OT posts re teacher T&C's removed from AIB Redundancy Thread


And not one person has suggested any of that should stop. I am simply trying to understand why teaching stops for such a length of time every year. There must be a reason because it happens in every country but no-one has said what it is. Why not keep the schools open during July and do half days and then close for August? That way kids can learn and still play in the nice weather in the afternoon. It's not exactly child cruelty. I am sure there is a very logical reason why it is not done though.
 
Mpsox said:
Cause they might learn more. Why not extend the school day by half an hour for example and teach them a languague? Why not extend the school year by 2 or 3 weeks more and teach them more computer skills or maths. ?
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The main reason that the school year cannot be extended is that the school year is standardised by agreement between school managers , teacher unions , parent organisations & other relevant bodies.

The current agreement runs until Easter 2014.
 
Mpsox said:
Why not extend the school year by 2 or 3 weeks more and teach them more computer skills or maths. ?
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Mpsox, you beat me to it.
I was just going to suggest something similar. Extend the school year by a few weeks and have something like a science week or maths week, where students could learn these subjects in a fun and practical way. These are subjects where we have apparentlyfallen behind.

Or have a cultural week focusing on countries like China, Japan or India and learn a small bit of the language.
It's never to young to introduce children to new things.
 
Are people in favour of extending the school year because:

a. It would be better for the kids

b. It would shorten teachers' paid holidays

c. Its awkward finding childminders during the long holidays.

Personally I think secondary school holidays should be shortened. The kids are studying for exams and take a large number of subjects. They also get bored being off for three months and spend a lot of the time just hanging around aimlessly.

I think smaller kids benefit from a decent break and wouldn't be in favour of changing that.
 
Deiseblue said:
The main reason that the school year cannot be extended is that the school year is standardised by agreement between school managers , teacher unions , parent organisations & other relevant bodies.

The current agreement runs until Easter 2014.
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Then perhaps the challenge should be for the new Govt to renegotiate a new deal for post 2014, which is within the life time of the current Dail

It's astounds me that at a time when the whole country knows we are short of languague skills/math skills and sciences, we let secondry school kids have almost 4-5 months a year off school. That's not much of an investment for the future
 
Shawady said:
Or have a cultural week focusing on countries like China, Japan or India and learn a small bit of the language.
It's never to young to introduce children to new things.
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My daughter's school do this every year - intercultural week - with tasting of different foods, wearing of traditional clothes etc. They're not sitting round waiting for AAM to tell them how to do their business.

thedaras said:
Kids have all weekend,and after school to play pretend,
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No, they don't. They spend considerable amounts of after-school and weekend time doing homework.
 
thedaras
Kids have all weekend,and after school to play pretend.

Complainer;
No, they don't. They spend considerable amounts of after-school and weekend time doing homework.
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Ahh come on now,what child who "plays pretend ", spends considerable amounts of time doing homework!

Most kids in fact don't get any homework on Fridays,or at least in any of the schools my kids have been to in various areas of this country ..
I dont need anyone to mind my kids either..
 
thedaras said:
Ahh come on now,what child who "plays pretend ", spends considerable amounts of time doing homework!
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Perhaps the 13 year old who was playing with my 7 year old last night?

The 'plays pretend' is of course a red herring, Kids get homework, and lots of it.
 

The other argument is that the standardised school year is set by those most involved & those best qualified - school management , teachers & parent organisations.

From what I can gather direct Government involvement is minimal.
 
Kids do get homework,but its age related and if they are spending considerable amounts of time doing it,there is something not right..

In my kids (primary )schools they correct each others homework....dare I say it..less work for the teacher!

And there is much debate about the homework issue anyway,perhaps extra time in school would cover the need to have to do homework at all...
 
Deiseblue said:
The other argument is that the standardised school year is set by those most involved & those best qualified - school management , teachers & parent organisations.

From what I can gather direct Government involvement is minimal.
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Did you forget to mention UNIONS in your list above?
 

Have you raised this with the school? Maybe there's a theory behind it.

I agree with Complainer. I think younger children spend enough time sitting in a classroom and would prefer that they retained decent holidays and hours that give them lots of time to run around, have fun, develop hobbies and interests outside of school and basically be kids. If the teachers benefit as a result, so be it.
 
It makes a bit of a mess of the teachers argument that they spend so much time correcting home work,when in fact in some cases the kids correct each others plus they dont get homework on Fridays.
 
thedaras said:
It makes a bit of a mess of the teachers argument that they spend so much time correcting home work,when in fact in some cases the kids correct each others plus they dont get homework on Fridays.
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But most of them do correct homework. That's why I asked if you had spoken to the school. Does the teacher take any role in correcting?

I think its a good idea to give young kids the weekend free from homework. I still remember that horrible feeling on a Sunday afternoon when you realised you still had to do it.
 
thedaras said:
Did you forget to mention UNIONS in your list above?
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No , if you read my previous post ( post no. 42 ) I stated clearly that the standardised school year was set by school managers , teacher UNIONS ,parent organisations & other relevant bodies.
 
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