School's out!

I'm back now people and yes it has been a while but I feel my common sense bladder is fit to burst.

I've had a Charlie Croker moment and had a great idea.

Why don't we have schools open all year round?

Don't get me wrong we would still have school holidays but we wouldn't have the huge 6 week break in the middle of the year. My reasons are this, if we spread the terms out the country's children would have a better grasp on what working life is all about. There aren't many people who have enjoyed the luxury of a 6 week holiday in the height of summer, apart from wife beaters footballers and even they have to go to a world cup every four years, unless they're welsh. The reason I have been given for the long summer holiday is that the children used to help with working the land through the summer to help the family. The last time I checked there really isn't that many farmers left now that we will fly lettuce from Italy or Spain so that our school children can avoid eating the stuff, but child obesity is another blog altogether.

So if we don't need the children to help on the farm anymore lets not give them the time off. The positives are that by spreading the holidays out over the year we would stop this monopoly on foreign holidays during school summer holidays, It's not fair that a week in one of the piss poor, scally resorts of where we buy Lettuce from is three times more expensive at the end of July than at the beginning.

As good as the NAS are they are not likely to give me a 6 week break in the middle of the year. After a really busy June I would not come in until the last day of 'Work Term' where I would bring my favourite toy (Hungry Hippos) and play happily with all my colleagues. I would then spend the next six weeks forgetting how to write, falling in the brook, building dens, playing football and eventually being bored and wanting to return to work. Then first week of September I would be back, ready to go and fighting fit. I'd spend the first week covering my work laptop with wallpaper, sharpening pencils and claiming I was lost when and couldn't find the room when being late for meetings. BRILLIANT!

I'm going to go out on a limb here but I think we should also scrap homework, yeah I said it. A police officer doesn't fill in unnecessary paperwork at home. A soldier doesn't kill people at home, unless he's suffering PTSD and suffering vivid flashbacks from his time in NAM or perhaps struggling to settle back into civilian life. Doctors aren't overworked at home. Politicians don't bollocks up the economy from their expenses claimed homes/moats/duck islands so why do we expect our children to work from home. The slaves that picked the cotton didn't do it at home. The weavers of Manchester in the 1800's didn't lug a power loom through the cobbled streets home to work on their weave project. Even Richard Crawshay didn't expect his workers to finish up a day's work in the blast furnace and then say "Right everyone I need you all to smelt another tonne for me at home tonight because we have an OFSTED inspection next week we would like to display this in the hall". All homework proves is not how applied you are or how intelligent you are but how good are your parents at making you do things you don't want to do.

If it was done in school more work would actually get done in an environment that is hopefully conducive to learning. Children can't concentrate these days at home because children have too much stuff that is much more fun than the average rainfall in East Anglia. Xbox is better than maths, I'm sorry but that's a fact. Hungry Hippos is much more fun than homework so lets leave the school work in school and leave Hungry Hippos at home, where it belongs.We can't unwish the invention of Xbox but what we can do is change and adapt to real life.

It would be safer for the children as we could use some of the time we have saved in the summer by having time off in the winter saving on unnecessary journeys at the most dangerous time of the year. The schools could save money on heating the building at the coldest time of the year. The best thing would be that kids could actually spend some time enjoying their Christmas presents before returning to school in the freezing cold first week of January. The last few years the schools have been off in January due to snow and this way they would be off anyway instead of wasting valuable school time.

Childhood violence would also reduce as you wouldn't have to fight the kids from other schools that attended the same 'Play Schme' as you. It's a win-win from every angle as far as I can tell.

I shall make this a manifesto pledge, if I come to power this will be policy, or I might dump it if I need to form some kind of coalition, who knows what the future holds for me.

Be well, sleep tight and kids..................go to school.