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.

Yes, if he did think about DC and improving the education system, any sensible person would do their research, listen to the professionals and the industry and then go from there - but teachers don't know anything about teaching and learning anyway, they are all just making a big fuss.

In school from 9-5, route learning, know your facts and fluency in Latin - yeah, that's the way forward

MrsSalvoMontalbano

Under gove's new working time, I would still be in school looking at another 20 minutes of work that I cannot do at home.

that gets me home at 19:40

1 hr for food + another couple of hours marking with another hour or so for some lesson planning thrown in.

gove's plans are stupid, he is an idiot who has no research to back his ideas.

gabsid

Yes, if he did think about DC and improving the education system, any sensible person would do their research, listen to the professionals and the industry and then go from there - but teachers don't know anything about teaching and learning anyway, they are all just making a big fuss.

These would be the 'professionals and the industry' who just last week thought a 35-hour maximum working week, with no more than 20 hours in the classroom, was the way to go (TUC Conference)? No wonder he's not listening to them, they're barking mad.

In school from 9-5, route learning, know your facts and fluency in Latin - yeah, that's the way forward confused

It's interesting how far the teaching industry has moved away from reality, and this part of your post exemplifies it. The idea that we should teach children facts and how to spell and read and that they should know their tables is somehow a bad thing? There's a fantasy that we no longer need to teach information since it's all online. But how can you possibly make sense of what you read online and interpret it if you don't have a grounding in some actual facts?

Given the damage 4 decades of ghastly leftist educationalism has done to the state sector and the massive gap in standards between in and the private sector, why are you holding the state system up as a useful model?

flatpack

Do you know how many hours a teacher spends teaching?

"Given the damage 4 decades of ghastly leftist educationalism has done to the state sector and the massive gap in standards between in and the private sector,"

It is all down to "leftist educationalism" or that private education is selective?
Not messed around with by governments?
teaching fewer children per class?
Less inclusive?
backed by parents that not only expect results form the school but from their children?
I'm sure that there are others.

x cross postred with sovery

Sovery, our local state grammar has most of the benefits of a private school, interested parents, selective entrance exam, lack of SEN, etc, and as a result it compares more than favorably to private schools. In fact it gets better results and offsteds than the neighboring independent school.

flathamster 'It's interesting how far the teaching industry has moved away from reality, and this part of your post exemplifies it. The idea that we should teach children facts and how to spell and read and that they should know their tables is somehow a bad thing? There's a fantasy that we no longer need to teach information since it's all online. But how can you possibly make sense of what you read online and interpret it if you don't have a grounding in some actual facts?'

That is a really uninformed comment!
Of course children have to be taught facts - otherwise how else would they learn? You are being brainwashed by the Gove 'progressive teaching' mantra, where he wrongly accuses of schools of letting 'children follow their own instincts'. This is such an inaccurate description of education today that it's laughable (if it didn't come out of the mouth of our Minister of State).

Of course children learn to read - all schools have to follow a phonics scheme through key stage one in order to teach children to read (and spell).

All schools following the NC have to teach tables. My Y2 class are reciting them by rote. And why teach them to 12x when we use a decimal money system not £sd (unless that's the government's new scheme - I wouldn't be surprised).

You are paying too much attention to the right wing press, written by idiots who learn from other idiots and don't actually ask the people who do the bloody job day after day.

That is Gove's problem. He never listens and always thinks he's right. I think there's a mental health label for someone like him.

"All schools following the NC have to teach tables." Exactly. And the schools that don't have to follow NC? The ones that Gove love - the free schools, the academies.

So what is going on? I don't know how we can diss the academics, the teachers, the unions and everyone else while believing in the here-today-hopefully-fucking-gone-tomorrow politician who resembles nothing more than a dog chasing its own tail and who is so far from the "rigour" he so loves that he is more woolly than a sheep in deep winter.

This thread just makes clear how uniformed Gove is and those who follow his claptrap. Although actually I suspect that Gove does know what teachers do but he is presenting this view that teachers are continually refusing to do things so that he can portray them in the worst light possible and be pushed into striking .

I teach facts all day every day, anyone who has ever looked at their children's homework will know that we teach facts. I teach skills as well, but they have facts so the skills can be used. I also believe in learning facts, that is why I became a teacher.

I photocopy every week. most schools have a queue at the photocopier because of all the teachers photocopying. However I do not do bulk photocopying. At the start of the term/ year I put most of my resources into the photocopying department and it is done. This is good for a few reasons, firstly I am an expensive professional. I earn in the region of 50k a year , the person who does the photocopying earns about 1/5- 1/4 of my wage, it is cheaper for her to spend her time copying than it would be for me. Secondly I am crap at photocopying , it tends to take me a few goes if I am doing something complicated - my mistakes cost money - she gets it right first time .

