A school in England has angered parents by planning to close early to allow pupils to watch a World Cup game. The headmaster has agreed to shorten lessons and bring forward a GCSE exam to enable his 1200 pupils to get home in time for England's game against Slovenia on 23 June. He told parents in an email that the game is 'very important'. The school will close at 2pm instead of the normal 3.30pm.
The controversial decision was taken after a request from pupils who are given a say in the running of their school through its Student Voice. Teachers have previously warned of abuse of this nationwide initiative which gives pupils greater power in their schools, allowing them to rate members of staff and even sit on interview panels.
What will Michael Gove say about this? Time he stopped this 'inclusive' attitude to schooling and ensured pupils were pupils and the adults, such as the head and teachers, were those in charge.
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19 comments:
That does seem a bit excessive - exams should surely be the priority!
When Scotland were in France '98, one of my teachers let us watch a game on an aged tv with a very poor signal... changed times!
I do know some schools show games on a big screen as there's a balance to be struck - if they don't allow a compromise, kids will just absent themselves and miss a whole day!
Whilst I agree that children should have no say in the running of the school, it seems a reasonable compromise to end the day a little earlier. Not doing so will only result in more children 'bunking off'.
Sod it. Let 'em take a couple of weeks off in July to watch Andy Murray too. Eh?
/sarcasm
;-)
I bet there are some Teachers hiding behind the desire of those pupils wishing for an early-finish.
A game between England and Slovenia is 'important'. Sorry, 'very important'. Obviously a nuanced meaning I hadn't come across before, but he is a head teacher. (Head Teacher - like a headmaster, only less so).
Still, I think I can confidently say that the pupils will learn no more nor less than they would have if lessons had continued as normal?
As Chuck said, it's not as if their education will be damaged by missing 'social inclusion' lessons or 'smoker persecution' class.
Besides, it gets them ready for the real world, where the lunatics run the asylum in every organisation now.
No problem with this at all!
A better solution might have been for the school to show the game for everyone to enjoy, but your country participating in the biggest sporting event on the planet, in a country as interesting as South Africa should be celebrated.
It some ways Belle it's sad that our education system bows to TV programmes. Very sad.
Then the parents should be somehow punished for allowing it EV.
Aye Dick and how about an extra week or two at Christmas to play with their toys? Maybe another week in summer too because it's still good weather when they go back in August.
That's the conundrum Chuck. Our education system is no better than the latest TV show.
Well LI if it meant some missed their regular sex education class instead of a language, history or science class, then OK.
I do have problems Jim because our senior schools have the shortest teaching times in Europe.
Why should a football match dictate the curriculum?
Showing the thing to the whole school would perhaps solve the problem of making up the official teaching time, but cancelling national exams is a no no. Not for a football match.
No problem with this, the pupils would not be concentaring and it's nice to hear of a school encouraging support of ones country in this way, it might have been expected them to decry such support as being filthy 'nationalism' and 'anti-inclusive'.
During the last world cup England progressed to the point that they would be playing at the same time as a local posh wedding was due to take place. It took a day or so for the best man to pluck up the courage to tell the brides mother that everyone wanted to watch the match from the guests, choirboys, bridegroom, reception staff and taxi drivers.
The wedding was postponed until "one hour after the final whistle" so everyone was happy (except that England lost).
Seems as if I'm alone in my opinion with this one banned. Must say though, I wasn't paying for any wedding but I'm part of the tax paying public who pays for children's education.
It goes to show the values in this country that a football match is more important than an exam. As some have said the kids will just bunk off it they can't see the match.
They'd have never thought about that in my day - the punishment was too effective.
Subrosa,
The exams aren't worth the paper they are written on. I took a Science GCSE as an experiment. I have not studied any aspect of Science for almost 30 years, and had absolutely no preparation for the paper. I passed with an A* grade. The questions were ridiculously easy, and mostly to do with common sense and nothing to do with Science.
As for teachers telling parents what they can and cannot do with their own children, it seems that it may have been a while since you had the pleasure of seeing a child in State education. The less time they spend in these zoos, the better.
I have to admit English Viking, it's a few years since I had close experience of schools and most of my teacher friends have now retired. Have heard and seen the quality of exams recently though and I have to agree with you.
Sadly this small matter shows a much greater problem within our education system and its standards. Dumbed down I used to say but now I realise its deaf to any criticism or common sense too.
"Seems as if I'm alone in my opinion with this one banned."
You misunderstood my comment then? Fair enough, I'll let you off when you set a date to do the Shake 'n' Vac thingy at mine. ;-)
Ooops sorry Dick. I should have said it seems as if you and me are the only two who think this is ridiculous.
Oh dear, it's a while since I did the Shake n Vac dance, I'll have to start practising...
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