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.

Not many jobs, like mine, have a long queue forming, all day. Major folio (coursework) deadline on Monday (Scotland) and this involves 50% of the school, all in need of help / reassurance / a semi colon or helpful idea.

While I am a seasoned campaigner and LOVE my job, I fell into the weekend and still have 10 weeks of similar stresses, with only one day off.

No time off for weddings / funerals (unless you are closely related)

I love the holidays and weekends because, for the only time in the year, I can put the needs of my own children before the needs of other people's children.

Michael Gove, has his advisors sprinkle rose petals in front of his chosen path. Unluckily for Goves advisors, Gove is a keen player of videogames, and he pretty much quite enjoyed Bioshock Infinite.

My DCs have had different holidays for years now. One year I had three batches of them with different spring breaks.

At the risk of being a complete wet blanket, I really don't think the potential scuppering of families' holidays in the sun should be in any way a deciding factor in whether or not to implement a change in the education system. If any decisions are made it should be in the basis of what is best for children, what maximises their chances of succeeding in school. I think this involves looking at what is best for teachers too, since exhausted and burnt out teachers are not going to be able to enhance anyone's educational experience.

It also shouldn't be made on the basis of free childcare. Education isn't childcare and it should have the needs of the children first. Childcare is something for parents to arrange around it.

My DS is at a private school and it's true: the school day is much longer than state schools.
I don't think Mr. Gove has troubled himself with the reason why.

My DS's school, like most private schools, has two hours games time every single day. They also do their homework, or "prep" at school.
Their holidays are much longer: they were off for 4 weeks at Easter. They had another 4 weeks at Christmas and will have 2 months in the Summer.
I think State children need more time to play, not less. Two weeks half term in that long Autumn term would be a good start.

Tanish - So at the end of the day your DC don't spend more time at school. Taking into account the longer holidays I would say it evens out. I think they still achieve better because of the smaller class sizes and because most come from affluent homes where parents are generally educated themselves and value education, the latter is also the case for many state schools though.

However, I don't think Gove had in mind that DC should have a longer school day to play more games and to develop a variety of interest in order to become well rounded, independently thinking and educated individuals.

What Gove had in mind was robot army stuffed full of facts and knowledge who can compete with East Asian DC who are very disciplined and study like robots for hours, but I don't think that's why the Asian economies thrive. Many Chinese work 12 hour shifts in factories.

I hate Michael Gove with a passion.

Some thoughts (most have been covered already by others):

*M. Gove is playing the very useful (for him) divide & conquer game ie working parents versus SAHP. Or working parents versus (supposedly lazy) teachers. The Tories have been doing it for ages anyway in the benefit debate, so why not try it in education too?

*Gove clearly is clueless when it comes to child development. He's also clueless in terms of how children learn: quality is what counts, not quantity. Play is important. Free time (including time to be bored) is important. Time with family (provided families are well supported & thus not hugely stressed) is important. Emotional stability is important to learning. All this has little to do with hours in school. In fact, quite the opposite.

*He has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to working with children. I work full time with children (in mental health; and work closely with teachers too); I also am a mother with a school aged child so have a stake in both fields I guess. Gove is clueless as to the emotional intensity & sheer energy you have to put in when working with children: you have to be constantly on your tows. Let alone the extra hours to prepare lessons etc. He should be trying to keep teachers happy with good pay & good holidays; the happier the teachers, the happier our children. He's doing quite the opposite with his stupid constant changes.

*Finally, and most importantly. As a working parent who sometimes struggles with childcare (and given the recession and the necessity for the vast majority of us to work, often with long commutes), I do recognise that schools could and should provide much wider & cheaper after school & breakfast schemes, including holiday schemes. If Gove was serious about helping working parents, he would be pushing towards much cheaper childcare across the board and excellent quality wraparound care rather than long school hours (particularly for primary). He would also be pushing for family-friendly policies at work, to encourage parents who want to be working flexitime or part time or who are open to doing job shares. In fact, quite the opposite is happening; with all the cuts, fewer & fewer people can afford to work part-time (more generally, there are fewer & fewer jobs of any kind).

His policies are despicable: he's trying to provide free childcare, with existing resources (ie have teachers work more) without putting hand in pocket and with the children having to pay this by being in formal education more hours than is good for them. Offering choices for holidays & after school: yes of course. But that's not at all the same as what Gove is proposing.

I think this would have a bad effect on UK tourism as well.

Maria - Are there any details to these plans? I thought I read he wants to implement that by next September? If that's true, I am sure it will be a mess, there will be demonstrations and he will be forced to resign.

I think he is just power hungry and wants to make a mark for himself. I am afraid I don't think it will be positive.

it's not going to happen, guys. Where is the govt. going to find money to pay the teachers 25% extra? It won't happen. It's just another one of Gove's completely unworkable weird ideas.

Japan (240 days of school, remember) manages building projects in schools, it must be doable. Temporary buildings, maybe.

But Japan has a "Work is my life" culture. UK is more sane. Teaching in Japan is also a high status profession. Not like UK, judging from some of the public vitrole.

China is wrong country to compare to; massive swathes of iffy educational quality in huge mostly deprived provinces. It's only the cities that can compete with best of OECD countries for educational attainment, and even in the cities there's a lot of social stratification.

Didja'll know that South Korea has a grammar system similar to Northern Ireland? The not-so-academic 30% go to vocational schools. At least they have the sense to produce home-grown cleaners and care-workers.

