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Nick Gibb
Gibb told MPs many academies had already used their additional freedoms to lengthen the school day. Photograph: Luke Dray/Getty Images
Gibb told MPs many academies had already used their additional freedoms to lengthen the school day. Photograph: Luke Dray/Getty Images

Schools minister refuses to rule out longer school days in England

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Nick Gibb ‘open to all ideas’ to help pupils catch up, with shorter summer holidays also proposed

The government has refused to rule out lengthening the school day and shortening summer holidays in England to help pupils catch up on lost learning, despite fierce opposition from school leaders who warned against attempts to “grind out more hours of learning from tired children”.

The schools standards minister, Nick Gibb, told MPs on the Commons education committee he was “open to all ideas” on how to help pupils make up for lost lessons. Headteachers responded that speculation about longer school days and shorter holidays was “misconceived and unhelpful”.

Gibb told the committee many academies had already used their additional freedoms to lengthen the school day to drive up standards. He also appeared to acknowledge the appeal of a shorter summer break, accepting there was evidence of lost learning during the six-week holiday. “We just have to leave no stone unturned in making sure that we can help those young people catch up from the lost education.”

His comments followed the appointment last week of Sir Kevan Collins as the new education recovery commissioner overseeing the government’s catchup plans, with the promise of an additional £300m on top of the £1bn catchup fund already in place. “He will be looking at all these ideas and potential proposals for how we can ensure that young people catch up,” said Gibb.

The two unions representing school leaders warned against “policy gimmicks” that sound superficially attractive. “Many schools already run after-school activities and holiday clubs but this is totally different from a blanket requirement to grind out more hours of learning from tired children with the likelihood of diminishing returns,” said Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.

Barton also cautioned against mandatory lessons during the summer holiday that would have to be enforced by fines for non-attendance. “The essential element of catchup support is quality rather than quantity, and schools are very good at identifying learning needs and putting in place the appropriate support. What they need from the government is sufficient funding to enable them to do this as effectively as possible, rather than policy gimmicks.”

Nick Brook, the deputy general secretary of National Association of Head Teachers, added: “Research evidence shows that there are better methods to help pupils than lengthening the school day. The government must filter out loud calls for superficially attractive schemes and listen to the experts.”

The government is expected to unveil further plans for its catchup programme in the coming weeks. It has already provided an additional £80 for every pupil as well as offering subsidised one-to-one or small group tuition under its national tutoring programme (NTP).

In a separate hearing on Tuesday, the Lords Covid-19 committee was told the government was in danger of imposing a multitude of external initiatives on schools that would have little impact on those most in need.

Richard Sheriff, who heads the Red Kite Learning Trust, cautioned against “big national complex programmes” and told peers there were disadvantaged children in his schools who had still not received any input from the government’s flagship tutoring programme.

“We’ve got a danger going forward of having a multitude of different external initiatives that are quite hard for schools to handle, that aren’t actually focused on the specific needs, and just look like we’re really busy, but don’t actually have an impact.”

He also said there was a growing breach in trust between schools and parents, making some communities even harder to reach, and flagged up concerns that boys in particular were having difficulties engaging with their studies, which could lead to a widening of the gap between boys and girls.

What are some of the proposed catchup plans?

Summer school

Collins, the newly appointed catchup tsar, has already said that the idea of summer schools is “promising”, but he has indicated he would want them to be locally led and locally informed, rather than a national blueprint being imposed by government. Where they do happen, they are likely to include sport, music and drama to enhance mental health and well-being, and Collins says they need to be “engaging and motivating” to get students onboard.

Longer school day

Many schools in England are already accustomed to offering additional support and activities outside of the formal school day, including Saturday morning revision sessions. But Collins, in an interview with Schools Week, said new technology now in use in schools would make virtual classes a way of extending the school day, rather than tagging on an extra lesson to keep children in school longer.

Shorter school holidays

The government is said to be reviewing the school year, with a view to extending the summer term by two weeks and therefore shortening the holiday. There has long been support for a shorter summer holiday from those who argue that disadvantaged children lose out most from the six-week break. But after the turmoil and demands of the past year, teachers and families might not feel it is the time for such a change.

One-to-one tuition

After the first lockdown the government launched its £350m flagship national tutoring programme, offering subsidised one-to-one and small group tuition to disadvantaged children. School leaders have complained that it is an unnecessarily complicated way of delivering extra support. Collins said tutoring was definitely part of the picture, but again stressed the need for schools to be in control.

Repeating the school year

Some policy experts have suggested that pupils who have lost out most should be allowed to repeat the school year in order to catch up, but the idea is fraught with practical difficulties. Barton said: “In principle, this is worth consideration, but in practical terms it would need to be confined to small numbers or otherwise it would create a logjam in the system which would leave schools with more pupils than they could accommodate.”

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