a long day because you want free childcare, and that is what a few are wanting. Thankfully the majority of parents working or not can see it would be a bad idea.

My five yr old gets home from school and has a nap some days, no way could he cope with being at school any later!

Gove is comparing directly to places like Singapore, I think.
I would like someone who is very familiar with Oriental education systems to comment at length. I have the impression that it's very uncommon for children not to be tutored, for instance, at least a few hours/week. A culture of high parental involvement is the huge key factor in their high attainment levels.

Something like 60% of Singapore youth wear glasses by year 7. It's all the indoor time (Only like 9% of similar children in Australia wear glasses).

1 in 20 British teens are depressed (5%).
22% of Singapore children think regularly about suicide.

All that high attainment comes at a price.

I think I need a bit more information befor eI really form an opinion on this proposal. But here ar emy initial thoughts.

I'm in favour of a longer school day, but possibly not for all ages. I now have one in year 5 and one in year 3. And they would both certainly be well served with a longer school day. But, i would still want time for some of the things we do after school, if they are not overed during school (tennis, tutoring, music lessons, etc.).

As a working parent, I'm not sure this would really affect me. I would still need wrap around care to cover my working day plus commute time.

We would need to think about impact to the traffic in London. Those of us who commute know how nice and empty the trains are when the kids on on break. So, let's consider what will happen to the traffic when children are tavelling to/from school in the same rush hours as the rest of us. I don't think this is a reason not to extend the day, but it something which will need to be considered.

I am not for shortening the summer holidays, but I would be for reducing/shorting all of the breaks between terms and in half terms. It's a waste of time, my children are bored, and the childcare bill goes up.

I don't really understand what the objective of these proposed changes is. Are we intending to improve our children's education simply by extending the school day? I suppose there is some merit in that, but it raises some questions. What will the additional time be spent on? Will the curriculum change? Will there be more extracurricular options?

TERRIBLE IDEA, children should be at home with parents more not less, if parents want to dump their kids on teachers for even longer why did they bother having children? If they feel like this, the parents who think this is a good idea should work longer hours and pay for boarding schools, as it seems like they want as less contact time with their children as possible.

On the bright side, govt couldn't continue to ban school-kids from taking holidays in term time. Very obviously this expectation would be ridiculous.

Japan primary: school days about the same as ours. But 240 days/yr! They literally only get 4-4.5 weeks away from school all yr.

South Korea: 8.5 hours/day on school premises, and 220 days of school per year (compared to our 195, so 3.5 weeks more of school, and therefore about 9 wks of holidays).

...and the childcare bill goes up.

IMO, tough. This is not a valid reason to shorten holidays at all.

exotic - teacher get holiday pay of 28 days per year as there is a section in the Union book explaining how if they leave after maternity leave they get holiday pay in some cases, depending on which part of the year they leave as they accrue holiday pay whilst on maternity leave. This was recently on another thread and if you like I can go back and find the information and link to it later if you like

I clicked on this and knew instantly that I shouldn't have - I didn't
need to read any of it to know what would be said, for instance, we'll have:

Primarily those who haven't read the proposal, or read what they wanted into it (i.e. when it says 'shorter holidays', it doesn't say 'less holiday', does it? Maybe it means the same 13 weeks more evenly spread across the year? Hmm?)

SAHM who love long holidays who relish not having to get out of bed in the morning to see DC off to school,

Well off parents who love the opportunity to jet around the world to exotic destinations with their DC 'for cultural experiences'

People from countries that have months off over summer and reckon it did them no harm, but who overlook that such countries tend to be the 'failing men' of Europe, flying in the face of Gove's nominated success stories like Singapore and HK

Teachers, whom I generally support but who actually don't work harder than many of the rest of us yet who get considerably more A/L.

Those who instantly leap on anyone who mentions 'childcare issues' immediately implying that all parents see school as is free child care, instead of say recognising that yes, it'd be an awful lot easier to manage a younger DC's day if you didn't have to find care for them from 3 onwards every school day! You'll note most privates offer a long day!

People who seem to have overlooked that 'summer' as such is no longer August any more. it rained just about all of the past 4, whereas June tends to give you a better chance of reasonable weather. If you moved the hols around, you could have 2 weeks in June, 4 in August (ish) and 2 in October, thus increasing the chance you'd have better weather over at least one of them and allowing you three different separate opportunities to go to that villa for 2 weeks. Sure, the holiday companies would bump up the prices then, as well, but they do anyway!

Personally, I would like to see longer days for secondary DC, say from Y8 or 9 onwards. They could have assisted homework clubs and do sport in that time, for instance. My run-of-the-mill 13 year old could definitely handle a 9-4.30 or 5 day. My friend's DS, at 7 were doing 9-4 (prep, of course), and, far from killing them,they are doing just fine. Yes, they get 17 weeks holiday a year- and their mum finds they get bored and it's hard to get them back into 'mode' at the end of 9 weeks off, and they are the ones who 'jet off here and there' most of the hols!

As a teacher, I think I would welcome a shorter summer Holliday, as long as those two weeks or so were spread out across the year. Currently with the after school and before school clubs we run, children can easily be in school from 8-6. I think it's a shame. I want to be able to do things with my own children.

What about home learning too?mwould you seriously expect a child to come home at 5-6 and then have to do homework as well,

Why can't we just let them be children?

