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.?

Lo A Man Has Arrived to tell the Head and teachers how to do their jobs.

Wanna bet that the Head is female???

I'd bet on it. He seems proud to have destroyed the PTA in his journey to make himself sound super important and knowledgeable.

Honestly, I can't believe you tried to stage some kind of parent led mutiny to force your child's school to do a 5 year trial of a system the head teacher did not want to implement. Staggering.

You need to take all your expertise, hard working attitude, go getter abilities and start a free school where you can do exactly as you please and demonstrate how well all your ideas for schools will work. Or better still, make it a private school and then you won't even have to worry about ofsted visits or much in the way of checks and balances.

@RoseslnTheHospital He'd probably start protesting about the red tape and interruption to innovation ISI inspections cause him.

Head: looks at the budget wondering how they are going to pay for the staff pay rise AND keep all their staff AND afford to heat the school for another year AND repair the roof AND recruit a new teacher as one has just announced they intend to take early retirement and won't be back in September AND how they will resolve the issue with the clearly autistic kid who is beating up other children but the parents are just insisting he's 'spirited' and resisting an assessment and the other parents who are fed up of the bite marks on their child. Forget the new books and equipment that's a problem for 12 months time.

OP: lectures the Head on how they are doing it wrong, should go to shifts, do more exciting activities off the premises rather than in stuffy classrooms and get extra money from getting parents to pay somehow when they cant afford new shoes in July and are wondering how they will pay for new uniform for September.

LALA Land

I wish I lived in it after the year we've had with DS. Great school, nice area. But problems coming out the walls to a degree never seen before - all to do with schools being shafted in multiple directions by economic issues.

This all started as they cut ASC provision, on joining the school then they said there was provision X,Y and Z and then they didnt do it. What was provided was poor. I asked for it to be looked at suggested that we pay a little more per hour to get the quality up a number of parents agreed. We got ignored.

My point is the teachers and governors said they couldnt do more in ASC because not enough parents would pay for it (they believed, with sweet FA evidence). So i went and developed the concept specialists from a number of universities, then found them the money (almost the entire annual school budget), the people to administer it, the political support in the Local authority etc.

Im well aware of Maslow, and yes we need to make a bigger change, but to do this we need evidence, the point is to gather the evidence. Doing this on a small scale means that this can be trialed, i lobbied for enough funding for 5 schools to run the trial.

i think the difference between 6 weeks of fixed holidays + 2 weeks flexible and 13 weeks of fixed holidays is small. It will extend the seasons for the holiday operators creating a business model which is easier to run as demand will be less bracketed into specific weeks.

The school is currently sticking there fingers in there ears and pretending that i dont exist. This is a pretty daft idea, the local government tried that with short changing free preschool provision by 14 hours/yr on some attendance schedules for all the kids in the local area for 3 years and ended up with a bill of a few million in paying out local nurseries + legal costs.

On your GP front a couple of family member took on the GP's and won, trapped them between CQC/health watch and the commissioners. Nothing ever changes without effort and alot of people just lie down and let life happen.

You'd like to sue the LA, the school and the governors to take money off them in order to force them to do what you want them to do? Just to prove that the teachers and governors at your school are lying ignorant idiots? If you truly think that then why on earth would you leave your child in their school??

Boasting about all the times you and your family have sued underfunded public services to make them do exactly what you demand is really not helping your case here OP.

Hahaahahaah I actually cannot believe what I'm reading. You seem to have a LOT of time on your hands. Why the need for ASC?
Please please invest in some therapy. You sound like a very unhinged man, verging on sociopath.
Are people really not allowed to say no to you? Even if you had a foolproof plan, they are still allowed to say no to you. You are not the headteacher or the governors. In fact, who the hell do you think you are?

My point is the teachers and governors said they couldnt do more in ASC because not enough parents would pay for it (they believed, with sweet FA evidence).

Dear God.

I live in a nice area. I know the school are dealing with a massive increase in kids who are in families who are financially struggling. and not free school meal kids. It's parents who are middle class professionals with mortgages.

There has been an increase in those eligible for free school meals. We know that the school has asked for help with Christmas for several families they know are struggling so discreetly contacted a charity that DH volunteers with.

