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.

[Iggi101]

Zadie - 20 quid would pay for two teachers for an hour? A teacher is now worth £10 an hour??

[nailak]

zadie it is not about luck it is about priorities tbh.

[GoblinGranny]

'Unfortunately, teachers don't care about the children at all. They want to do the least work possible. They want to swan in at 9am, coast through an undemanding day and then swan out again at 3.30. Every time they complain about proposals to make this any harder, or the children's education better, the unions step in so that the children can keep failing and the teachers can carry on coasting. It's a bloody disgrace.'

And free doughnuts and coffee in the staffroom.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

Child minders and teachers are two different jobs.

[Startail]

Huge incentive to go private and give your children a childhood. DCs need the holidays to be children!

[TumbleWeeds]

I would be completely AGAINST such a thing mainly because the CHILDREN need the 6 weeks hols.

I can see with my 2. We've just had 2 weeks hols and they were just starting to recover but are still tired. So another 12 weeks (where they will get tired again) and the 6 weeks hols will be a good send for them.

Re the teachers who don't work that hard and don't need so much hols... perhaps you should rad some of the threads on here and you would see that
1- a longer day would means longer preparation hours (between 1 and 2 hours of work for one hour in the classroom)
2- that they work during weekends and hols anyway
3- that their working hours are way above the average (40hours) and closer to 50hours a week if not more (depending on what HT ask them to do)
All that to do a work that a lot of them know sin't perfect (as they will accept that some of the lessons could be very much improved but can't do it because of time constrain)

So how on earth it would ....

BTW I am NOT a teacher! But I prefer a teacher that has time to make the individual allowances for my dcs tahn one that is so stressed out that they can't.
I have one dc on is gifted, the other who has some SN. In both cases, they haven't been catered for appropriately because of no time.... God forbit that teachers are then asked to work longer hours etc...

[TheCrackFox]

The only holidays that should be shortened are MPs as they really take the piss.

DH and I both work and we both think it is a monumentally shit idea. Our DCs will be lucky to retire at 70 so why can't they at least have a not too strenuous childhood.

[GoblinGranny]

It's amazing how 50% of teachers quit in the first 5 years, after taking at least 4 years to get into a school really snotfunny.
Even the swanning and coasting and holidays and all the fringe benefits don't seem enough to keep a workforce intact.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

Snotfunny must be a teacher if its such a cushty job.

[littleducks]

Maybe provision through 'summer camp' schemes would be better. Summer school with revision and catch up lessons for those struggling, or who have missed large chunks of the school through illness or something. Then sports/music/computing to extend the interests of others.

[drjohnsonscat]

I know this will be a very unpopular thought but MPs work a great deal more than teachers do. Sorry but they do. Parliamentary recesses are a pause from legislative business but constituency work never stops. I have worked for an MP and know quite a few. The hours they put in are beyond most people. If you are lucky enough to be a minister then times that by two.

[sydlexic]

I would not like less holidays, I would like more.

All of the teachers I know are kind, dedicated, hard working, get to school at 7 a.m. Do lesson plans, work until 6 marking and after school club. Then there is residential trips, school plays, book days, fun days, day trips.

[OddBoots]

When I was at secondary school I would have loved a longer day but only if it meant no homework. In primary school however it would have been far too much and that's from someone who liked school.

[ReluctantlyBeingYoniMassaged]

Gove is an idiot.

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

Drjohn, they are also paid more...so I would expect them to work more hours.

[GoblinGranny]

We were promised an avalanche of ex=army types who would come in and teach discipline and motivation and all those important physical skills that were lacking in schools. They could run after school activities as well.
The government said they were on the way , and I'm still waiting for my order to be delivered.

data.whicdn.com/images/36407805/Muscular-Hairy-Chest-Incredible-Hunks-Part-2-014_large.jpg

[ReluctantlyBeingYoniMassaged]

We just have a lone female police officer, which only serves to make the pupils less fearful of the old strong arm.

[UptoapointLordCopper]

Do you think if they kept Gove in school longer he would have learned something and not come up with shit like this every other day? Maybe he won't have acquired the intelligence of the tatties he spoke about? (Unhelpful, but really, that person hasn't got ears. Or maybe he has, just nothing in between.)

[noblegiraffe]

Last lesson of the day is already a hard enough slog, and the summer term is a nightmare in the nice weather when the temperature in my classroom heads towards 30 and the children's heads slump towards their desk.

I understand some parents struggle with childcare, but do they really want their children's childhood to be one relentless academic slog with no period of time where they can really forget everything and be children?

[GoblinGranny]

MPs aren't measured on results either, or honesty, or morality.
Who comes into their day with a 42 point checklist that they have to pass or be considered unsatisfactory and face consequences?

[jojane]

Childminders would lose a big source of income, travel sector would greatly suffer, lots of holiday businesses woul suffer, theme parks etc would suffer as people woul only do a couple of say trips in a shorter holiday rather than lots in a longer holiday, play schemes etc would stop losing jobs, extra curricular activities would decrease due to lack of time leading to more losses of jobs
Kids would no longer socialise with a wide selection of people and would be with the same few adults and 30 children, my kids currently do gymnastics, ballet, youth club, beavers and swimming where they meet other children from other schools and walks of life, they are exposed to lots of different adults with different strengths, skills and opinions.

It's already been suggested that children being with their peers for long periods of time eg at nursery and not mixing with different age groups as much has led (amongst other things) to a generation that values their friends over family,
School holidays are also the only time that people can visit family, people are very displaced nowadays due to having to move fr jobs etc, we use half terms and holidays to see the kids grandparents, aunts and cousin etc.
The only way I would support a longer day (but not shorter holidays) is if that extra hour was only for activities such as music, drama, swimming, ballet, brownies/cubs etc. all the stuff that normally goes on anyway after school.

[infamouspoo]

one of mine would spend every day at school if she could! The others wouldnt. Personally I dont care but childcare needs sorting out, especially for kids with SN.
Personally I'd shorted the 6 weeks to 4 and have an extra week in June half term which often seems to be the only time we get some summer and an extra week in Feb so we dont have to go out in the snow