Recently, I was speaking at a national conference about careers advice. The questioning turned, as it so frequently does these days, to the length of the school day and the length of the school year. I have pretty firm views on these, not popular in all quarters, but with a lot of family experience behind them.
My father left teaching in the independent sector because he had an idealistic and visionary belief in the comprehensive ideal. He ended up running the fourth-largest school in the country. My own background is a bit different: although I was educated in the state sector, I’ve only taught in the independent sector. But I like to think that we have the same ideals, the same principles, the same fundamental belief in the welfare and interests of the child, which we exercise irrespective of the sector we work in.
My father believed that schools exist to serve their communities, and I agree. But we both also believe that schools start on that mission by serving children. Children need leisure. Friedrich Froebel, the influential Romantic German philosopher of childhood and a great influence on my father, believed in the value of play as an essential part of human development. That meant my parents kept me away from school for as long as possible – indeed until the inspectors came knocking on the door.
We are in a pretty reactionary place in this country at the moment with regard to our views of the child. Basically, 1960s egalitarianism didn’t win the day – and not without reason. In came Margaret Thatcher, and a succession of education secretaries who saw children only in terms of academic measurement. They consider that the more you teach young people, the more and better they will learn. The whole thing has become Gradgrindian, and risks being completely counter-productive. We need a balance in our views of things.
There’s a big and developing movement of mind – evident at the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference and in many other places – that says it’s time for change, time for that proper balance. You can’t achieve that desired balanced end if you go along with the notion of a longer day.
Opposing the notion involves an argument in two parts: the first part is about the best interest of the child; the second part is about the purpose of a school. Full article
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