Any working parent with children due to start school next year will already have put their mind to the ongoing dilemma of just how the hell you are going to manage the school day.
It’s like trying to fit together two pieces of a puzzle that just won’t meet. The school hours – a throw back to the late 19th century – run from 9am to around 3pm and your working hours are firmly planted in the 21st century, running no where near 9am to 3pm at all.
Its hard to fathom just how such a system continues.
And yet with a patchwork of after school care (if you can get them in) grandparents, nannies, neighbours and after school activities to fill in the gaps, parents manage. But it makes you wonder why the school world can’t just step into the 21st century.
As a mum of two school aged children I know this dilemma only too well and see it played out every day in our bulging-at-the seams school.
More than 380,000 students aged five to 12 attend taxpayer-subsidised out-of-school-hours care, but the ABS has said there is unmet demand for another 80,000 children. Via IStock.
Parents who can take the after school hours they can get but they face long waiting lists for places, and in many cases only limited days are offered.
They have to fill in the other gaps with whatever they can, some to rely on the help of relatives and employers willing to shift around working hours on certain days, others book their children into expensive before school activities like tennis or chess club just so their kids are doing something while they go to work.
Others just don't even try full time work at all to the detriment of the family budget and their own preference.
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Top Comments
This article isn't about making kids stay at school for 12 hours! What it is suggesting, to anyone forward-thinking enough, is that the hours be opened up and more flexible. For the stay at home mums who want to stay part-time, they could. For the teachers who want to keep the same hours, they could. For the working mothers who want to be a role-model for their daughters by working in a professional job, they too could do this. Children once played outside in the neighbourhood with friends after school, without getting exhausted. Parents once enjoyed a whole weekend with their kids, without half of it being sacrificed to sport. Women need to work in order to get equality for their daughters, whether they like it or not. Women who want to have careers shouldn't be shamed by those who don't. The 21st century must be embraced.
To be honest, I remember at high school the library was open from around 7am until 7 or 8pm. There was heaps of space and it was a positive learning environment. Obviously not the case for every school, but this whole 9-3 thing never seemed to be an issue for anyone or their parents, because of the availability of the library. It wasn't as though we had to be watched or 'baby sat' by any of the teachers after their usual working hours.
Was this primary school or secondary. if the children are in junior primary then there would definitely be a duty of care for the schools
I used to walk to and home from primary school, they drove me for awhile but they eventually stopped giving me lifts. I'm confused how this would help the child? Say I work from 8-4, that's 8 hours a child spends out in a foreign environment with no control of what they are exposed to in that environment not including travel times. That is what children are exposed to 5 days a week. So the focus of their day is entirely on school and that is exactly what is required for people to not know what they want to do and ignore alot of information. IMO this system should be removed as it is not fair on the children and does not allow children to be children. People should be allowed to choose what they do and they shouldn't be forced to the verdict of their guardian until of age.