An argument for longer school day and shorter holidays

An argument for longer school day and shorter holidays

Michael Gove has recently unveiled in a speech that he would like a longer school day and a shorter holidays.  Although this plan may sound radical, is not as radical as it may first  sound in fact many academies already implement these policies, and Gove says our current system was designed around an agricultural economy in which children would help with with the harvest during their school holidays.  Whether or not this is true matters very little, as school timetable reform is practical and can offer a stack of benefits to students and parents. 

One of the strongest arguments for these reforms is to help working parents, your average full time employee will work 9 till 5 but the school day starts at 8 and finishes at 3:30. This can lead to parents having to look for after school care or having to work part time or not at all.  Increasing the length of the school day would save parents child care costs, and getting a young child to and from school will be less of a hurdle for parents who want to work.   This is mainly a benefit for parents off young children as this is less of a problem for parents of older children who are more capable of getting themselves to and from school.  Importantly the reforms would also have a positive effect on the education of the child, after all this is the most important aspect of any sort of education reforms.  A longer school day could be used in several different ways to benefit a child, one suggestion is to use the extra time to make sure students can get at least one hour of PE a day.  This would help tackle the countries childhood obesity problem and relieve pressure on the NHS by giving children a daily dose of exercise, and installing an exercise ethic in children.  Extra time in the school day could be employed to help older children with their studies by making it an enforced study period, or use it for support sessions to help struggling students or use it for other extra-curricular activities. With the new reforms schools could provide all sorts of extra-curricular activities in the additional time rather than an extra lesson, however schools could increase their lesson length from 1 hour to 70 minutes.  This additional 10 minutes in each lesson can facilitate late students, allow students time to unpack, and give teachers time to settle the class down while still having a full hour of teaching.   Some of the academies that already run longer days put forward the argument that longer 9 till 5 days better prepare children for the world of work.  This is because it’s as long as a day of work so when students go to work they will not face the additional challenge of longer days.  Longer school days will face opposition from both students and teachers that does not however make it a bad idea as almost every reform to education faces opposition.  As for shorter holidays I think there may be much more resistant than a longer day, the argument for shorter holidays is that children's academic performance dips if they spend too much time away for school, so if they had shorter holidays then they would not suffer this dip.  However if holidays are to short students particularly younger ones are likely to suffer a dip in performance due to fatigue.  Again childcare costs are an argument for shorter holidays as parents can rarely schedule their holidays to coincide with their child’s school holiday which means childcare costs, shorter holidays are unlikely to solve this problem but they will reduce it.  Personally I like the idea of longer school days, but although I can see an argument for shorter holidays I would rather see half-term holidays removed and keep the main holidays the same length.       

 One of the best things about academies is the freedom they enjoy; they are testing grounds for new ideas to improve education.  The department of education needs to cherry pick the best reforms and apply them to local authority controlled schools, this would improve the every school in the state sector.  It is important that local authority schools are not neglected due  to the rise of academies and that the department of education actively helps them to compete with academies and try to make them an attractive choice for parents to send their children.  The whole idea of academies was for greater competition in education.  So it is important that they are not just competing with each other but are also forced to compete with local authority controlled schools and that local authority schools are not left behind to become relics of the old education system.    

Osborne is right about Philpott, the system is broken

Osborne is right about Philpott, the system is broken

George Osborne passed comment on the Mick Philpott case yesterday, when he said a debate was needed about whether the state should “subsidise lifestyles like that.”  He was referring to Mick Philpotts 17 children, which he was using as cash cows.  Moving away from Mick Philpott and concentrating on the core message of Osborne’s message, what should the state subsidise?   Our current Welfare system has morphed into something that would be unrecognisable to William Beveridge.