But they won't be providing 'evidence' of this - firstly because of confidentiality and secondly because it's often financial hardship that doesn't tick the right boxes. It's parents who aren't necessarily able to get help elsewhere but have been hit with astronomical energy bills and mortgage increases. They are stretched in a way they didn't forsee. There is no 'spare' cash for this stuff.

You demonstrate the degree of lala land you live in merely from the fact you ask for evidence when it's all over the fucking news every night.

Heads are quietly signposting where they can and dealing with psrents who are embarrassed because they can't afford the school trip.

My son's year was supposed to do a residential this year. It got binned precisely because the Head recognised it was a cost that so many parents were struggling with...

If this is happening where I am, lord knows what it's like elsewhere.

The school is currently sticking there fingers in there ears and pretending that i dont exist.

I await you being banned from the school premises for harassment.

the local government tried that with short changing free preschool provision by 14 hours/yr on some attendance schedules for all the kids in the local area for 3 years and ended up with a bill of a few million in paying out local nurseries + legal costs

You took the LA to court over fourteen hours a year of missing childcare provision?? Presumably, since your child is 6, this was during the pandemic?

A PP is right, you sound absolutely unhinged.

I do see why he hasn’t gone private now - he would have been asked to remove his child before the first term was up.

OP, you still haven’t answered why you think you alone get to dictate that your child’s school changes its holidays and moves to a shift pattern, over the wishes of the other 419 sets of parents in your child’s primary school?

I wonder how much the court case case the LA and the OP.

And what the LA had to cut to fund the court case.

If you have the money to sue, just save the council thousands and go private.

You'll be happier and not surrounded by as many 'poor' parents unable to supplement your child's extra curricular activities.

Also I do love how he expects the Head to do extra work in providing satisfactory financial evidence to demonstrate his demands are lala land. As if they have nothing better to do but jump to the unrealistic world view of a pushy parent who can't even be bothered to switch on the 10 o'clock news. (Clearly the OP is too busy to make the 6pm bulletins).

You haven't actually ever taught in a primary school have you?

Springy hits the nail on the head better than me again!

@ThinkingForward You have misunderstood the role of the parents’ association. If it’s properly run, it’s probably a charity set up to raise money for the benefit of the children. It will have an agreed role and objectives. It’s not there to change the way a school operates. Strategic direction is the job of the governors. The head manages all day to day matters within a school.

If neither the head nor the governors will now engage with you: you’ve blown it. I do have some sympathy that wrap around care can be low quality and patchy. However these clubs are often not run by the schools or their staff. All they do is let the contract for the use of the premises. I’ve seen great schools in action. They do have high quality education with a broad curriculum. Plenty have great after school care too. You might be unlucky with the quality of provision at your school but you are not going to railroad through your ideas via the PTA.

However, parent governors might come to the conclusion that wrap around care is falling short but, if it’s a separate contractor, too bad probably. They might re let the contract when it expires and perhaps rewrite the contract. That might be worth investigating. I’m afraid many parents don’t have much spare money right now. They need to work to maintain the basics. For others it is often providing “extras” for their Dc such as seeing grandparents if they live far away, a holiday, clubs and sports as well as saving for university. Not to mention paying a mortgage. It is simply not the right time to throw the pack of cards into the air and expect them to all land face up. You can see there is a widely disgruntled workforce. Schools won’t change in a hurry.

Your best bet is to go to a free school or set one up. Or get a higher paying job so you can go private where you would get what you want more readily.

To other posters that have resorted to sarcasm: it’s a bit childish and diluted your argument. I’m happy to debate without being condescending.

@EducatingArti Why thank you ☺️ I try to be concise 👍

Love, Springy 🤣

A lot of teaching staff currently work 5 12+ hour shifts with 3 days break ( when they also often work).
You do come across as very mansplainy and have a lack of understanding of primary age pedagogy. Is your idea of play based learning similar to the Montessori method of teaching or something different?
Play based learning isn't a new idea. It has been around for at least a century. It works best when student groups are much smaller and with a higher staff ratio . You need to be able to document what a child has actually learned and lead them to make the 'next steps' in understanding as well as what just giving them a learning experience through play. It needs more space physically as well.

