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.

Depends on what you're teaching and what your expertise is. I know teachers who have left and become freelance translators, set up B&Bs, become parish and town clerks, rugby coaches, seamstresses, alternative therapists, catering companies, etc... The main motivation seems to be one's own boss, which might say a lot about where the stresses are coming from...

Massive shortage of tutors in our area - I could imagine, specially if more people decided to home ed, that this could be a growth area.

I think Gove going to spend a couple of weeks in a comprehensive would be a great idea - even if he went to a middle rated one I suspect it would be a massive eye opener for him.....I seriously doubt he has a clue.

I don't think it's even about the teachers at all - what about the children? I don't know about yours, but mine are knackered when they get back from school as it is and in the last week of term are barely able to function. The research on this doesn't support longer days at all and in Finland - up there at the top of the league tables, they have shorter days and longer holidays because their society is geared around family and play and the recognition that cultural capital contributes as much to education as school - like to Mum above said, trips to museums and holidays and visits. Maybe what we need is high quality school holiday child care which is about these kinds of enrichment experiences rather than more school. I wish Michael Gove would use evidence, rather than trying to split teachers and parents into a fight.

If you do have worries about his policies not being rooted in evidence, there is a parent's petition at www.thinking-about-education.co.uk/parents-petition - I think it's called 'Our Children Are Not Political Footballs.'

if school days were longer ad holidays shorter i would take my children out of school,they are there too much as it is.
its not about the kids at all,this,its just about getting people to be able to work more so they can pay more tax.

To clarify, as I really feel that some people are confused over some facts:

• The teacher's working day is not the same length of time as a child's school day.

In order for a school to function teachers must arrive before children arrive and leave after children arrive. This enables teachers and teaching staff to prepare the classroom for pupils, to have work ready and to have set up any required resources, among other things.

• School holidays = teacher's flexible non contact time plus holiday time.

This then is enabling them to plan, prep, mark and assess in order to provide well thought out, differentiated lessons which engage all children in their care and to know what progress each child is making against set out parameters.
During that time teachers may work in schools (most are often for various times throughout holidays, often determined by the care taker) or they may chose to work from home.
Also during that time teachers will take their holiday and rest time.

It's just another attempt at messing about with something that will annoy many in order to slip through something else that isn't quite as bad.

INowHaveAReplacemtentForFATWWTRCTiggaxx

if this ever happens, they'll need to provide a bed for DD to have her post school nap (medical condition which wipes her out), and then I'd have to insist on someone medically trained to supervise her physio exercises, as that can't be left beyond 5pm as she's too exhausted. But on the plus side, it won't then be up to me to keep her awake and focused on homework, that will be someone else's problem .

If this ever happens I'd withdraw my daughter from school.

If it ever happens we could run a bookin how long it would take the daily mail to run an article on how parents are sending their children into school to tired to cope with the day.

I'm a primary school teacher. I think the long school holidays are a bad idea as a lot of children regress and the first half term is spent going over what they should already know. I think 3 weeks is enough.

I also think that a slightly longer day is fine - this is because there isn't enough time to teach what we should be teaching in a fun and creative way. Most schools find it hard to fit in enough PE, drama, speaking and listening, role play etc and this just doesn't happen. A longer day would allow for PE every day and give us the opportunity to be more creative with learning. As long as it didn't mean that expectations were raised.

Most schools have breakfast clubs and after school clubs anyway so parents with childcare issues can use these.

I also think that we have to question parenting and the role that this plays in a child's education. In my experience parents are the single biggest influence on their child's education. Not in terms of sitting down and teaching them but from the moment they are born, stimulating them, talking to them, taking them on fun days out, reading to them, playing with them etc. This has such a profound impact on a child that if this has not taken place by the time they come to school it is virtually impossible to turn around. I am tired of listening to the amount of things we should be teaching children at school that quite frankly should be standard things they learn in a family environment.

I have worked in schools for years now and I really don't see that level of regression from children. We may see some - but partly that is down to the fact that children haven't been in the routine, rather than lost learning. Within a few short days pretty much every child is back up to speed in my experience. What I do see is far more relaxed and energised children coming into school, especially compared with the last week or two of a term.

And again - how do independent schools cope - their children are off for far longer. Yet all seem to do very well again despite additional weeks from school.

And you talk of parents having a larger role in education. Hmmm, now if children are going to be at school longer each day and be in school for more weeks in each year - when exactly will parents get to do that?

sieglinde - none of the independent schools locally have Saturday school in any way shape or form!

tiggytape I think you might have been responding to me since I mentioned what I'd heard on Radio Four about Finland.

Totally agree with you that you can't cherry pick one aspect of a foreign education system and say that applying it here would produce the same results. I guess that's one of my points on this issue - that it would seem there's no systematic use of evidence in any of Michael Gove's policies (he has ignored decades of academic research in his new curriculum reforms; I have heard him making blatantly inaccurate statements about what is and isn't taught in schools and having no reply when confronted on it, etc.). And it also supports the point I was trying to make a couple of pages back which is that changing school hours on it's own is not going to make one bit of difference here or there. It just doesn't mean anything by itself.

My main feeling, anyway, is that this has to be about what kind of life/culture we want to produce for our children - and that there's therefore no point in getting into a debate about how hard teachers do or don't work.

I can't see that even with six weeks holiday that any regression will be more than they would see if the children were forced into longer days and shut down. Working them to that point and taking away the one time of year where there's no homework and they can actually do nothing , would surely lead to far worse regression. We all collapse intend sofa at the kids bed time and think "thank god" now to see that exhaustion by 30 and that's what teachers feel.

To see? Times. - iPhone typos

Hula - I see that level of regression in very young children. Many won't pick up a book from the end of July to the beginning of September and they have forgotten letter sounds etc.

I'm talking about the influence parents have from the moment a baby is born - this is what matters. If parents are at work they aren't seeing their children until after 5pm anyway - chatting to them about their day and having dinner with them has a big influence. Weekends won't change. Most parents are working for a lot of the 6 weeks summer holiday anyway - so they're not with their children. For most parents a longer day at school wouldn't mean they would see significantly less of them (8.30am - 4pm for example).

I work with Y1 and Y2; used to work in secondaries. I have a Y6 child myself. I don't know. I just don't see the regression to that level at all where I am. And I don't work in leafy middle class surburbia on the whole either.

The only real regression we see occurs with children who spend lengthy periods of time outside of the country in non English speaking countries, though this often occurs within term time here. And what we see are children who come back struggling to reuse English phrases, and who start trying to read books or do their writing in the wrong direction, etc. But holiday length is irrelevent to that for our cases.

For working parents I guess you may be right. It won't make a difference to them.

But the majority of pupils in my class are picked up by a parent and spend time after school with a parent. Many do activities after school too - music, dancing, swimming, sport, Brownies, Beavers, etc. They don't need to be in school longer hours.

So it comes down again to childcare requirements.

School is not childcare and should never be treated as such. What we need is better more reasonably priced childcare, located within school buildings ideally. They can then offer additional extra-curricular activities using a range of qualified and specialist instructors and teachers, and trained play workers - this then replicates what is missing. The time to be a child and do fun child like activities.

Hulababy ^^ this, exactly.

Gove seems to be conflating two completely different issues
a) the need for more affordable childcare
b) the need for a highly educated, internationally competitive workforce
and coming up with an answer that doesn't effectively answer either question.