Education wars

The weapon that is Education.

     Numerous Governments- for a long time have talked about implementing changes to the length of holidays, I remember this from my school days. 'Children have it too easy, lets reduce the summer holidays,' there is one main problem with this sentence, look again can you spot it? The word 'children'. Of course children have it easy, and they should. Being a child is the best years of our lives, do we really want to put adult pressures on four year olds? Growing up- paying bills, tax, cleaning, cooking lasts sixty odd years, we are children for 16 short years let them savour it.
     Already children are having to make adult decisions at such young ages, year 9 pupils are having to choose subjects which they will sit GCSE's in. They have discussions about which career they would like and are guided to choose subjects along those lines, at 13! A career that you won't start for 5 years minimum. At 13 I wanted to be a singer I couldn't sing, but that didn't matter to me I still wanted to be a singer. Were you going to tell me at such a young and impressionable age- that my dream will never happen? That i should concentrate on something more 'reliable' more 'stable'Shattering an already hormone ridden girls ambition.
    We are constantly being told that teenage pregnancy is high, surely a factor in this is young adults becoming sexually active as children. Is this due to the fact that they are growing up to quickly? Do they have too much adult like pressure placed on them? So how are we proposing to tackle this? By increasing school hours, putting more pressure on them and less free time to be children.
   Adults fixate too much on who is better, who is sitting around and not achieving, are we really now going to turn on our children? I would like my children to have a childhood like my own. Freedom to ride their bikes, climb trees, disappear for hours in a field building dens - only to come home when they are hungry. This can't happen because parents are terrified that a peadophile lurks in a bush waiting to snatch our precious kids. Maybe the current Government should focus on that rather than giving our children a 9-5 commitment everyday. The problem I have with my children doing more hours with less holiday is I want to be the one to parent my children, share their experiences and teach them right from wrong, I want to spend time and mould them into who they will become. I don't want teachers to play every role in my child's life. I didn't have children to enjoy their first three to four years, and then only see them for bedtime and weekends.
    Yes I am sure longer hours at school will help working parents, because the cost of childcare is so expensive- however I did not have children so that the impact on my life would be minimal. Children are a life changing blessing, that does not last forever if my children are having to spend longer away from me- those years will be forgotten so much quicker.
    If the longer school hours are being introduced to create better results, perhaps tackling the educational problems within schools is a more appropriate solution. Such as: more one on one attention for every child not just the disruptive ones, more sport, music and cooking. Don't get me wrong an extra half an hour I am not against, if my children are going to benefit. I could even be persuaded to back a half day on a Saturday (like private schools) on the condition that- like private schools they are spent on sporting activities. Competitive leagues between schools in numerous sports such as cricket, netball, hockey, football etc, would be hugely beneficial and opportunities for parents to watch the matches on a Saturday would be massively rewarding.
      However altering school holidays I feel is not productive. As a chid I would count down the days until the holidays, without them school would drone on and on. Children need to rest, as a parent I notice- when the end of term approaches my children begin to be tired and irritable, they lose interest in their school work. The holidays offer a refreshing rest. If they were substantially shortened I feel parents, children and results would suffer hugely thus our education system would be in jeopardy. An idea I have is that our children would benefit from a 'summer school' during the long summer holidays, an opportunity for children to volunteer to do some educational activities, such as dance, sporting activities and so on. A chance to socialise and learn a new skill and also break up the holiday. I don't feel it should be compulsory nor should it be all day five days a week and importantly it should be free!
      If we want to improve our educational system perhaps we should look at Finland- they rank top in the world. They pride themselves on offering a high standard of education to everyone, no prejudice put on wealth, religion, origin etc. I know living in England, if I could afford it my children would go to private school, they offer higher standard of education more competitive sports, music and Drama activities weekly or sometimes daily. It is also known that 80% of those who hold key positions in Britain went to private school. Finland also instead of increasing time spent at school have reduced it to just four hours per day, but still their children achieve highly. I think this is definitely something our Government needs to consider before they increase our babies work load.