Michael Gove : I can see your point

This week has seen Educational Secretary Michael Gove propose longer school hours and shorter school holidays and it has caused a lot of controversy. The thing is that I can see his point about the Summer Holidays being too long and sometimes I feel like the school day has whizzed by far to quickly but I also think that you shouldn’t fill a child’s life with school and that they need time to enjoy being a child. They need time to play with friends, do their homework and to have out of school activities.

Two articles that I have read this week that have both taken opposite sides are Dear Mr Gove by GG over at Actually Mummy and Why Michael Gove is right to shorten school holidays over at ParentDish. I am a bit of a fence sitter on this because I can see both sides of the arguement. What I think would be best for my family might not be suitable for the next one.

If you had asked me last year when I was working in an office and struggling to pay our ridiculously high childcare bills then longer school days and shorter holidays would have been ideal. Now however circumstances mean that my children have a parent at home to do the school run and to spend time together in the holidays.

Personally I think that 6 weeks in the summer is too long (I even felt this as a child too), especially with the awful summers we have now. I also think that a one week holiday is not enough down time so those holidays should become longer. I would also love to see schools able to pick and choose when they have their holidays so that different schools have holidays at different times therefore stopping the ridiculous price hikes that we see on non term time holidays.

I think 6 hours a day at school is more than enough time for my young ones but we would rather 10 till 4 so we didn’t have to stress so much to get ready in the morning. I think increasing to 7 or 8 hours as they get older would be ok as long as that includes decent breaks and non academic subjects as well.

I know that the school timetable was created a long time ago and yes it is time for a change but lets not try and base our school system on one in another country. We have our own needs and our own weather patterns.

Lets face it the teachers need a break just as much as the kids, so whilst change can be good lets not change just for the sake of it. All change should be thought through carefully and planned properly. Hasty changes are never a wise move and to be fair we have seen far to much of that happening from this government already.