Primary education for the modern world

[ThinkingForward]

Discussion on how to reform the primary school offering to make it suitable for modern britain

> benefits of having more directed hours of experiences and learning
> more diverse educational offering
> societal benefits: broader opportunities for parents, families an the economy

I am a father of a 6 yr old dc, and both my wife and i work full time, she works for the NHS and i run my own business(es). We have elderly parents, who also require our input and limited family support (our son gets picked up by my mum 1 day a week and she has him for 2-3 hrs).

The need to better provisioning of early years childcare is often highlighted, however there is little public discussion about the effects of a Victorian timetable on modern society, especially at primary school level.

This touches nearly every aspect of society,
a) educational regression of pupils after long summer holidays
b) lack of holiday provision for students and family's that receive pupil premium (from school meals to welfare checks)
c) discriminatory effects on women's earning, career progression and pension provision. Furthermore the effect on families/ relationship stability as a consequential outcome.
i. on breakdown of relationships this can lead to loss of homes and employment, in some case lead to problems of homelessness and addiction for the parent without the children
ii compounds disadvantage, for children especially if extended family support isnt available.
d) environmental impact of a 5 day vs 4 day week for example (additional heating, travel etc), if the current level of funding was capped then a shorter week with longer days may provide additional opportunities for parents to gain good quality employment
i. economic impact of the mismatch between typical holiday allowance (4-6 weeks for full time adult) and 13 weeks school holiday.
f) impact from unauthorized absence due to rigid holiday patterns and consequential high prices of travel

Forster introduced the education act in 1870, even at this stage the need for continuous evolution was recognized in the introductory speech. The timetable is probably one of the only recognisable elements of the schools system from 150 years ago. So much of our society has changed and the persistence with this timetable reinforces discrimination and could be seen as a root of many negative outcomes especially for women. Impacting short and long term earnings as well as pensions in retirement, but this also changes the dynamics of the economy, family life and even the environment. The academic literature indicates that long holidays are not to the children's benefit, with the loss of skills over these longer breaks. The travel industry becries the seasonality of holiday, and justifies its crazy pricing as a result of this.. So who actually benefits from a 150 year old timetable?

Almost every section of society would benefit from reviewing the school timetable, it would be ideal if there was more funding for more provision, but there seems to be almost no loosers from having a more fit for purpose timetable. Different funding options for the short, medium and long term could be considered. For example use of the tax free childcare allowance. As schools provides good quality educational options and childcare at a lower cost than the private provision (typical outside funding rates are around £4.20/pupil per hour with most priviate provision being 25-50% more for "just childcare"). Furthermore the marginal cost for increasing this provision would be modest as there would be mainly variable (additional direct staff and minimal additional overhead).

Working patterns have been brought into sharp focus following C19 and the working from home revolution. There are plenty of opportunities to look at different school and working patterns, for example a 4 day school week with longer days. This might allow those that work around school drop off and pick up to improve their employment opportunities, cut there travel costs and the school to only heat the school 4 days a week . Similarly a 45-46 week schedule then most 2 parent families could manage childcare with their normal holiday although this would be a challenge, but would not create such dependence on family friends, private provision etc to be able to manage the holidays.

So what problems do people see with changing the current victorian timetable to one which fits with modern life.?

I'm not sure this is totally true.
Teenagers ( especially boys - and let's face it, prior to the Victorian era, nearly all schools were only for boys) whose fathers' were lord of the manor/landed gentry types might well be expected to pitch in with the harvest as it was a real "all hands on deck" situation.
You have only to read the diaries of many Victorian/Edwardian teachers to realise that, even with the longer summer holiday there were many entries along the lines of " Following the end of the recent very inclement weather most older children not in school today, being required to help with potato picking/ fruit harvest/ hay making."
In some parts ( especially Yorkshire and Lancashire mill towns), until very recently the summer holidays were shorter with students returning in August but then getting an additional "September break" week off that would have coincided with the week mill workers were given as holiday.

@ohfook I was about to ask if you were my neighbour, but unless she has a secret inner life your username makes that unlikely...

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1905/jul/06/schools-and-the-hay-harvest

This extract from Hansard makes interesting reading on the subject of harvests. People 120 years ago thought that the long summer holiday was for the purpose of children being involved in the corn harvest.

Nowhere in that post you mention actual children and the effects(positive or negative ) on them.

Victorian you say?

If it helps you figure it out, I say oh fook a lot in real life too (just not at work )

I’d be furious if anyone told me I had to leave my child in school until 5pm because some arses didn’t want to pay for after school childcare for the children they chose to have, knowing full well they would need it. Teachers TEACH. There are nannies, childminders and after school clubs to mop up the extra hours you require. But you have to pay.