In my experience, the best primary teaching ( beyond early years) is a skillful mix of play/experiential learning and more formal instruction/ explanation.
If you spend any length of time in a primary classroom, you will find that teachers are ALREADY doing this as best they can given budgetary and national curriculum constraints and are really skilled at facilitating each child's learning even with a massive range of abilities and special needs. They don't need you to come along and tell them what they already know and do daily.

None of the pedagogy you propose is at all new. Teachers are very aware and are delivering as best they can within current constraints. You make it sound as if they glue each child to the desk and lecture them for hours on end!

If teachers are saying that even with a good mix of experiential learning, variety and change of activities ( standard classroom management technique) students are too tired to work/take in information beyond current school hours, who are you to say different?
Children need down time. Time to rest, chill, read quietly, even watch TV, spend time with their own thoughts to facilitate creativity etc
Also more than anything they need to spend time with tuned in and caring parents!

Have you any idea what a nightmare 2 weeks of flexible holiday would be? Every child would have missed a different two weeks of learning and teachers would be permanently having to recap in order to get the children up to date but a different recap for each child as they will be at different stages of understanding and will have missed different work.
You sooo do not understand how child learning ( in groups) works.

So it seems that there are alot of dismissive quite nasty comments here.

1. Lets be sexist, and close minded that makes the world better! The funny bit is that changes in schooling would reduce gender bias and disadvantage in many other areas of society.
2. bitching about funding, and basically nimby about making changes in schools, so you want extra funding but no sensible proposals of how to make the maths stack up. There is no magic money tree, so if people dont like the proposal of changing school hours to allow more people to work then thats ok, but at the same time, please put a plan forwards which would tackle
3. women have 20% lower life time earnings than men and 40% less pension (this is improving)
4. those who are disadvantaged have lower life expectancy and more interaction with the justice system. 70% of prisoners have reading age less than 9.
5. Criticism of holding people accountable: The point is the ~14 hours/yr over multiple years and over 8000 children effected (i think we worked out they had skimmed nearly 500000 hours of funding out the system!) Thats lets say 5000+ families. They just fobbed off the nursery managers. The nurseries were going bust as a result of covid. How does letting it slide help people? The whole point of a legal system is we can enforce our rights.
6. My "privilege and entitlement": I had problems at school, didnt do great (poor SEN provision), but im determined so I worked at McDonald in the evenings and weekends to be able to afford to go to college. I won a apprenticeship for uni, i had to work another job to be able to afford the rent, food etc. It would seem that alot of the people here had much more privileged. I worked hard and took oppotunites wherever i could worked my way up hence the travel. I now have a small manufacturing business (110ppl), most of the staff work flexi time from 6am to 7pm so they do there work and as long as it gets done every week they can work the hours when it suits them. I make an effort that we recruit from those that have not been handed a silver spoon, we run training program and take 10 ppl a year through apprenticeships.

I would imagine many people here you have had more privileged childhood and entitlement than me, still we live in a 2 bed semi, and I do the cooking, cleaning, laundry, take the boy to school ~50% of the time, my wife is in nhs and works shifts, works the on call. im a bit short on time to run a school. Nor should we have to.

Moving schools is easy, but doesnt change the society which we live in for the better for our kids. 10 years ago i was burgled by two guys, they got off with a fine, a few years after that i got a letter saying one of them wouldnt be paying the fine as he had died. I found a bit more about it, and he was a nightmare for society, he had done some truly horrible things (set the mother of his child on fire with hairspray), he ended up committing suicide in prison. This person started out as a kid in a school, who probably didnt have so much opportunity, who couldnt read or write, didnt have a bank account had drug aquired mental health issues. The point of this discussion is about reforming our education system in a way which is beneficial for society and sustainable (financially).

I hoped we would have ideas being chipped in rather than rubbished but this is just making more heat than light.

Looks like an interesting idea to explore!

I wonder why you want to speak to the women here when you've got it all sorted and think we're a bunch of bitching close minded idiots who object to change and believe in a magic money tree.

The comments about moving school are in relation to your child's education. I wouldn't leave my child in a school where I thought the head, slt and governors were inveterate liars and didn't know how to run a school. I'd move my child to a school which better matched my expectations.

Separately, if it was important to me, I would continue to press for change in the way that you've described. It's not one or the other.

Also, you don't have to tell women about the sex-based pay and pensions gap! We know.