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.

I don't like the proposals.

Erebus I note in your first post on this thread that you believe teachers don't work any harder than the rest of us. Well I found a payslip from 2004 back when I was still teaching, and I can assure that compared to what I do now, I was working 3x more for less money. And salaries haven't risen all that much. The only thing I miss about teaching is the actual teaching. Everything else was meh at best, making me depressed and ill at worst. And I have an Oxbridge degree.

People who suggest that teachers should just suck it up and that other professions have shitty demands placed on them too are being rather short-sighted.

Children benefit from well-qualified, well-rested, energetic and enthusiastic teachers. If you want to improve education you don't do it in such a way that the best qualified jump ship because they can, and you are left with lesser-qualified, knackered, demotivated and pissed-off teachers. Children will not do better in those circumstances!

In France the government is trying (rather unsuccessfully so far) to shorten the school day. There are rumours that the 9 week summer break might be reduced to 6 weeks.

I don't know why DC need to spend more time at school. School is quite dull and there is plenty of it already. I want my DCs to do all the much more interesting things that they can do outside the classroom, both in the afternoons/evenings and during the holidays.

For a start, duchesse, going from 13 weeks annual leave to 4 or 5 for broadly similar pay might be a bit of a shock!

In am, tbh, a bit disappointed that where I said "I am not for a second suggesting teachers would be unemployable outside of the educational environment- though, as in all professions, some would", your response was "Ooh yes, of course, those teachers with their utterly non-transferable skill set". Where did I say that? I was merely pointing out that 'irreplaceable' is no longer the trump card it once was, and I suspect Gove will call your bluff! And you know what? I suspect that there will be no haemorrhage as many teachers will look over the side into the increasingly choppy waters below and decide not to jump.

I used to work in public HC in Australia on a comfortable number. Our union, like yours, had done a magnificent job regarding our T&C. After the NHS, I couldn't believe it! But, inevitably, the process called 'Agenda for Change' came along (called 'job redesign', there) and sure enough, our benefits were gradually eroded, but we recognised that we'd been in hay for a long time relative to many other professions. We fought, of course, and won some concessions but the govt knew we actually would be unlikely to jump, despite our very-transferable skill-set and sure enough. Few did. And, oddly, some of the new way of doing things worked quite well for us!

I am not suggesting teachers should take change for the sake of it but change is certainly coming like it as for most of the rest of us, but 'we want to keep on doing it this way because that's the way we've always done it' isn't actually evidence based, is it?.

Bonsoir that's working well only if one of the parent stays at home to do all these nice things outside of school.
If you aren't, then it's after school clubs and the like until the parents go back home.
Which means late at night in France, where the days, ime, are longer than here in the UK.

Erebus I don't think teachers would be against the change because they don't like change. They would be against the change because there is no way they can do ore work in a week than they already are. And longer hours in class means more preparation.
And as Bonsoir was mentioning, in France they want to reduce the length of the school days. Bearing in mind atm children go to school 4 days a week, not 5. And that they will start (again) to go to school 4 and a half day a week from this september.
The idea is that they will redistribute the total number of hours over the whole year in a different way (shorter days, shorter hols). Not just increase the number of hours spend in a school in total.
Before anything like this is implemented, I want to know WHY it would be beneficial for the children to have more hours in a classroom.

I think the school day is long enough for primary school children. However, I think it should be longer for secondary age. Finishing school at 3.05pm is too early once you're in your teens. My kids leave the house at 8.15 and are home before 3.30pm.

I'd like to see the longer hours being taken up with homework clubs and other enrichment activities such as sport, music, drama.

I speak as a mum to two teens who are set no more than half hours homework a week and refuse to take part in any extra curricular activities.

I'm all for kids being kids, but with a school day of 5 hours teaching time, negligible homework, no interest in extra curricular stuff and 13 weeks holiday a year, my kids have more down time than is good for them.

I can see that for those of you who have young children, children with a long commute to school or children that take part in a lot of clubs your views might be different.

LadyInDisguise - a parent or an employee at home. I had lunch with a friend of mine yesterday who is a working single parent with three DC (9, 5, 5). She has 75 hours worth of nanny and cleaner per week in order to fill in the gaps in her life.

