School Holidays -Could be cut?

[Demi]

It won't happen Don't worry!

[Maatt.]

LOL at everyone like, my life is so hard,

my school is a 8-8 school every day and Saturday is 8-1. If Nything you should just have longer days and keep your holidays,

[Lewiis,]

Im not still at School and I dont think it should change.

When you start work you get hardly enough time off at all so at school you should enjoy all the time off you get. They shouldn't cut it at all. People need to have time to enjoy themselves and if they cut the holidays you have at school your basically saying spend most of your life working with little time to yourself from day 1.

It wont change anyway it would cause way too much trouble with teachers striking and all sorts. Lol

[Adam]

Im not still at School and I dont think it should change.

When you start work you get hardly enough time off at all so at school you should enjoy all the time off you get. They shouldn't cut it at all. People need to have time to enjoy themselves and if they cut the holidays you have at school your basically saying spend most of your life working with little time to yourself from day 1.

It wont change anyway it would cause way too much trouble with teachers striking and all sorts. Lol

Maybe you should still be at school.

Your =/= you're.

[Lewiis,]

Maybe you should still be at school.

Your =/= you're.

Agreed! Not my strong point but oh well. Lol

[Adam]

Agreed! Not my strong point but oh well. Lol

That was a little harsh but I'm just trying to raise awareness and help people along the way.

[Cerys]

We were talking about this in Law today - basically everyone agreed that Gove is an idiot *didn't use the word idiot, but I wouldn't be allowed to use the actual word on the forum (; *
Teachers jobs are hard enough as it is, so if they had their holidays cut short? Poor them.
Lets just hope that this is another one of Goves failed ideas.

[AgnesIO]

I'm referring to all the holidays really, and the summer holidays can be a time of relaxation for teachers. That is, of course, if they're not helping out on school trips or running DofE expeditions.

Are you insinuating that because teachers may spend their evenings marking work that they don't face everyday problems? Sorry I really don't get your third point

Just a question, what type of hours are you thinking of for schools? Do you want a mechanically-engineered generation or do you want children to be children, teenagers to be teenagers?

Firstly, school trips over the summer are optional for teachers - you would only do them if you genuinely enjoyed it.

In terms of school hours, I don't want the 8-8 figure that some have been bandying around. I see no harm in say.. 8-5 - possibly 8-6. The advantages of this are clear; parents could take full time jobs (which at least one parent often can't), enabling them to earn more money and therefore improve the quality of lives for their children. The economy would benefit as families have more disposable income, and also less families would be dependent on benefits.

Another advantage of longer hours is that "homework" could be done under supervision whilst at school - this is clearly positive, at least in my eyes. It is fairly standard that young people work better at school than they do at home - this would therefore improve their school grades, and also mean that time at home is not spent doing school work. Furthermore, the school day could include more PE - which will help fight the growing obesity problem in Britain, and (according to scientific research) help boost school grades in the meantime.

I don't want mechanically-engineered children. I want what I genuinely believe is best for Britain and the future generation. I cannot stress how important I believe the Maths and Sciences to be - something that I was foolish and didn't appreciate four years ago. If Britain genuinely wants to compete on a global scale - particularly if the eurosceptics want to leave Europe - it has to be a strong independent state. It simply isn't at the moment.

Just thought I'd point out that PE is compulsory in primary and secondary school. You have to do at least 1 hour a week with many doing more than that

1 hour a week? I did 2 hours per week in years 7-9. Is this enough? No - compulsory 1 hour a week should be 4 hours a week! There's a reason there is an obesity problem in Britain - and I genuinely believe more PE in schools would help fight it. Once at home people use computers (as we are doing right now), games consoles - not fitness. Fitness along with a diet and sleep is essential if you want people to perform well in schools.

If the holidays become more spread out then that'd be better for parents and for the kids, I used to always get so bored during summer. There wasn't enough to do for 6 weeks.

Got to be honest, this is something I have never experienced. This may be due to always going away for the majority of summer - so for me the holidays never felt that long. They are also less than I used to get at one point. Having said that, I don't see any harm in reducing them either - sure I didn't get bored, but I don't think I needed 6+ weeks off at once (just made it a shock once school started again!)

