The Nuffield Foundation Suggests Reforming The School Year (BBC News)

escaped, I was not allowed to exercise discretion in this matter when I was a Headteacher.
I agree Academy chains may make their own rules, but those of whom I have knowledge have similar rules.

Allira the armed forces of the 21st century are extremely flexible unless you are deployed to a war zone.

Academies do not come under local authority control in this respect.
Neither of course do private schools.

Chocolatelovinggran

Schools are not permitted to authorise holidays in term time.
This is an edict from the local authority, not the Headteacher.

In the case of local authority schools yes, but headteachers may use their discretion to authorise absences in term time.

It's that time again!

The USA has summer holidays that are 10 to 12 weeks depending on the State. Our holidays are about average in length.

Will people have holidays at the same time any more than they do now? There will still be the same number of weeks out of school. We often stayed at home in the summer and went away at Easter/Christmas, or the February/October half terms. During the primary years we occasionally missed the last two or three days of the term in order to get away when it was cheaper.

The children missed nothing apart from Christmas dvds and printed sheets of Christmasy stuff. I printed similar off to keep them occupied while travelling. They never missed the school plays or the carol service in church. The same was true for the last few days of the summer term.

What about the UK tourist industry. And can you imagine what the motorways will be like with everyone having holidays at the same time. I’m saying this as someone who regards education as one of the most important things in this country.

MayBee70

Will that mean that holidays during a four week summer holiday period will be even more extortionate? Maybe schools should be a bit more understanding if parents choose to take their children abroad during school time ( given that travel is important for children).

Well, agreed. I think it will inevitably lead to more children being taken out of school during term-time because of the greedy practices of airlines and holiday companies.

We have ridiculously long Summer Breaks but then it is really hot during this time so I suppose it makes sense. Think mid December until Feb. Unis are even longer, they don’t return until March.

Schools are not permitted to authorise holidays in term time.
This is an edict from the local authority, not the Headteacher.

GrannyGravy13

MayBee70 exactly all employers and workplaces have to have a certain degree of flexibility, it would be chaos if the entire U.K. came to a halt for the same weeks each year.

Maybe the education department should consider this as opposed to sticking to their rigid curriculum.

Not all employers have flexibility for good reason.
The Armed Forces for one.

GrannyGravy13

Ziplock our children’s memories of their travels with us which they still reminisce about more than compensates for a telling off on an anonymous forum.

(As does their degrees, careers and happy children of their own)

I remember mentioning to DD's primary school teacher that we had booked a holiday to France before the end of the summer term and she replied that DD would learn far more on a trip to France than she would in the last two weeks of the school year.

Can you define child centric without resorting to a googled definition?

At nursery a long time ago we were expected to develop each child’s schema, the fashionable word at the time. Even with the higher staff child ratio in nursery, you can’t do that for 26 individual children with 26 individual schemas and the children needed to learn other skills alongside.

EYFS- lots of learning through play, but children learn at different speeds, and arrive from different starting points, with increasing numbers non-verbal or with a label which has to be catered for.

This differentiation continues throughout the early years but

There has to be an underlying curriculum of skills and knowledge they need to acquire and teachers teach that, taking into account the children’s existing abilities and needs.

With that, there are children (you’ve read about them on GN) who come to school already reading, or with other academic or non-academic skills like gymnastics, singing or art, which need to be taken into account.
The parents expect to see progress in these skills, (e.g. moving up the reading scheme) and those whose children aren’t already reading expect their child to rapidly acquire the skill, even if they take them out of school in term time.

Where doesn’t child centric fit into that?

eazybee

^MayBee70 exactly all employers and workplaces have to have a certain degree of flexibility, it would be chaos if the entire U.K. came to a halt for the same weeks each year.^
Maybe the education department should consider this as opposed to sticking to their rigid curriculum.

And exactly how do you propose to make this degree of flexibilty work as you abandon the rigid curriculum?Granny Gravy?
Indidvidual curriculums for indivdual learners?

Having had children in private and state schools, private schools have more flexibility.

Looking at schools now compared to when our children were in education they appear to be obsessed with league tables and ticking boxes.

Education is no longer child centric.