There are going to be 3 more classroom hours (not academics) in French schools that undertake the reform. They just aren't going to be obligatory.

Longer lunch breaks can be a nightmare for anyone being bullied or who struggles to make friends.

Gove wants to extend the school day for childcare reasons. After school care is avaliable now but being optional he doesn't like that because parents can choose what works best for them. However by making the school day longer SAHP or part time workers will no longer need to do so to be around in the many holidays and after a short day hence will be pressured more to work all hours.

Contary to Gove's claims that those with a SAHP belong in the 19th C, actually 2 million families have a SAHP-over 1/3. Many more are p/t so indeed we do still have a system where parents cut work to be around for their DC.

It's a ridiculous idea.

When are teachers meant to fit in marking, meetings, parents evening, lesson planning etc, if they're teaching longer days?!

Many teachers have families too, who would lose out, if it means teachers have to stay later to have meetings/parents evenings etc.

Parents who work full-time support this, as they simply want free childcare for their children, and not to have to bother making arrangements after school hours. Schools are NOT childcare, they are places of learning.

"Bright graduates would not consider teaching and those who have been in the job a few years who have good degrees could retrain into all the alternatives they had when they graduated" -AS could just about anyone else! Teachers are not 'a special case' in this regard. I have a science diploma and a science degree as a HCP. I too could get quite a few point exemptions to retrain in a lot of different things- but would I? Could I afford to? Would I really want to go back to the bottom rung of a new profession?

"As ever, if you suddenly change a reward structure negatively, the ones who leave are those who can, the brightest and best, and those who stay are the ones you would probably want to leave". Hmm. I wonder. And I bet Gove does too! What he'd do is to reward what he'd define as 'success' and not reward 'pedestrian'. Suddenly you might find those highly skilled, highly trained teachers more eager to 'put in'. He could make it a short term benefit, ie not available to this year's graduates and beyond and lo, not so many complaints as it doesn't affect me (divide and conquer- an effective technique).

From what I've read, France is an interesting case, taking a good hard look at itself in terms of where it's heading. No one praises its rigid, hard-line educational system; its public service has to be reformed as France simply cannot afford it any more. I suspect, sadly, we may yet see France join the PIIGS.

"Children benefit from well-qualified, well-rested, energetic and enthusiastic teachers. If you want to improve education you don't do it in such a way that the best qualified jump ship because they can, and you are left with lesser-qualified, knackered, demotivated and pissed-off teachers. Children will not do better in those circumstances!" - Sadly that argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny, inasmuch as the sort of jobs these teachers might be jumping ship to do involve long hours, stress, competition that demotivate and piss-off just like teaching might.

But with 4 or 5 weeks A/L p.a. instead of 13.

I am not advocating that it should be a race to the bottom; the idea that just because my profession has become ridiculously overworked and stressful over the past 5-10 years (and I can hardly be called 'rested' if I've been in half the night on-call!) means yours should but I cannot see exactly why teachers should be exempt from adapting to modern realities.

Erebus, the teaching profession is already haemorrhaging good teachers, 50% drop out within 5 years. The country is wasting millions training new teachers who never take up a job. Teaching isn't a comfortable profession, it's a bloody tough one and a lot of teachers I know are only still there by the skin of their teeth and this sort of bollocks would be enough to push them out.

The government needs to be doing more to make teaching an attractive profession, to save good teachers from leaving and to save money training new teachers to replace them (many of whom then realise it's not all it's cracked up to be and find something better to do).

Bastard (do change your name )- I agree entirely with what you've said.

Do you have a link that that '50% drop out within 5 years' statistic, noble. I knew it was high - especially in the post qualifying year - but that's staggering.

My children go to private schools. The days are longer. They do they homework at school so by the time they come home at 1800 the evening is their's. They go to school on Saturday.

It works very well for them and us. They have fairly strict bedtimes. When they have messed around (and I havent heard it!) and stayed up much later they have now recognised just how terrible they feel. Good lesson to learn. The school holidays are too long.

My DM was a teacher. She was always home by 1600 and I dont remember any working during school hols. It was an ideal role for someone with children. Teachers are working no harder than the rest of us tbh. And how many teachers are fired due to incompetence? Very few I fear.

