Pupils to be able to book their own holidays in radical new school plans

 

By SARAH HARRIS AND LAURA CLARK - More by this author » Last updated at 15:22pm on 10th December 2007 Comments (1)

Pupils will be treated like employees and able to book their own holidays at a new breed of school being backed by the Government.

The traditional school day, fixed holidays and school uniforms will be scrapped in an attempt to give students a realistic introduction to the world of business. Instead, youngsters will be expected to work overtime when deadlines loom and encouraged to apply for time off as if they have real jobs in a workplace.

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Pupils will be encourage to work long hours running up to deadlines

 

Uniforms will also be ditched and pupils will have to dress "appropriately" for their daily work. The "studio" schools - aimed at 14 to 19-year-olds who have been expelled from school or struggle with an academic curriculum - have already been publicly backed by Schools Minister Lord Adonis. And they are expected to form part of the Government's Children's Plan being unveiled by Children's Secretary Ed Balls today. However concerns were voiced last night that allowing disaffected children special privileges could act as a "disincentive" to their better-behaved peers.

Mr Balls' ten-year plan will cover children from birth to 19. As well as subsidised childcare for two-year-olds, targeted at poorer parents, there will be a shake-up of primary education to allow a greater focus on the three Rs and foreign languages.

The overhaul could see history and geography rolled into broad humanities courses and art and music into creative arts, in a move certain to raise fears for the future of traditional subjects.

Meanwhile so-called "key stage" testing will be scrapped and replaced by shorter but more frequent exams, taken when teachers believe pupils are ready.

Ministers also plan moves to encourage children to play outdoors as well as giving parents greater involvement in their children's education.

They also believe studio schools, which are smaller than standard secondary schools, typically catering for around 300 pupils, could help prevent disaffection among children who learn better outside the formal classroom.

The initiative is being pioneered by the Young Foundation, a London-based charity, which has already set up a school in Luton.

Ministers are today expected to back trials of the schools in other areas of the country including Barnsley, Blackpool, Kirklees, Oldham, Sheffield and South Tyneside, with a view to extending the scheme even more widely.

The schools are likely to be located in existing educational buildings such as further education colleges.

A spokesman for the Children's Department stressed the schools need not just cater for pupils who had been expelled from school and would otherwise end up in pupil referral units.

They also had wider appeal as alternatives to formal schooling for pupils turned off by traditional classroom-based studies.

Pupils will be taught how to run businesses and learn practical skills such as team-working that are valued in the workplace. Students will also spend some time on placements in actual businesses - and could get paid for their work.

They would follow the national curriculum through cross-disciplinary projects which are focused on business and commerce. For example, they could undertake a marketing and sales project on "how can the local charity shop boost revenue?", covering maths. Simon Tucker, associate director of The Young Foundation, said that these projects will allow more flexibility over school holidays - with pupils reserving slots. He said: "It's another way in which the schools will be more like a workplace than most schools. "We're not sure how far we can push that and have all the children booking holidays like employees or have a mixture with some set holiday period because there are the issues of parents of those children who have siblings at other schools." However critics were last night sceptical about how the schools - and flexible holidays - will work in practice.

Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: "We will have to see how the pilots go but there is a danger of sending out the wrong message to youngsters who have always behaved well and worked hard.

"It could be seen as rewarding bad behaviour if children who have misbehaved or failed to work are able to book two weeks off in Corfu in the middle of term or dispense with their uniforms. This could act as a disincentive to better behaved pupils."

Great idea in theory, I'm not sure if it will work well in practise.