MayBee70 exactly all employers and workplaces have to have a certain degree of flexibility, it would be chaos if the entire U.K. came to a halt for the same weeks each year.
Maybe the education department should consider this as opposed to sticking to their rigid curriculum.

And exactly how do you propose to make this degree of flexibilty work as you abandon the rigid curriculum?Granny Gravy?
Indidvidual curriculums for indivdual learners?

GrannyGravy13

Mollygo I don’t think I have ever complained about a teacher, I have complained about the system

We have teachers in our extended family, I know it’s not a 9-4 job with long holidays.

Exactly!
You are associated with teachers, so have a better idea of what’s involved.

Mollygo I don’t think I have ever complained about a teacher, I have complained about the system

We have teachers in our extended family, I know it’s not a 9-4 job with long holidays.

Things that wouldn’t change or would change for the worse with a shorter summer break.
Prices in the four week break would be even worse.
Parents would still take their children out of school at cheaper times.
Teachers would still have to take their holidays in the most expensive times.

Non-teachers or those not associated with teachers will still complain about teachers and their holidays.

MayBee70 exactly all employers and workplaces have to have a certain degree of flexibility, it would be chaos if the entire U.K. came to a halt for the same weeks each year.

Maybe the education department should consider this as opposed to sticking to their rigid curriculum.

Ziplok

MayBee70

Will that mean that holidays during a four week summer holiday period will be even more extortionate? Maybe schools should be a bit more understanding if parents choose to take their children abroad during school time ( given that travel is important for children).

Yes, let’s not worry about education - let children go on holiday whenever it suits the parents - then, if the school holidays are shortened, teachers can spend all their precious time preparing and delivering catch up lessons for the little darlings 🤷‍♀️🤬

My daughter was a teacher so I know all too well how hard teachers work, especially during the so called holidays when she was lesson planning ( she left the profession, totally burnt out and I was sick of arguing with people about teachers having amazing long holidays; as if).But I also think that travel is as important as education in some ways. My DIL works for the NHS. How will they cope if all of their staff have to cram their summer holiday into a four week period? Maybe holidays were initially based around children helping with the harvest but that doesn’t mean that other changing social needs shouldn’t be taken into account. One of my daughters sons will miss the first day of term because they’re taking him to Athens to see the Acropolis and it was the only week they could fit it in because of his brothers exam results and hopefully needing to sort out his university placement/accommodation etc.

Actually ziplock it worked just fine in Primary School when we weren’t hamstrung by a curriculum that had to be delivered regardless of the learner.

When we treated children as individual learners.

Sigh.

Ziplock our children’s memories of their travels with us which they still reminisce about more than compensates for a telling off on an anonymous forum.

(As does their degrees, careers and happy children of their own)

escaped

^Maybe schools should be a bit more understanding if parents choose to take their children abroad during school time^
Indeed this, particularly in primary school.

I think schools were until Ofsted made attendance a significant measure of how good schools were.

Attendance under 98%, bad school.

GrannyGravy13

Ziplock despair away, we used a mixture of private and state schools, we had our own business and were restricted on when we could both get away at the same time.

Taking our five out of school at various times hasn’t hindered their education or career paths.

Three of them were taken out for two and three months respectively over two Christmas’s.

I despair at the attitude that seems all too common, that schools are there to work around the needs of parents. Schools are there to provide an education - not operate in an ad hoc fashion whilst people take their offspring out of school at times other than the designated holiday pattern in order to suit them. The syllabus would go to pot and collapse if children could be absent whenever it suited their parents/guardians.

All through my teaching career, forty plus years, there have been schemes proposed to alter the terms of the school year, the four term year being the most sensible, and the one which had the most support.
But it all hinges on the academic university year, and they are totally resistant to any change. Academics use their long holidays for research, writing and publishing, and will not relinquish them easily.
Moving the summer holidays forward to June and July would make good sense,but whenever they are the price of holidays will rise accordingly. Schools will not be sympathetic to children having time off throughout the year for holidays; parents ignore how unsettling it is and how difficult for the child to catch up on work missed.
And parents always say, it hasn't hindered their school careers in any way. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they, the same as they deny family break-ups have any impact on their children.
We see the children in the context of other children, and we know.