Do you think that school days are too long?
Many parents who work outside the home will probably think that the school day isn’t long enough, and this is because school days generally don’t align with the working week for adults. Parents are generally forced to work 9-5, five days per week (or some variation of that) while children usually begin school at the same time (or after) parents have to be at work and finish hours before they finish.
This leads us to spending a fortune on after-school care or extracurricular activities so that our little ones are looked after and entertained until we finish work.
RELATED: Mum faces backlash as she admits her daughter doesn’t go to school in the afternoon
But just because this is the way things are doesn’t make them right and there have been calls to shorten the school day to be more in line with the Finnish model.
An Oireachtas Committee on Education has said that both primary and secondary school children are being ‘overloaded’ with the information they are learning in school and that a shift needs to happen.
Members of the Education Committee noted that under the Finnish education model, children are ‘encouraged to focus on nature and outdoor activities’ which is extremely beneficial.
Expert shares how to tell if your four-year-old is ready for primary school
In Finland, students spend four to five hours in classes, get 15-minute breaks in between classes and have a better approach to school meals. These are all attributes that the Education Committee say should be adopted by the Irish system, following members of the committee, including chairperson Cathal Crowe TD, taking a trip to Finland back in January to gain a better understanding of their education system.
The Education Committee said that shorter days should be given ‘serious consideration’ to help reduce ‘the overload in the Irish primary and post-primary curriculum.’
Cathal Crowe added that: ‘The breaks are certainly a welcome thing and it’s very hard to go from one concept straight into another without giving your mind a little bit of time to rest.
‘So I do think there are mirrors to having perhaps additional breaks during the day just to get fresh air into the lungs, to clear the mind, to get a bit of energy back into your system and to go back into the learning environment.’
RELATED: Irish Primary Schools Should Follow Finland And Poland And Drop Homework
They also found that Finland’s more ‘hollistic’ and less ‘intensive’ approach to education ‘values [students’] recreational time’ and ‘the need to reflect and recharge at regular periods during the day.’
