Long private school holidays

[lemondaisies]

Considering school options, but wondered why private schools have much longer holidays - does anyone know?

Generally there are holiday activities you can sign them up for if needed. The days were a bit longer-8.15am till around 6pm depending on sports/drama/music etc, plus school on saturdays.

The school I work in does have longer holidays but we have Saturday morning school and the other days are 8.45 to 4.05. There are a LOT of after-school and Saturday afternoon activities - the kids are very busy.

DS's school just gets a couple of extra weeks over the course of the year and the longer school day. The state schools near us finish at 3 pm.

DS2’s day is a little longer now he’s in prep rather than at a state primary. They only really get longer holidays in the summer though, plus an extra week at October half term. Easter and Christmas are the same as before.

"The state schools near us finish at 3 pm."

No wonder they get such a shock when they get to university and find out that the teaching day is 9 to 7 or later.

Do they get a shock? I don't think they do.

A lot of schools in Europe finsh earlier with no issues

Dd has Saturday morning classes ! It does vary but they do get more homework too and small classes mean you progress faster. The private girls school here has summer school and they allow state school kids to attend too, very popular

"Do they get a shock? I don't think they do."

The feedback I get suggests that many of them do, yes.

"No wonder they get such a shock when they get to university and find out that the teaching day is 9 to 7 or later."

Never come across this as an issue. Never had lectures til 7. Studied medicine so not exactly the lightest of degrees.

Why would it be an issue, the ones I know with short academic days have homework, and then lots of extra curricular activities too, the same as those with longer academic days. They just have more time to fit it in.

"Never come across this as an issue. Never had lectures til 7."

Then it's not that surprising that you haven't come across it. It isn't an "issue", just a bit of a shock when they see first see their timetables. They soon get over it!

I know a few families with 2 working parents who’ve chosen private school partly for childcare reasons - our nearest private school offers wrap around care from 7:30am to 6pm, and has a holiday club for primary age pupils that runs throughout all the school holidays, so you could theoretically have your kids cared for at this private school for 52 weeks a year, barring bank holidays. The holiday clubs cover the same 7:30 - 6pm hours as the normal wrap around care does.

They charge extra for all that of course, but my friends say that they really like the convenience of the school holiday clubs. It means the longer school holidays aren’t as much of an issue in this school at least.

Wraparound is great- 7.30-6 - although charged at £3 per half hour.
Holiday clubs are running for a week in Easter, May, summer and October, so good but not all holidays at all.

No wonder they get such a shock when they get to university and find out that the teaching day is 9 to 7 or later

I taught in university and most teaching days don't go on that late and certainly not for the entire day - most of the day is for studying in your own time. Even on science courses there's usually only one full day of labs 10-4, lectures most days are 9-12 with at most 1-2 extra hour of supervisions/tutorial/classes a day. The students generally find they have more "free" time than at school. The only students I found who struggled a little were those from highly regimented boarding schools who found it more difficult than most to learn to organise their own time and get down to work without it being scheduled. That said even these adapted fairly quickly so I wouldn't say it was a major stumbling block.

I certainly wouldn't recommend putting young children into long school days just so they can have less of a "shock" at university.

Really children should be getting a lot of leisure time each day - even at the expense of the school holidays so the private school set up is less good for the kids for sure. That said most cope fine, at least past the early years and benefit from more extra curricula stuff in general.

Private school teacher here. We do 8.30-3.30 (pre-prep) this extends to 4pm finish for the secondary children. With such small classes though we fly through the curriculum, e.g we've covered all of the maths and English for the year so we're now redoing it so they get everything twice more or less for core subjects in the academic year. We get 2 weeks October, 3 weeks Xmas, 1 week February, 3 weeks Easter, 1 week in May, 9 weeks summer.

Private school days are longer.

My sister would be in class sometimes around 8:30 and wouldn't be done until 5. They also had to do an extra curriculum activity one night 7 until around 8:45 PLUS class Saturday mornings and church on Sunday.

Private school days are longer.

As I’ve said above-the private schools around here aren’t.

I taught in university and most teaching days don't go on that late and certainly not for the entire day.

I currently teach in a university. Labs generally run from 9-1 and lectures 1-7. Looking at the timetables of my first year tutees, I can see that last term they finished at 6pm on four on days a week. My second year tutees' timetables show, on one day, a four hour lab starting at 9am and three hours of lectures finishing at 7pm on one day (lab and last lecture both given by me), other days varying between 4 or 6pm. I'll agree that overall, there are a lot more gaps than school, however, running from 9am until 6pm (with an hour for lunch) is not that unusual. At least, not for my students.

Apologies for the garbled text in parts of the above post. I hope it still makes sense.

Gosh, when I was at uni in my first year I had about 5 hours of lectures/tutorials a week. However, I was expected to do a lot of independent study which was a real shock coming from school, and I nearly dropped out during the first year.

Friends on courses like engineering had much fuller structured days, but never till 7, more like 9-5 at the most.

I wonder whether the longer days/longer holidays (which is my experience of private too) has something to do with many previously being boarding schools? So you make the most of the term time so the children get to spend longer at home in the holidays, and especially if they are travelling for some of that time.

I certainly wouldn't recommend putting young children into long school days just so they can have less of a "shock" at university.

Nor would, or have, I.

The shock I mentioned is usually no more than widening eyes accompanied brief vocal expression of surprise.

As I have already explained in a previous post, they soon get over it.

Friends on courses like engineering had much fuller structured days, but never till 7, more like 9-5 at the most.

It probably depends on the university and discipline. Some unis have short terms and some disciplines have high contact hours. Engineering is one example.

Very odd thing to say nometal. I went to a 'top' university (and private school) and by 7pm was well into my fifth pint of cider at the pub. As were my State educated friends.

My child is at a great State school and has long days, often not leaving til 5pm because of after school activities.

The private schools near us break up on Friday lunchtimes so the parents can head out of London to their second homes.

Hahaha second homes that is funny. Yes and I have a pony around the back too.

DD's secondary school day 8.20-4.00 and you can get in from 7.30am for breakfast and not have to leave until 6pm. Often sports and clubs going on, but you can also just do homework. All at no extra cost.

Prep School was similar hours, but you had to pay for breakfast club and after-school club, but as they got older, you could also do homework club and that was free.

Longer school days and often sat school. They also don't usually have bank holidays off and there's not all the inset days that state schools have!!! They do their teacher training in the school holidays