School open 7 day a week to suit your life

[GordonBennet]

How much easier would your life be if schools taught 7 days a week?

 

How about them being open 7am to 7pm each day?

 

Finally how about having them open all year round?

 

Your kids could go on the days at times that worked best for your family circumstances and those expensive buildings and facilities could be more efficient. Teachers could work flexi time and the school run and congestion could be eliminated. No more peak holiday prices.

 

Is the idea just simple common sense?

 

Would it work for you ?

 

Oh dear. Tony's still smarting from having his arguments ripped to shreds by Plekhanov on the Sunday trading thread and is trying to start a similar argument by saying "well if shops open 7 days a week why shouldn't schools?"

 

Very very silly and pointless thread.

[Alien]

There are two sorts of people on SF, those who take everything seriously, and then there's the rest of us

 

*although to be as earnest as some, there are already kid storage facilities in existance. They're called nurseries. Some of them are even open for 24 hours to cater for shift workers.

 

Well I took you at your word....and a damn fine sentiment it was too.

[Cyclone]

You're confusing the personal with the general. Any one parent may only need to send his child to school for 30 hours a week, but the idea that every single parent in the country will be best served by the same thirty hours is palpably silly. A school that was open 24/7 would give every parent the option of choosing the 30 hours that best suits the individual parent; it doesn't necessarily follow that anyone will get to send their child away for 100 hours a week, and it certainly doesn't follow that the OP wants to.

 

The 24 bit is certainly stupid.

Humans are not nocturnal, the number of children going to school during the night would be extremely small and thus the relative cost of teaching them extremely high. Further more they wouldn't learn effectively and so it would be highly damaging to their education.

[HeadingNorth]

The 24 bit is certainly stupid.

Humans are not nocturnal, the number of children going to school during the night would be extremely small and thus the relative cost of teaching them extremely high. Further more they wouldn't learn effectively and so it would be highly damaging to their education.

 

I suspect you're right; there must come a point where cost-effectiveness means it's a waste of effort. However, to be fair to Tony he didn't say 24/7, he just said, seven days a week.

[Cyclone]

Okay, less stupid, but I don't think anyone has explained how you deal with children missing specific lessons. Virtually all group teaching is done to a regular time table so that things can be taught in sequence. With irregular attendance that would be impossible.

[Tony]

I suspect you're right; there must come a point where cost-effectiveness means it's a waste of effort. However, to be fair to Tony he didn't say 24/7, he just said, seven days a week.

 

Quite. It's nice that somebody has actually read and understood the words in the OP rather responding to the miasma of other words and pre-conceptions and misapprehensions that popped into their head.

 

I don't see how it would help families at all. The vast majority of people work Mon - Fri, a fair number work 5 days out of 7, and teachers are often parents as well.

 

I can't see how a class could be run with students not all there for every lesson, I don't see how it could be made to work unless teachers had to work 7 days a week, generally I don't see how it would help anyone or how it could be made to work.

 

If you can explain how those issues are avoided then maybe I can add something more constructive.

 

I can't and haven't suggested any. The OP was a bunch of clear and true statements and a set of questions asking for opinions, thoughts and ideas.

 

To move your thoughts on a bit you and others seem trapped in the notion of the current system of fixed timetables and curriculum. Might there be another, more modern, more effective way? After all we don't all work in time-and-motion controlled factories do we?

 

Could we have a more creative, responsive, relevant system?

[GordonBennet]

Quite. It's nice that somebody has actually read and understood the words in the OP rather responding to the miasma of other words and pre-conceptions and misapprehensions that popped into their head.

 

 

 

I can't and haven't suggested any. The OP was a bunch of clear and true statements and a set of questions asking for opinions, thoughts and ideas.

 

To move your thoughts on a bit you and others seem trapped in the notion of the current system of fixed timetables and curriculum. Might there be another, more modern, more effective way? After all we don't all work in time-and-motion controlled factories do we?

 

Could we have a more creative, responsive, relevant system?

 

No, the teaching unions would never allow it. School opening hours have always been designed to suit the teachers, not the children!

[Tony]

Sod the unions. This is our kids future. Is there a better way?

 

Anyway, more palatable working times for teachers might be one of the positive outcomes of a paradigm shift.

[funkymiss]

I'm all for it! Flexi time, holidays when I choose... Great! They'd be rather like hospitals. Drop in centres. You could even have a sort of Teaching A&E department.

[Alien]

Wouldn't this just be pandering to the employer? After all this is what it's about isn't it...they demand we're more flexible and in turn it filters down to our children's education.

 

Cohesion and consistency are paramount in child education IMO. The op's idea would seriously interfere with that.