It’s expensive to have children. Clearly in some countries, high taxes help parents with those costs. Here we have the NHS snd extensive state spending not necessarily aimed at childcare. We do see having Dc as a choice. We try snd squeeze a quart out of a pint pot regarding spending our tax income. This will only get worse if we don’t have children because we are too poor to afford them. We need children.

Adding more variety into the day is the key here, with more time with directed activities then things can be more play based, lessons more spread out, they dont need to be stuck in a stuffy classroom. We can add in subjects which at the moment there just isnt time to give to. This also levels the playing field with disadvantaged kids getting to undertake activities which would normally be reserved for extracurricular activities.

It also might allow for more family time, picking up on tichys point, 4 day week might not be possible but 9 day fortnight might be for many people. With 2 parents/careers then this could open up all sorts of new family out of school based opportunities.

The logical conclusion here would be 7 mornings a week, kids can learn in the family environment as well.

The maths here works out with the funding, we would need more teacher/more funding but as i point out assuming that this lead to more equal pay for women and higher workforce participation for those with primary school aged children, then the additional payrole taxes would dwarf the cost of the extra costs. Almost 25% of the UK's working age population isnt in work. 9+million people. Even if this got 20% of the back into work 1.8m people earning average uk salary of £30k (30-39 year olds) then this would raise £6152/ person in income tax and NI alone along with a further £5300 in VAT, fuel duty. This is an extra ~£21bn in tax revenue and this is before we even start to look at all the extra revenue it would create from a growing economy. There are then benefits savings. (for reference £57bn is the current DFE budget)

A handy side effect is that such a increase in the workforce would bring down inflation as well and drive up productivity making us all wealthier and likely healthier as more money would be available for health, as well as giving better opportunities for all of our childrens futures.

More hours (but not necessarily sat doing english and maths in classrooms; more dancing, sports, music etc) Mix the day up. In general we are more productive when we get up and move around a bit. Younger kids are best when they have lots of different activities a little bit at a time.

Moving to may be 46 weeks a year with 2 weeks of personal days (these could be sickness or holidays), would allow you to take them out of school for a couple of weeks for the family holiday off peak. as well as maintaining regular holidays for teaching staff, and the core Christmas, Easter and a couple of weeks in the summer.

I think 45 or 46 weeks a year sounds ok. In the "real world" there are few jobs where you get more than 30 days holidays including bank hols.

School is tiring because of how its structured, to much sitting still in stuffy classrooms.

Alot of holiday camps i think are pretty poor, im open to spending more if there was quality. £40-50 a day is not to crazy if the holiday camp offers 2 or 3 really good activities. As most of these would cost £10-15 each anyway. Swimming lessons are £15, climbing £13, music lessons are more, then infill with more group activities like team sports, dance, art etc. These are lower cost to run and organise as there is limited equipment and staffing required.

But £25 to mess around at the school on there holiday camp is a poor use of time, its in our experience not directed more like crowd control.

Exactly, good holiday club provision in school is a good starting point. Decent provision for yrs 7-9 - as many need it then - would also help

I would agree in the way its currently done, but it doesnt have to be like that. Some physical activity throughout the day, have a snack and a break at 3 then 3.30 (dancing, team sports, cooking etc).

Kids are built to learn through play, especially younger ones, my ds comes back and after a short break by 3.45 we are onto something else, this evening he measured the ph in the plant pots and watered them, then went onto drawing, followed by football.

I appreciate in the current school expectations this wouldnt work but why not change it, doesnt have to be like that.

So teacher should work 7 mornings a week and teach from the crack of dawn until bedtime whilst having their holidays reduced. No way. I want a life too.

As primary school kids learn best through play i think you will struggle to differentiate between teaching and really good directed play experiences.

The curiculum.... can you prove the benefit of it vs another one? Sitting in a class room is an artificial way of learning (its has its place), but offering maths through music, or english through drama, science through cooking or gardening. Adds context to what we are learning, this in general makes it easier to remember.

With older kids then you also end up with alot less of the whats the point in leaning this. Im never going to need to know how to do algebra for example. This is just a scenario of a party with a 3 course meal with recipes for different number of people for each and then making it for a different number of people. Add in ingredients you can only buy in specific quantities (eggs in 6, or 10) then you have algebra. Then you need to cost it to make sure you can afford it and you get into other areas of maths.

Scenario (play based) learning is immersive and instinctive. just think how you learned to speak, it wasnt sitting down when you were 2 with a book at a desk!

There are lots of ways to get the maintenance done, you dont need that long if you plan.

You are really coming at this from a educational workers perspective and as a stakeholder in the process this is an important view. However, the primary need is to provide the best opportunities for our children. I think i have covered the 5th day point with the 9 day fortnight. Im not wedded to any one idea. The point is to develop ideas as a collective.