I think a big problem here is inconsistency With the current model. Bastard points out about the down time in the school where their children go.

However, where I work our day is 9-3.35. We have an incredibly strict home learning policy which adds on at least a couple of hours to each day. We provide after school and before school clubs already, so the school is actually already open from 8-6.

We are rural and some children have a 40 min plus commute.

Erebus,

What do you think the median salary is for mid 30s-mid40s graduates from Russell universities with good degrees? I would wager it is circa 80k (at least), with many many earning 6 figures. And what do teachers of that age earn?

If teaching wants these people within it, it either has to compete on salary or in other ways?

And I didn't want to get to to an argument about how hard I work, but comparing a teachers role from 20 years ago to today is ridiculous.

The job has changed completely.

Larry, the average salary is £26k which includes everyone from low paid workers to the very highly qualified. Are you really saying that teachers should be earning £80k everywhere in the UK.

£80k is perhaps not unusual in London but outside and for a role that gives you weeks and weeks of holidays......??And these are roles that allow you to retire at 60 with a final salary pension. Where on earth is the money going to come from to fund this??

christina, not sure whether they regularly collect data on this, 50% is what I was told a few years back, however, this suggests that figure is about right

"84. The Department for Education told us that "retention of teachers is low", and that "of those who are employed in the maintained sector in the first year of qualifying, 73% were still teaching in the maintained sector five years later".[141] However, the statistics for those who began teacher training show the percentage teaching in the maintained sector five years after qualification is even lower at 52% for undergraduate routes and 57% for postgraduate."

www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmeduc/1515/151508.htm

Also it says "

These factors bear some relation to the most commonly-cited barriers to retention of good teacher: Smithers and Robinson find that the five main reasons which "underpin reasons for leaving" the profession are workload, new challenge, school situation, personal circumstance, and salary, with workload "by far the most important, and salary the least"

I think more investigation into the reasons for the success (if this is how it is being defined) of "Asian education" is necessary. IMO educational success is primarily down to the ability of the teacher and aided greatly by the respect accorded teachers by the pupils. In the UK we fall down on the second point in particular. This is why a huge class of 50 can function well in Africa but a class of 25 can struggle in the UK. Ask any teacher who has volunteered abroad how it is to teach a huge class of dc desperate to learn. It is entirely different.

If the aim is that we are to approach Asian exam results by having school-days of equivalent length, yet the extra hours are to be filled with extra-curricular activities such as sport and music, and supervised play, I doubt we will be successful. This is not what Asian dc are doing at school, I am quite sure of this. So although some parents have posted that they would find this ok, I don't think it can be what Gove is proposing.

We can have a school day of the same length here but we will not get the same results. If you go into a South Korean, Indian or Chinese classroom, I suspect that you would find entirely different teaching methods to those generally used in the UK. I would imagine quite formal, very structured and strict. This works because the dc are prepared to accept it and aim to shine within this system. The dc are under parental pressure to achieve and I cannot imagine that many schools in these countries tolerate disruptive or rude behaviour. I have no first-hand experience of it but I just think the attitudes and learning conditions are very different to what we have.

Handcream - out of interest in the privatr school system - do your children do brownies/cubs, and do they do ballet/football etc during school hours? Is there provision during the day for pupils to do them?

These are the things I don't want my kids to lose. They do dancing, music lessons, cubs, brownies, rainbows, football training out of school (and music, choir, after school clubs too). They have friends outside of school who they see regularly through these activities. Saturday mornings are for drama and footy. They achieve really well at school, but it is part of their life - not all of it.

I should say that these activities are spread across four children - so it seems a lot.

DC1 is in year 6 doing his SATS as well as level 6. He has loads of homework and is fucking miserable at school this year as it is. I'd have a very unhappy child if he had to spend even more time there.

I also don't think we should be comparing education systems across the globe without comparing cultural differences such as extended families.

This is all about raising future tax payers, not about raising happy people.

This is all about raising future tax payers, not about raising happy people.

I agree - we have got to a situation where our governing class doesn't think about anything more than how it can suck the life and money out of the electorate in order to make its own spending decisions.