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.?

@Foxesandsquirrels

uni student?

Professors and researchers in the education studies department in a redbrick university. To get this kind of funding to run a multi year pilot/trial you dont just call up the government and say i want a few million quid to change stuff. You need academic justification, references, research policy information etc etc etc. The project needs to qualify to be invited for a funding call for the relevant Research Council (ESRC) https://www.ukri.org/councils/esrc/

This money needs to be garnered from the departments like the DfE, Treasury, Public Health England to chip in funding for the call. The representatives from each of the funding bodies then have a say on which proposals get funded, coupled with pier academic review.

@RedToothBrush

I was trying to be encouraging to keep perceiving

This is why it's so difficult to research. There are so many variables, but having taught classes of 32 and classes of 6, there is absolutely no question of which has the better outcomes. It's a no-brainer, really.

Again, I know it's hurtful to you, but the school said no. You should have never wasted the time of these academics when the school said they're not interested.

OP, you need a school who is 100% behind this idea.

Going in and saying 'my son is at your school, so I want you to do this' has no credibility and they have clearly said no, so you need to let it drop now.

Interesting thread. The main problem, in my opinion, is that modern life isn’t set up for two parents working full time. Many companies are still led by older males who were used to having a woman at home to look after the children, so they often don’t understand when fathers need time off/ flexibility to support family life. Having been an employer myself, I get that companies need employees to be available, but there does need to be more open mindedness about things like buying more holiday and flexible working. If this were the case then the change to education wouldn’t be required.

I think there is a LOT to be said for this as a point.

Education is 'women's work' therefore it is the Educational World that has to change to meet the needs of the 'Man's World of Proper Important Jobs' rather than have the alternative reverse thinking.

Its about who deems what the priority / more important is. And childcare isn't the priority of men so it should be the childcare providers that budge up not the men who employ elsewhere to provide more flexiable options.

Its a good example of who decides what and who thinks they are more important.

Clearly the teachers and TAs (who will mostly be female) have 'less important' jobs that should become shift work to accomodate the importance of the male OP and to hell with whether thats in the best interests of the kids at all. Its about social hierachy rather than whats best for the country and the little people with no say who need education most.

@ThinkingForward how pilots might work depends on the educational initiative being trialled. It might need to be tried for several years over more than one examination/SATS cycle. It might only need to be for a period of weeks but across many schools. Or anywhere in between.

I have seen far too many initiatives that have been tried in one individual school (sometimes very wealthy private schools) that are then dropped onto state schools that are utterly different in demographics. No evidence that what works in a wealthy private school setting will work in a deprived inner city setting for example.

@lifeissweet you need all these academics to monitor the inputs, along with needing mutli year trial to be able to account for cohort changes, also personal changes for families. For the moment I am leaving the school alone.

We are probably moving house and school next year. I dont want to have lots of negative schadenfreude ppl around like @Foxesandsquirrels. Only way stuff gets better in general is to advocate for it, sitting on your rear moaning and expecting things to change or thinking it is someone elses problem doesnt get you anywhere.

@Lovetotravel123

totally agree, at MyCoLtd I have a system where you can buy extra days holiday, you can also win it for productivity improvements, innovations with quality etc. Within reason you can move your schedule around to work 3 or 4 days a week. Some employers are more understanding than others.

Clearly the teachers and TAs (who will mostly be female) have 'less important' jobs that should become shift work to accomodate the importance of the male OP and to hell with whether thats in the best interests of the kids at all.

That is exactly what the OP feels like. ‘Can you teachers just completely change the way you work, start shift working, oh-and you don’t mind losing 5 weeks holiday every year, do you? It’s just that I need to work and I’d rather you looked after my kids than I had to.’

I think the complication with this as a pilot, though, is it is not possible to assess the economic impacts OP is expecting on a small scale. In order for this to catch on, you would need to prove that, not only is this better for children, but that it is self-funding to some degree.

If there is not enough evidence that it is affordable it will be completely ignored.

@RoseslnTheHospital

I agree, thats why its useful to have more than one class per year group in the school to run the trial as this allows there to be some comparisons, the multi site trials across the country is important to address regional factors, (for example shorter days in the winter in the North).

My child is absolutely knackered after a normal length school day so it would be a no from me.
And yes I work
No I don't have extended family that babysit ever.
It's not always what's best for us parents we do have to think about what's best for our children first.

How do you convince the parents to be in an untried experiment which might really leave their child educationally behind in a way that is being measured?

@Shinyandnew1

So what about all those that work in healthcare that are predominantly female (who outnumber teacher btw) who have families, and those families have to deal with the issues related to the school year, as well as add on the challenges of shiftwork. You are trying to create some kind of sexisum agenda where there isnt one. More people work outside of education than in it. We live in a democracy, public services need to serve the public. Just as now you want a telephone of teams appointment with a doctor on a saturday. Why cant those in healthcare ask for some options around 44 weeks a year of education. With more choice and options?

@RedToothBrush its down to choice, you could ask the question the other way around.

@eatdrinkandbemerry hence the idea of personal parent choice

@lifeissweet This is why you need to sociologists, economists etc to monitor the pilot/trial to evaluate this.

Cos when you get sick isn't something you can control the time of.

Whereas when you send your children to school can be controlled.

Is the difference hard to understand?

@RedToothBrush

Retail, hospitality.....

Well lets go back to 1954, where the shops open half days on mondays and wednesdays and saturdays, "late" on a thursday until 7.

Just to suit men who do the important jobs and don't like doing childcare.

So all the people (women) have to jump and change their already complex lives around kids.

(And people who go into teaching precisely to avoid shifts and so they can fit a professional job around children).

Massive eyeroll

Good luck getting all the teachers to agree to THAT change to their contracts!!!!

Dies laughing on the floor

There is a huge recruitment and retention crisis in teaching as it stands.

What bit of ‘removing 5 weeks holiday a year and making them work long shifts’ will help this crisis?

An extra five weeks pay each year would be great!

@Sherrystrull thats probably the easy way to work this out.

Because school isn't childcare. It's that simple. By all means lobby and campaign and demand better childcare, affordable childcare , more choices etc. I'd back you up on that. Stop trying to make education into childcare though. It's not going to happen, and more importantly it shouldn't happen.

If a trial has passed research ethics and been awarded grant funding sufficient to carry out pilot work, you don’t pack up and go home because the first site you approach declines to participate (neither do you threaten to sue them). You approach other schools until you find enough that are interested for a credible pilot. You would probably have more credibility if it was the PI making official contact and not a random parent.

I’m not sure why you are so outraged that this one specific school didn’t want to participate in a research pilot.

<rolls eyes>
Teaching for tests or concepts!
Do you not think teachers have discussed this - a lot?!
I'm sorry but you are coming across as very mansplainy again
Perhaps you would like to suggest spiral curriculums and summative and formative assessment and evidence based assessment and...

It really isn't as timple as "teaching to the test or teaching concepts" as you would know if you had spent very much time at all in school or actually, you know talking and actually listening to experienced teachers.
I'm not being bitchy but I am frustrated that you are spouting stuff again and again without actually listening to the actual practitioners on these threads.