Unlikely, given that most schools have current holidays at the same time. The important thing is to make sure all schools have holidays at the same time so the parents aren't having to take extra time off. TBH we stayed with grandparents until I was about 11-12, at which point I was left to look after my sisters who were probably 8 and 9 at the time.


Agreed that he is a blithering idiot, but if it were to take hold, it could cause problems. Either way, we can speculate.


I would hope so too. In all probability, there would probably still be homework.


True. Despite coming from a working-class family, I was lucky/good enough to get into a grammar school on the other side of town (hence the long journey). Though to be fair, it wasn't until A-levels when I kickstarted things. At revision time, I was probably putting in twelve hours of solid revision a day; I could sit and mark an exam paper within three hours etc. I don't think I've ever worked as hard as I did back then and that includes undergraduate and postgraduate education.


The idea of going into school on a weekend feels me with dread. I'd find it difficult to manage 8am starts but could probably hack the later finish if it reduced my homework.


I was going to mention this but got distracted at the time. My sister does a fair bit of lesson planning and marking which occurs outside of school hours. She tries not to take work home so she often doesn't leave till 5pm (having finished at 330pm), and this is primary school.

No it's not, and if you don't want your teaching staff to be up until midnight marking books, preparing lessons for the next day, you've really got to reconsider how school time is structured if you want to extend the day. My wife was marking work up to 9pm last night. She'll be planning on Sunday. This is out of hours time, and no overtime is forthcoming.

I've been surrounded by teachers all my life. It's not the cushy number people imagine it is.

You also have to let children be children. Lengthening the school day, dismissing holidays and adding homework to that pile just means you're going to affect their development in other ways. Parents and society needs to adjust, not the other way round. Maybe we're doing it wrong by requiring both parents to be working. Maybe we need parents at home more.

Not everyone has grandparents that they can rely on. Many have had to move to get work and so no longer have a family safety net to help them out.

So put child minders out of work and send parents off to jobs that don't exist? <- DM reaction?



From that point of view, perhaps if you had started school at 07:30, or what ever time they are proposing, you would be better at getting up now? Perhaps we'd all have a different outlook on life?

I'm not really sold. Faye is coming to the end of her year of training to be an HE teacher. The amount of unpaid work she is looking at doing is scary. And it's disappointing, as some of that extra work will be put in because the school can't cope with certain pupils or situations.

Yes, effing miserable .

Aside from anything else, if you're starting school at 7.30AM in say Northumberland in the middle of winter, you've been at school for the best part of three hours before you see the sun through the window. That's not going to be helpful, IMO.

Jon

We all know there are jobs out there for people who are want them (you can still have families where one parent is a home maker etc)
Child minders would be better off as they'd be able to look after more smaller children for longer (as one of their slots wouldn't be taken up by a child who only pays for 2 hours a day).

Can someone inform us what the times children go to school on the continent are, because I suspect that the times are very different?

Seems like an appropriate thread:

My sister has been teaching for 20+ years, ever since she left university.
She works in an army town, where many of the children have issues regarding their parents and home life, because 10 years at war does funny things to people.
The last Ofsted inspection decided she was an 'outstanding' teacher - she has been for several years.
However, it was a parents evening last night, and she had to give feedback to a mother about her daughters behaviour and general performance in class; it wasn't good news.
This morning, this woman turns up at the school and attempts to blind my sister.
So my sister, instead of getting on with teaching the class, has to go to hospital to receive attention to the scratches on her face.

Please, the next time anyone tells you teaching's an easy job and there's loads of time off and it's generally a cushy number, bear this in mind.

Yes but parents have been exceptionally protective of their children nowadays. When I had a bad report at school it was me that got the blame not the teacher. I think that far too many parents have unrealistic expectations of their children and so blame the teachers for any failings.

There is no 'yes but' to assaulting someone because they gave your kid a somewhat middling school report. The woman is plainly off her rocker.

I am in no way supporting or justifying that woman's response. It was criminal. My comment was more that society has changed and now children can do no wrong so it must be the teachers fault. If I was doing badly at school, then that was down to me. Though sometimes teachers need to find a way to make their teaching more effective. In a case where there could be other issues at home to blame the teacher is wrong.

Protective, perhaps. Responsible, absolutely not.