Recently Michael Gove raised the issue of the length of school holidays and the school day – the former are apparently too long, the latter too short.
It was suggested that a combination of four-week summer holidays and a school day finishing at 4:30pm would lead to improvements in pupil attainment. In addition, of course, such changes were described by Mr Gove as being “family friendly” and therefore, politically at least, clearly a good thing.
Leaving aside the suspicion that the driving force behind these proposals is to shift yet more of the burden (and cost) of childcare from parents to schools, it is worth looking more closely at Mr Gove’s assertion that longer days + shorter holidays = improved performance.
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