Oh, and remarks like: "Ridiculous! Children should be at home with their parents more, not less!"

Um- you know what? Most mums work these days and get 4 or 5 weeks off a year; They do it to support such fripperies and paying the mortgage and the gas bill. What year do people live in if they imagine looong, happy school holiday hours frolicking in the sun, lashings of ginger beer, and mummy at home whipping up a fresh batch of buns before doing herself up all nice before daddy gets home from work?

No, these DC are in the highest priced childcare in Europe whilst their parents work.

The world has moved on from when school hours and holiday distributions were set, but it seems to be the groups most vehemently opposed to any discussion of this are:

-the relatively wealthy with the SAHM who can afford for her not to work
-the benefit dependent SAHM for whom working just wouldn't pay enough to be worth her while once CC costs were factored in
-the teachers

That's because teachers know the hell that is 'period 5!'

So surely the argument is for affordable childcare and not seeing extending the school day as a solution to this problem?

Are schools going to provide swimming lessons, dance classes, football training, music lessons - the things that children do outside of school. Mine don't get home from brownies and cubs until 8.30 - so should all this e sacrificed so they can do more lessons?

In South Korea, the children have a very long school day as most go to after-school private tutors for English/music/sport etc. lessons. You can see the buses bringing them home as late as 9 pm. In the summer, you can hear middle-school age children playing outside at 10 to 11 pm, as it is the only time they get to play. Children also go to school on Saturday mornings every other week.

High-school students have to study hard to pass the extremely challenging exams to get into higher education. There are many children in orphanages who won't be adopted due to the high cost of high School and further education.

South Korea also has the highest youth suicide rate in the world, thought to be due to the intense pressure to succeed.

And why is this seen as a change because mums are working? Affordable childcare and flexible working are what's needed. The childcare argument is separate to the school days argument.

Dreadful idea, the school day is long enough as it is and my children also get tired by the end of term. They love their six week summer holidays just as I did when I was a kid. We can't afford to do lots of activities but my children don't find the six weeks boring.

children actually learn a lot through play, and through being bored.

Through play they learn real problem solving and social skills, friendship lessons, sports skills, to name a few things.

I have been to Singapore a few times for work, and my nephews go to school there, and lots of parents lament the high stress competitive environment of their schools. I know quite a few who look to England as an educational success story! I am thankful my kids do not have to go to school there. It is excellent in a way, you get high achieving kids but also lots of burned out,stressed out ones!

My children are 8 and 10, and by the time I pick them up from school they are tired and hungry. Leaving them inside a classroom for longer seems cruel, and to be honest not in the best interest of the children.

If the cannot be taught well in the long hours between 9 and 4, the school is not doing its job! The quality of education in Britain could be improved, but throwing more hours at kids does not solve this.

I can understand it would be convenient for working parents, but that does not mean it would be the best solution for the kids.

Maybe an opt-in wrap around care option would be best.

I'll have join in later as I have to go to work

Sorry Avril it was late last night!

I wouldn't need childcare if the holidays weren't 13 week would I ?

I still don't understand this idea teachers don't get paid holidays
I work full time, get 4 weeks holiday
If I had to fit my yearly hours into 40? Weeks then I'd expect to work longer hours if I then wanted 13 weeks off

So if you spread the terms out, perhaps teachers would have to work extra hours, or be paid overtime if they did (like the rest if us)

Anyway, the argument here seems to be that the holidays are for the benefit of the children, not to fit around people's work. I thought that the holidays were set like this historically to fit around farmers - so their children could work on the farm?

Girl - who said anything about them doing h/w when they get in 'after 5 or 6pm'? Why not get the DC to do an hour's homework at school in a supervised environment? Then at 6pm (Latest!! I'd say!) they're home and the rest of the evening is their and their family's own.

As for 'children being children', you'd have to define that. What does that mean, exactly? Surely that's no different that imposing a cultural expectation to 'let grown ups be grown ups'.

Much though I dislike Gove, and I do, I'd have to say that his recognition that the world 'out there' is changing and our own DC need to be able to compete in it isn't bad. Sure, there are 'cultural elements' (such as there being no social security in Singapore!) but if our DC are to be able to keep up in future, they need to get with the program a bit more. And it could be argued, private schools have kept pace far more than state schools have.

FWIW, I don't think a 'longer school day' in itself will improve everyone's outcome as yes, it is cultural. My DC will do well because I support and cajole them every step of the way. We expect them to do well, and we are educated people who can help our DC effectively. We believe an extra hour or so tacked onto our DC's school day would see them doing sport, clubs, enrichment activities relevant to where they're at in their curricula, their homework in a supervised environment, maybe; our school is a high achieving comp in a leafy MC area. Other schools might have the offspring of the hostile and disenfranchised wandering aimlessly and destructively around the campus for that extra hour because they come from a different cultural background.

I personally see trouble ahead. I see a very different world looming, one where, like it or not, competition for jobs is going to be worse than we could possibly imagine, even low paid, zero hours contract ones. There will barely be a welfare state to fall back on and things could well get ugly. Any responsive educational system that recognises that we may need to do more to give our DC the best chance to compete in that environment is OK by me! You might like to ponder that whilst yours are dancing through the meadows, picking flowers and 'getting bored'.