Why the need to wind down so early...

[Bookeatingboy]

For two weeks now our YR3's have not been doing normal lessons and we still have another two weeks of this to go.

My children are coming home fed up as they seem to be doing lots of craft stuff, word searches and playing with Lego, whilst the teaching staff are clearing classrooms of this YR groups stuff and getting ready for next year.

Whilst I appreciate that they need to wind down and prepare, surely 4 weeks of it is way too much? They are about to get 6 weeks off!

Would be interested to know what other schools are doing.

Our kids' school moves them up into the next year group a few weeks before the summer, so they can get used to new setting, teacher, don't build up anxiety over the hols. No winding down but opposite really

Widowadman - I do like that idea and am interested in seeing if it could work for us next year. Transition is so hard for our kids.

Yes we seem to be practicing end of term play for literally weeks...

My class are still going full pelt. We're all knackered, but still learning with 2 weeks to go.

Full pelt here too - good term! But cross curricular weeks. My Y2 class would probably say we aren't doing literacy and numeracy but that's 100% not the case. I fully accept that some children find it difficult to be out of traditional routine, that's harder for them to manage.

I have a feeling it becomes a bit self fulfilling. It's been a long term. So the children are tired. So they're out of sorts. So they're hard to teach. So the balance shifts to more "fun" stuff. So the ones that like a routine get even more out of sorts. So everyone gets more frazzled trying to do lots of "learning by fun". And so the wheel keeps turning until everyone has a meltdown on the last day of term (or maybe that's only an annual event in our house )

It sounds lovely. I wish more schools let them chill out at the end of term.

Old school used to shift focus from less academic stuff - and last few weeks were manic round shows and plays.

This school I'd say been winding down most of this half term. Home work stopped - much more playing games on the school computer which TBH could be academic based but one my DC talk about aren't. They've spend days moving stuff from class rooms for painters - taking down displays watching DVD. Hopefully they are managing some work as well.

It's in a deprived area - and I wouldn't be surprised if the summer slump was a real thing here.

My yr 1 is still on normal timetable other than sports day where they did sport all day. Still got 2 lots of homework this weekend !

My Y6 class have been very much off timetable this week, but thats mainly because most of them are off on transistion so we only had 1/5 of thr class in.

Early years staff here. We have a looser plan the last few weeks. Formal end of year progress assessments have been made and submitted. They need to be done by now so that new settings can plan for each child's current level of achievement in Y1. Although planning is looser and there is more free play it's still full on as so much of primary is about the social as well and there's still lots of sharing and negotiating to be done.

And the children are still encouraged to use the phonics/numeracy skills they have learnt, within their free play such as writing thank you letters, working out how many tissue paper flowers to make and so on.

This is the heart of education, that skills they learn are taken into their play an that they see the benefit of their learning.

We're very much on timetable still, apart from Sports Day practice and sorting/finishing stuff for Open Evening. However, it's killing us all!!! The kids are tired, so are the staff and getting anything of quality out of them now is a huge challenge. Things they've done automatically all year, like underlining the date and title as a silly example, have gone out of the window.
Plus, there are loads who've buggered off on holiday! Yes, I know. Does happen still. Unauthorised, but they've gone anyway.

I think you'd hate our school in Wales. DS3 has spent most of this term outside learning how to grow fruit and veg. Ok this has been backed up with lots of book research about the best ways to go about it. I think of it as learning through play.
Recently they spent a couple of weeks 'paddling in the river' and 'climbing our mountain' well actually doing science experiments - mapping the ecosystem.
He still managed to achieve all his learning outcomes at outcome 6 (Exceeding expectations I think in England talk).

I'd love that - it's all the watching of films that drives me mad.
It's not as much of a treat as it was when we were young. Id rather they were outside doing something.

No wind down here, though as DD is in year 6 they aren't doing so much in the last week - the assembly for leavers to parents and sorting their work to bring home and getting blouses signed. They have a school trip one day, they are all going swimming or to the beach depending on the weather.

We're still running on full steam here! No WAY would be get away with 4 weeks of winding down [shocked]. In fact, we've been told no DVDs until last 2 days of term which I think is fair enough.

Fair enough - DVDs would wind me up too

Tiggles I'm moving to Wales-your son's school sounds amazing.

We've broken up yesterday!!! Woohoo. They had a more relaxed timetable the last week.

The only good thing is if you want to take a term.time holiday you know they won't be missing much!!

Where I work they are still hard at it, although we've had lots of 'odd' days - sport day at local secondary school, sports day, drama workshop, non-uniform day, move-up day, etc. We are desperate to get on with lessons as normal though!

Our wind down is the last fortnight of term, with a few sports day rehearsals before that too. They still had some normal lessons throughout. Personally I think a fortnight is about right.

I wish my yr 1 DS was doing more winding down activities and less mental maths tests as he is knackered and regularly melting down in the evenings now. He's only got 9 school days left now so hopefully they which actually have some more relaxed time this week coming.

If there have been evening productions and sports events with staff needing to cover and spend time preparing, that would be why the classes have been off timetable more.

No winding down in my class, we've had different projects and activities going on with science week, camp week etc but this coming week is still maths, English, science, topic etc.
Reading books at our school do need to be brought back to school 2 weeks before end of term to be checked for damage, shelves restocked etc

From the replies so far it would seem most agree that 4 weeks is too much.

I'm going to give it a couple of days this week and see what the dc tell me they have been doing and decide whether to have a word with head.

I'm sure that some of us would really benefit from extra money we would save by taking our dc on holiday a few weeks before end of term time, but that would not be acceptable would it. I'm sure our holiday is going to be more educational that playing with Lego, word searches and watching films.

What are you hoping to gain from talking to the head?