[HN Gopher] Four-day week at a south London school
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       Four-day week at a south London school
        
       Author : robtherobber
       Score  : 27 points
       Date   : 2025-01-08 10:40 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
       | If you are lucky enough to be born in a family which goes through
       | posh London and then goes into posh universities and does a posh
       | job in posh London, that is maybe the peak of our civilization
       | right now.
        
         | blitzar wrote:
         | They still live on the wrong side of the river.
        
           | kjellsbells wrote:
           | If you look at the school's website you can see who they
           | really serve: the well heeled of SW London: Richmond, Fulham,
           | etc. Not, say, Tooting, Balham, Sutton. Which is ironic
           | because their location, in Morden, is right in the middle of
           | a gigantic sprawling estate of soulless 1930s commuter homes.
           | 
           | Easy to laugh, of course, but education is such a fraught
           | subject in the UK (parents feel the stakes are so incredibly
           | high) that I guess they saw a gap and filled it.
        
       | seeknotfind wrote:
       | I've never regretted my education and only wanted more.
       | 
       | > response to concerns about children's mental health and a
       | shortage of teachers.
       | 
       | Ha! Getting educated is so bad for children, and how insufferable
       | an extra day among their peers must be! Disgusting!
        
         | karmakurtisaani wrote:
         | I think the teacher shortage is the true reason.
        
           | kjellsbells wrote:
           | Yes. And I suppose "school cuts service 20%" or "school
           | raises tuition by 25%" are not such pleasant headlines to
           | read, despite being equivalent...
        
         | throw5959 wrote:
         | Yes, being imprisoned with a large group of children was
         | extremely painful to some of us.
        
           | seeknotfind wrote:
           | It _was_ painful.
        
             | throw5959 wrote:
             | And we don't want to subject our children to that torture.
        
           | musicale wrote:
           | The irony of learning about things like democracy and the
           | bill of rights in an authoritarian school that suspended
           | basic rights was not lost on me - and schools seem to be even
           | more restrictive now.
           | 
           | But I have few complaints about kindergarten and
           | undergraduate university education.
        
         | CapeTheory wrote:
         | Education comes in many forms. School taught me about long
         | division and the battle of Hastings, but weekends away with my
         | family taught me about societal norms.
         | 
         | We hear lots of complaints these days about how mal-adjusted so
         | many children are, but is there any wonder? They are whisked
         | from after school clubs to private sports activities, then off
         | to bed (or homework) once their mandatory activities are done.
         | Some of this is because parents are terrified of being
         | considered neglectful by under-stimulating their child - but
         | then children never learn to just exist in the presence of
         | events which are more important than themselves.
        
       | gus_massa wrote:
       | You need a family where one of your patents doesn't work, or at
       | least they can pay a full day babysitter on Friday.
        
         | ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
         | anybody who goes to these schools have babysitters. i sell an
         | app to some of these companies. posh villages has some of the
         | best schools in the world and uk.
        
         | ktallett wrote:
         | Plenty work 4 day weeks now. This needs to be introduced in
         | tandem with work changes. School shouldn't be a babysitting
         | service nor an intro to work, it should be about exposure to
         | the world around them.
        
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       (page generated 2025-01-11 23:01 UTC)