Schools in Nottingham may be moving to a shorter Summer Break, four weeks instead of six. Obviously the teachers aren't happy.
It's completely taboo to say this, but I don't mind admitting that one of the reasons I went into teaching was for the long holidays. I always made the most of them and thoroughly enjoyed every minute, regardless of whether I had any money or not. They are a huge perk of the job.
Unfortunately the idea of a six week summer holiday is bonkers. Many teachers and pupils simply get bored during them and it creates huge childcare problems for parents. It's equally mad that University students have three months off in the summer.
However if you cut the holidays without any increase in salary, you make the job even more unattractive.
6 comments:
The fact that NUT is opposing shorter summer holidays makes it clear that they side with teachers not students. That's OK by me, teachers deserve representation, but the dishonesty and double-speak is tiresome.
For example, from the article "The National Union of Teachers (NUT) said any move to cut the traditional summer break would harm children's learning and teachers' wellbeing.".
That's just a lie. The long summer break sets back poor kids by about 3 months and middle income kids by about 1 month. It is a significant cause of poor kids falling behind at school and, eventually, in life.
I'm OK with teachers saying "I need the summer break to regain my sanity!", but let's not pretend that long summer holidays do anything other than set back students' progress.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_learning_loss
Regarding increase in pay for the lost holiday, none is lost. Nottingham's plan is not to change the number of school days (190+5) but to reorganise the terms to give more even term and holiday lengths.
So you'd have about 5 weeks in July/Aug, 2 weeks in Dec/Jan, 2 weeks in March, 2 weeks in May creating 5 terms of about 8 weeks each.
See:
http://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=16349
Is a fortnight long enough to forget though? The whole point of six weeks is that you've not only just forgotten how bloody awful it all is, you're actually even kinda looking forward to a new year.
I'm sure it'll still be a 39 week year.
We used to have eight weeks when I was a lass (direct-grant grammar). If only!
Actually, I do get bored on holiday. I enjoy my job. I'm bored right now.
Three-month holidays at university are an inconvenient interruption from the students' point of view, but they do give the faculty an uninterrupted stint of research.
As a teaching assistant who enjoys the long six week summer holiday, I still think it is too long a break for the children. My twelve year old agrees with me. It is a long time to keep the children entertained. I think the Nottingham plan is a good idea.
Even though as a teaching assistant I enjoy the long six week summer holiday, I do think it is too long a break for the children. My twelve year old agrees with me, it is a long time to keep the children entertained and can be costly. Towards the end of the six weeks my two are always looking forward to returning to school. I like the Nottingham plan.
Post a Comment