As also i pointed out lets look at 46 weeks a year of school, just like the real world with some 6 weeks of fixed holidays and then 2 weeks of personal time or similar as this is workable for most people (parents/guardians can split holidays for example to cover this) and also spend time as a family unit.

The budget point is also covered. There is atleast £20-30bn in additional tax revenue available by making these changes, i believe substantially more. This would allow for employing extra staff and more facilities.

yeah, in agreement here, we need to work out what kids need, both to be successful economically but also there personal development and well being

This probably looks really different than what we have now. Focus on interpersonal skills, use of AI, languages, art culture, finance, etc.

This also can be taught differently, less stuffy and more interactive.

Incorporate the local community groups into the school environment. for example sports clubs and scouting.

become your own boss if you want a more flexible employeer.

20 years ago if i said you would run your life though a pocket telephone, have a car than can drive itself, work from home 5 days a week.

This is all very doable, we just need to develop the ideas and get on with it. Part of this is choice, which is why i would propose we could look at it for schools with multiple classes per year group for a 5-10 year trial.

To add to the list of issues

> Women have lower earnings in part due to breaks for children
> lower life time earnings, more pensioner poverty etc

The pitch would be a bit more school and a bit more holiday. With school having a more holistic approach.

Curriculum reform really needs thinking about. To prepare children for life.

Things you're not considering/realising:

• Some women (and men, though smaller proportion) have children and choose not to work full time, because they want to spend time with their children. You're suggesting taking that away from them by having children in school for a huge proportion of their waking lives.
• Learning through play is great, I agree. It takes much more preparation and resource than chalk and talk. This would therefore require more prep time, and funding for materials. It also requires space and facilities that many schools lack.
• One of the reasons education is cheaper to deliver than holiday camps is because the current model is efficient. I could meaningfully teach 40 young children a maths lesson, but would need at least one additional adult if they were cooking or swimming.
• The country is currently utterly unable to find enough teachers for the school system we already have. How would we magic up an additional 50% or whatever is needed for this system?

I'm actually all for reform of term dates (the six week holiday is disastrous for our children with mental health needs or who are in neglectful/emotionally cold homes but do not meet the threshold for social services intervention). I am a teacher and I would work 48 weeks per year with typical leave that could be taken at any time, if it were an option. More pay, cheaper holidays. What's not to like? But I wouldn't teach 8:30-5, because then I would be burnt out within a month, as this would mean working a 12-hour day, when you add prep time on top.

The system puts alot of pressure on families who have two working parents, i think even those that are doing ok are under alot of financial and time pressure.

My main issue is i want to have a better offering for my son, but his school even when given direction and i find them the resources (£500k/yr for 5 years of government funding for running a trial) then they cant get themselves organised.

Im not sure if you have tried living in europe with kids but large swathes of it arnt the promised land you speak of. It embeds gender discrimination, creates lots of friction. Norway is ok, but still has issues with even more holidays and less cover during the holidays. In Poland then the kids start at different times each day, these randomly change, they go for an hour and need to be picked up and then returned.... this leaves you with having basically 3 options

1. only one parent works
2. you have local family support
3. you have a nanny

France there is limited school, but also not so many options around school either its even worse than here, certainly in the south where we were based.

Germany i havent tried with kids, buts its no El Dorado either.

I would really like my children to have better options than a really narrow curriculum at school and wasted time crowd control play before and after school. I dont even paying for it... School is about as useful as a wet paperbag when it comes to innovation.

I think your missing the point here. I have no problem with paying, its just im keen we have some level of quality. They stick to there promises of what they are going to deliver etc.

The school leadership are evasive and keep throwing up spurious reasons why they cant act. we have had the we arnt allowed by the government, by the local authority, and pretty much all cases they turn out to be total BS. A couple of times i have them documented as telling bare faced lies, when i checked with the DfE, LGA, etc

Lack of childcare is the issue here. Kids don’t need more schooling. Parents do however need more childcare, particularly at the end of the school day until about 6pm. Ideally in a venue such as a school which has lots of space and facilities for activities such as sport and play. And ideally in the same school where the kids have been all day, so they don’t need to be picked up and ferried elsewhere. Same goes for holidays - parents need to stick to the usual timetable, preferably in a familiar place with familiar people, where they can rely on the provision and not have the hassle of organising clubs here there and everywhere.

Private schools are great at this. State schools suck and don’t support parents at all, which makes it much harder for state school parents to work. Penalising the poorest again!

Love how this is always about the adults but who’s thinking of the children? No way I’d have my child cooped up for those long hours. She has a home she has every right to be in and enjoy.