I analyze some form of data most days, however we have someone who is a trained expert in the software we use. She can do things much quicker than me and knows the shortcuts and what will produce the data I am looking for. She can also perform the general first level analysis and share that with all staff rather than us all doing it individually. She is in school
from 9 am until 3pm every day doing almost exclusively data analysis in a way I would not have time to do. My classes cannot fart without me knowing how that compares to the fart they did in 2010.

We also have staff who handle money and chase absence. Again they are trained in administrative work and do such tasks with more efficiency and speed than I ever would do. They also earn a fraction of my wage and free me up to teach - the thing I am good at. It also means that at 9am when tutor time is finished and most teachers are teaching, our administrative staff can straight away start chasing absence and the parents get to speak to a familiar person on the phone. If a teacher has a full teaching day they might not be able to phone home about an absence until lunch time at the earliest.

You will also never see me bleating about pointless admin because I do not do it, I have a member of staff who does it for me, as does every department. maybe that is why I am not having to work some of the mad hours that other teachers do and I see teaching as a family friendly job.

Sounds like you are a secondary teacher in a well resourced school, rather than for example a KS2 teacher in a small school with three teachers and a part time head in deepest Cornwall or somewhere.

I'm not having a go at all - it would be great if all teachers were able to delegate jobs so they could concentrate on what they were trained to do - teach children.

I have long thought that even a modest sized primary school could do with two heads - one to deal with children, teaching and learning, and the other to deal with HR, toilets, budgets and all those millions of things which eat into a head's day. No wonder schools can't recruit heads.

Yes I teach secondary and would not want to teach primary for the reasons you give, every primary teacher I know is shattered, stressed and overworked. No amount of money in the world could tempt me to that life.

My main point was that Gove is claiming that we don't do things that we actually do. In addition when we don't do something there is a good reason, it is not because we can't be bothered

It is a fact that small primary schools can't recruit Heads, no one wants the job. Under his proposals I think we need a complete reorganisation so that schools are run differently. Primary schools would need to get away from one teacher per class, have more staff and do team teaching so that they could share the extra workload. With the extra workload teachers and pupils could be flexible on holidays and take them when they suited.
However , it would be too expensive to operate- in the same way that it is too expensive to lengthen the school day and shorten the holidays in the way proposed.

I just don't understand Gove. He comes from such a disadvantaged background yet seems to have no compassion for people who aren't as innately clever (academically-minded) as he is. And he's so controversial. Was there ever an education secretary as controversial as Gove?

It is. A fact it is impossible for nursery schools to recruit heads, yet we got eight applications.

It is alsom common for primary schools to have a ta

I could list you small rural primary schools that can't get Heads. Gove also wants to do away with TAs.

www.tes.co.uk/jobsSearchResults.aspx?parametrics=grp-15,cat-10470,cat-10509&mode=browse

153 Primary head Vacancies

I don't think any change is needed at present, the present hours are just fine. If the hours are increased then it would get very difficult for the teachers because they are already working very hard.

I can see where he is coming from, but summer holidays and school hours should be kept the same. They could improve education standards by using those hours more efficiently (not teaching unnecessary and useless stuff for example) - and free time is just as important to children. All work and no play...

I can't see where Gove is coming from, but somehow I think he won't be around for long.

All this sabre-rattling is a prolonged audition for the job of Leader of the Opposition in 2015.

Pity so many students have to be buggered about in the process. The man's a buffoon.

However, my lower ability year 11s did some lovely Controlled Assessments today, writing open letters to him about this proposal.

(AQA Eng Lang Commission task if anyone else wants it...also getting them to do a Speaking & Listening presentation.)

So thanks for that at least, Michael....

I am married to a Deputy Head and have many great friends who are teachers. They work sooooo blooming long and hard and almost always get ill during the holidays. I'm also a nanny and I see how tired kids get towards the end of term and how the hours of homework affects family life. Children NEED to play!
Michael Gove is a shockingly ignorant man when it comes to education and has made bad decision after bad decision. He is reducing our education system to rubble slowly but surely. Those who care despair of him and his stupid whims. I cannot even think of him without getting angry and i never normally let anyone get to me like that. The sooner he goes, the sooner we can start spending more money on restoring our children's futures.

In the Education section of today's Guardian they report that Gove's claims as to how things are run in the Far East are not strictly true. In Singapore, there is long school break this year from 16Nov to 31 Dec; in Hong Kong, the govt specifies an annual minimum of 190 teaching days and in China, the holidays seem to start in early July and end late August.