Education overload – will longer school hours help Hackney’s poorer students?

Lower income students suffer most from the ‘summer slide’, recent research shows, which sees students losing speed academically during their holidays.

Many Hackney students, 40 per cent of whom are eligible for free school meals, would fall into this category.

Research has shown that greater summer learning loss for children from poorer backgrounds contributes to later academic achievement.

It has been argued that longer school hours would help working parents, and prevent antisocial behaviour by keeping kids in school whilst closing the attainment gap between richer students, whose activity-packed summers keep them occupied, and poorer ones, who spend more time entertaining themselves. A win-win situation? Not so fast.

As Michael Gove goes to war with teaching unions once again in calling for longer school days and shorter school holidays, the debate has been cracked wide open.

The reforms would allow state schools to stay open until 4.30pm and shorten summer holidays to four weeks in an effort, Gove says, to rescue education from a “19th-century agricultural economy” when timetables were organised around farming schedules.

Gove’s move stands in sharp contrast to calls last month by the National Union of Teachers to cap teaching hours at four per day to curb “unsustainable” working practices. In response to these recent suggestions, the NUT accused Gove of “making up policy on the hoof”.

Though Gove has said extra pay may be possible for teachers taking on extra hours, critics question whether logging more time in the classroom is a viable way to improve learning and keep vulnerable students afloat.

Henry Stewart, chair of governors at the Stoke Newington School, calls the proposal “nonsense,” saying: “It won’t happen. It’s one of Gove’s random thoughts.

“It’s down to each school to judge what’s best for their kids. We should trust schools to do what’s needed and avoid overloading kids.”

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Sunday Times education correspondent Jenni Russell insisted there is “no association” between the time spent in school and achievement. Instead, she argued, we should be focusing on the quality of education provided. “If the education isn’t very good than giving children more of it is not going to improve their performance,” she said.

But some free schools, who are given more freedom with their timetables, have already written a longer day into their curriculum. The Hackney New School, a free school set to open in September 2013, touts an eleven-hour day stretching from 7am to 6pm. Their website explains that “by the time they leave for the day, their work is done and they can enjoy the evening with their family and friends”.

According to Phillippa De’Ath, director of the Hackney New School, the longer school day is “becoming quite normal. Most teachers are working from 8 till 6 anyway.” But the idea of a shorter school holiday proved “less popular”, she added.