Beveridge’s view on the welfare state was that “the state in organising security should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility; in establishing a national minimum it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by the individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family.”  The key to the welfare state was that it was the minimum standard of living, it was never a high standard of living.  It was only supposed to be a safety net to prevent people going without food or losing their house.  It was also based on contributions, today the idea of contributing to one’s own benefits has been lost, for example a school leaver who has put very little in can claim as much as someone who has worked for 20 years.  Also the current system totally fails to promote responsibility it actually promotes irresponsibility, it is easier for young people to get a council house if they have a child it does not matter whether they can afford it or not.  I don’t think it is a coincidence that the UK has such a high level of underage pregnancy, you get money for having the child and when it comes to leaving home you are placed at the top of the housing list.  Also the child benefit despite recent reform is not fit for purpose, how many children should the state support?  1?  2?  6?  There should be a cut of point for child benefit such as you will receive child benefit for your first two children and that is it, the state should not actively encourage people to have more children than they can afford.  The benefit cap is trying to tackle the problem of welfare restricting opportunity but whether it will be successful it is too early to tell,  what we do know though is that for some people it is better to be on benefits that get a low paid job.  These people are not leaches they are victims of a broken system after all would any rational minded person go to work to earn less than they could by not working?  However the benefits system should never be a hurdle to someone getting a job you should always be better off in work or the system is failing after all it is only supposed to be a minimum standard of living.

To conclude Mick Philpott’s are rare in our welfare system but that does not mean that the system is not broken or that it has not lost touch with its founding principles, this was what George Osborne’s message when he made his comments about Mick Philpott's state funded lifestyle.  We currently have an opportunity to reform welfare, some reforms have already been implemented.  But there is still more to be done to reconnect welfare with its founding principles and break Britain’s culture of dependency.    

True tolerance embraces all

True tolerance embraces all

This week three things have coincided which have made me write about the subject of tolerance, the first being gay marriage, the second being a repeat of an episode of the daily show and the third being a Simon Jenkins article in the guardian.  These three apparently unrelated things are tied together by a central issue of tolerance.  Gay marriage is clearly about tolerance and as the bill was passed last night it was another step forward for homosexual equality and it also showed how tolerant the UK is of all types of different people.  The episode of the daily show was set at the Democrat party conference and it showed members describing how open, welcoming and inclusive the Democrats are. However at the same times delegates were making fun of how stupid and racist Republicans were which showed arrogance and an inability to listen from Democrats.  Finally the guardian article was mainly about gay marriage but it also mentioned how liberals are not truly tolerant until they embrace those who disagree with them.

I have been keeping an eye on the gay marriage debate as it has developed and I have noticed one thing about many of the bill’s supporters.  They have a tendency to be extremely derogatory to those who disagree with them, opponents of the bill have been termed bigots, backward and religious nut jobs. This is simply not the words of a tolerant person in fact it is completely intolerant of those who oppose gay marriage and it is rather arrogant to portray opponents of gay marriage in such a light.  Many of those who I have seen speaking in opposition to gay marriage have had perfectly valid points such as marriage is a religious ceremony between a man and a woman, and that gays should be allowed to have an equal institution which is not called marriage. Many opponents of the bill had nothing against gays but just had a core belief that marriage is between a man and a woman, this does not make them a bigot or a bad person.  In my own view I think that legalising gay marriage is a real triumph for equality but I totally understand the opposition and have great respect for some of the arguments against gay marriage.

Intolerance from liberals is not new thing it is actually rather common, if you look at most of the recent parliamentary debates liberals are quite happy to call anyone who does not agree with them out of touch or just plain nasty. It is interesting that those parties and people who describe themselves as liberal are happy to launch such personal attacks on people when they are supposed to be tolerant. The gay marriage debate has really showed the lack of real liberals in the UK, it is fine to support minorities but it is unacceptable to think that all those who don’t agree with you are bigots or small minded.  Before I finish I am going to illustrate my point using Vice President Joe Biden who is a true liberal and shows tolerance of all views which is why he is such a good Vice President. Anyway in the US Senate there is a belief that opposition politicians may be wrong but they are rarely bad, this was show when Biden was in his early Senate days he believed Republican Jesse Helms to be heartless for not supporting disabled rights.  Now unknown to Senator Biden Jesse Helms had adopted a disabled orphan, so was no more against the disabled than Senator Biden himself.  An older Democrat explained this to Biden as you can question people’s judgement but you should never question their motives.  So taking this in context of gay marriage yes in mine and many other people’s views the opposition to gay marriage may be wrong and we may not agree with their arguments.  However many of these people are vicars, grandparents and upstanding members of the community who are motivated to oppose gay marriage through a belief that it is a union between a man and a woman.  This is similar to the situation with Senator Biden, yes it is fine to criticise the judgement of the opponents of gay marriage but it is not ok to label them bigots. After all your either tolerant of all including your opposition or you are intolerant.