It can't happen- it does all come down to money and there isn't enough. It is like the government saying they want better qualified people in the early years - I would agree - BUT we won't get them unless they get higher pay than the moment.

Estelle Morris and Ruth Kelly stand out as the Education Ministers who did the most valuable work, I think.

I wish Ruth Kelly had been able to follow through on more of her extended schooling proposals.

Gove thinks ALL Asian children are geniuses and if we beat drive our kids hard enough ours can be the same.

There definitely things we can learn from Asian education, but not this bit. Not this.

They are not geniuses. Some of them end up on my courses and they can be pretty hard work. At other times I have to review the academic papers some of their elder brothers and sisters have submitted for journal publication, and they are often statistically fundamentally flawed with a much higher rejection rate than usual.

Gosh the littlies would be knackered if the day was much longer (from a teacher who teaches little ones)

My experience is that the week before any holiday is pretty much a right off as far as decent learning goes for most kids as they are so knackered. Then the arguments start, things that would have been easily dealt with become the trigger for major tears etc. Poor little things, they need time to themselves to play, be with their parents and do non directed activities for FUN because lets face it Goves curriculum changes have beaten any last bit of fun out of school

Looking at the OECD tables.

Average number of hours per year of total compulsory instruction time for age 7-8

Average - 749
England - 893
China - 531

Our children already do more hours than is average as it is.

Who says it will most 25% more? Teachers are lazy anyway, they have too much holiday, they should pull their socks up and work like everyone else.

Maybe that is his thinking?

Interesting, Boffin

It maybe his thinking but he won't get left with many teachers- the best will find jobs elsewhere.

Personally I think we should keep the same number of holidays but spread them out better over the year. the Autumn term is way to long and the summer holiday too long. Also why not offer extra-curricular things ... run sports, music, cooking clubs, take children away on holidays where they might not holidays .. they don't need to learn facts but lets help children find things they might not get chance to do in school/at home

Don't lenghen the school day .. I am knackered and my kids in my class are knackered as it is.

Surely though, a major major point Gove is missing is that China, at least, is an economic powerhouse because of its long hours, piss poor pay, sweatshops and political system which doesn't allow normal people any rights. Not its exemplary education system, which we should copy.

AvrilPoisson, where do you get your evidence for a relationship between progression and the homogenous nature of the group? I cannot see that played out in the schools of S London at all.

Exactly, it does astonish me that we have people in govenment who miss the obvious. Maybe we should look elsewhere to recruit the best to run the country.

Wouldn't it be more sensible to have a good look at other education systems to see what works elsewhere and then suggest reforms. To me it seems Gove comes up with one non-sensical idea per month without having thought anything through.

Yes, I agree Blu. Where is the link to the evidence?

Because otherwise it reads as a terrible attempt to move towards segregation

I think some of you might enjoy this. I have just seen it on FB:

"To the Parent or Carer of Michael Gove,

Michael has tried very hard this year. He has a lot of ideas which he thoroughly and enthusiastically shares with his class mates. Michael struggles when his classmates seem more interested in their own things such as playing with money, trains or playing doctors and nurses. His method of dealing with this is not always in keeping with the message he wants to convey. On one occasion he began by saying how much he valued a particular group of children but then as he continued to share his ideas it became clear that he thought they were a worthless bunch of degenerates. This type of behaviour is becoming increasingly common and has become a concern over the past academic year.

Michel's zest for life is unquestionable. This term alone he as been using words such as passionate, valued, asset, outstanding and respect. At times however he is not always clear on what these words actually mean, indeed, at present Michael is frequently using such words when he means the exact opposite. This will need to be one of his targets as he approaches the next academic year.

In terms of his social interaction Michael has become increasingly close to children of particular nationalities. This shows his deep value for other cultures and races and is all to his credit. He needs to ensure that he spends an equal amount of time cultivating friendships within his own national group as moving forward he will need friends from all backgrounds. Sadly Michael has struggled to gain the trust of those who share his own national identity and this is something that, again, he will need to work on in the coming months, especially given his ambitions regarding election to the school council.

Michael is an extremely bright and articulate young man. In contrast to this he often appears to have given very little thought to his work. By this stage in the academic year we would expect to see Michael making a thorough plan before embarking on a particular activity. Michael has shown no interest thus far in the planning phase of his work and rather tends to jump in both feet first without considering where his work is heading. This is something that we have been talking about together and is an area where Michael really does need to focus. In addition to this I am struggling to see where some of his ideas have come from. They are certainly not the topics or themes that we have felt important to teach him this year and appear to crop up ad hoc. I would very much like to discuss further with you to see what sort of audio-visual stimulation Michael is having outside of school as it seems that some of his influences are potentially hazardous to his learning journey. The only saving grace is that, with Michael's afore mentioned lack of planning, these ideas don't seem to progress very far and he quickly become distracted by something that one of his classmates is doing.

Michael's target for the next academic year are:

• To plan ahead and make sure he knows where he is going with his learning journey.
• To ensure his work doesn't alienate his classmates.
• To use the correct words at the appropriate time.
• To use his strengths to rebuild damaged relationships.

I have no doubt that with the right support Michael will be able to excel in his chosen path through life. He is an ambitious young man but he does need to remember that he can't always have his own way, especially when he isn't even really sure what that is. If you wish to discuss any of this further I am always in my classroom from 8am to 6pm monday to friday and am contactable by email at any point day or night 7 days a week.

Regards...."