Having a parent who is a teacher, I can easily say that teachers do not have an easy job. Maybe some do, in brilliant schools, however this isn't always the case. Nowadays, teaching doesn't bring in a huge amount of money. Holidays are spent planning lessons for the students, marking work, writing reports, etc. People commonly believe that because of the short days and holiday time, teachers have it easy when in reality it's not true because there's such a lot of work that people just don't realise. It doesn't always matter if a teacher can control a class or not, because, in some cases, when teachers work in learning support, some of the things they have to deal with is ridiculous. This isn't claiming that everyone in a learning support will abuse teachers, this is just in the case of some people teachers do have to put up with abuse from kids.

Both my parents have been teachers, one still is. I don't think they have really easy jobs - I have seen a range of teachers cry from the stress - but I have also seen people in many other professions cry from stress - accountants, bankers and hairdressers all included.

My father used to specialise in working with children in possible (in fact, he left teaching when the field selling, milk snatcher took over!) My current job (still a student too) basically revolves around getting abuse from people - personally I think it is something that you do get used to, and stop being hurt by. Certainly that is not to say it is right, it is absolutely disgraceful. Mind you, I think it would be fair to blame the lax punishments in schools (although that is a totally different debate).

So, yes teachers jobs are not incredibly easy - no they don't work 6 hours a day and nothing else (I know this). But do I think they work so hard they need 9 WEEKS more holiday than almost every other profession in England? No, definitely not. And I doubt anyone can convince me otherwise.

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My reasoning behind seeing the benefits of this are not to punish teachers, to put them in to the real world. No, I think it would benefit the future generation. I firmly believe it is a genuinely beneficial proposal, and won't harm anyone. Unfortunately, I cannot see it ever happening. Teachers Unions' will prove that they are too powerful and block it, and the government would have to be elected in the next election for it to happen - as there isn't enough time for them to implement it in the current parliamentary calendar. Having said that, the Conservatives are currently the most likely party to gain an election in the next election...

[Ardemax]

Firstly, school trips over the summer are optional for teachers - you would only do them if you genuinely enjoyed it.

In terms of school hours, I don't want the 8-8 figure that some have been bandying around. I see no harm in say.. 8-5 - possibly 8-6. The advantages of this are clear; parents could take full time jobs (which at least one parent often can't), enabling them to earn more money and therefore improve the quality of lives for their children. The economy would benefit as families have more disposable income, and also less families would be dependent on benefits.

Another advantage of longer hours is that "homework" could be done under supervision whilst at school - this is clearly positive, at least in my eyes. It is fairly standard that young people work better at school than they do at home - this would therefore improve their school grades, and also mean that time at home is not spent doing school work. Furthermore, the school day could include more PE - which will help fight the growing obesity problem in Britain, and (according to scientific research) help boost school grades in the meantime.

I don't want mechanically-engineered children. I want what I genuinely believe is best for Britain and the future generation. I cannot stress how important I believe the Maths and Sciences to be - something that I was foolish and didn't appreciate four years ago. If Britain genuinely wants to compete on a global scale - particularly if the eurosceptics want to leave Europe - it has to be a strong independent state. It simply isn't at the moment.

I totally agree and I want Britain to become a strong, independent nation too. However: do you honestly think students will attend 9/10-hour school days? All we need to do is add a bigger focus on maths and science in school instead of forcing students go to school for longer than a lot of parents go to work.

I believe that if you pressure children too much at a young age they will crack and fall out with the education system altogether.

[dbgtz]

The economy would benefit as parents wouldn't need to take part time jobs or hire babysitters to look after their parents.

Not really. Yeah they may be able to get full time jobs, but that is hardly guaranteed. Then those who already have full time jobs and hire babysitters, well if the kids were at school then you would find some child minders out of work who would go on to claim benefits. Parents would also not stop claiming all benefits apart from that recent childcare vouchers scheme which should never have been put in place to begin with. You'd likely find teachers would want more pay which means a higher education bill.

Personally, I think the problem with education is down to attitudes of both teachers and students and the lack of discipline there seems to be. The worst students seem to get away with their disruptions in class and get praised far too heavily when they act how they should. I remember a group of what I will call the "worst offenders" all went on a trip to thorpe park (for free I believe too) which is absolutely absurd. I'd quite like to see a few reforms when it comes to discipline including: harsher discipline (i.e. actually punishment not detentions or suspensions which would be seen as a holiday) on those who continuously disturb others and act; fairer discipline so genuine mistakes aren't brutally dealt with and more even discipline so that those who do the same wrongs under the same circumstances do not end up getting treated differently. I believe that once the issue of discipline is addressed then the quality of learning will go up.