The Rhythm of the Academic Year

The basic structure of the School year has hardly changed since Victorian times. Children return to school at the start of September. Autumn is the longest term, when we expect 50% of syllabuses to be covered. Our Spring holiday is determined by the movable feast of Easter, and we have a long Summer break of 6-8 weeks. It is the latter that is frequently challenged, both by parents who struggle to ensure adequate childcare, and by some educationalists who point to how children’s knowledge and skills regress over this extended period. Researchers say that this is a particular problem for those from disadvantaged backgrounds who will not necessarily receive the intellectual stimulation that we seek to provide for our children. However, this is not just a British peculiarity. Schools throughout Asia as well as the West share this long summer break. I am informed that its origins stem from the needs of agriculture, from an era when children were required to collect in the arable harvest from the fields during late-July and August. Clearly, life has changed but why haven’t our holiday arrangements?

I have been thinking about this subject after a report this week recommended that university applications move until after A Level results are published. Year 12 boys had this Wednesday a UCAS training day (UCAS being the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service), and will spend hours in the coming weeks honing their personal statements before submitting their applications in September or October. They will then receive university offers up to March, but will only have their places confirmed once A Level results are published – a whole year after the process has started. I have long thought that this process is drawn out and inefficient. Wouldn’t it be easier if the receipt of A Level grades in mid-August was followed immediately by submission of university applications? Universities currently take a gamble on the likelihood of a prospective student obtaining the grades required. With the grades confirmed, decisions would be more straightforward and the process could be easily completed before university terms commence in October.

There would be a huge number of advantages. Universities wouldn’t have to offer their student accommodation without knowing who actually might arrive. Students would not be as distracted during Year 13 by the applications process, focusing instead on their learning. I had the occasion to ask a university Vice-Chancellor this week for his views on this proposal. He was surprisingly positive. Yes, procedures would need to change, and A Level results might have to be brought forward a couple of weeks, but universities would adapt quickly. He was particularly keen that there would be no place any more for unconditional offers. These are places offered by universities irrespective of the A Level grades achieved. Unconditional offers have arisen as some universities are struggling for numbers and therefore income. However, schools despise them because some students, knowing that they don’t actually need to pass their A Levels, elect to take it easy. We fight against this, emphasising to boys that their A Level results sit on their CVs for life, but we would be absolutely delighted to see them disappear.

Having been involved in marking examinations, I don’t quite understand why it takes 2 or 3 months for boys to receive their GCSE or A Level results. Public examinations are starting earlier each year. Year 11s sat GCSE Geography on 7 May, less than two weeks after the start of Summer Term. If I operated in a vacuum, I would bring the entire academic year 2 months earlier. Please don’t think that this is a statement of intent! I do not believe in acting unilaterally, because I am too conscious of the need to avoid inconveniencing parents who have children in establishments beyond the Loughborough Schools Foundation. However, there is a lot of sense in getting in more teaching before the exams and less after. The second half of August would become the start of the academic year, with school leavers simultaneously applying for universities with their A Level results in hand.

I am sure that this raises immediately a number of questions in your minds, but we already have difficulties in determining the school year at LSF, because Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Leicester City Councils all have different term dates. We have considerable numbers of families living in each geographical area, and it is therefore impossible for us to satisfy everyone when determining the dates of our holidays. Leicestershire is particularly problematic as its Summer holiday is earlier than the rest of the country, apparently to cater historically for the needs of the Leicester hosiery industry. I’m not sure much hose is manufactured these days in Leicester but this historic arrangement doesn’t suit us one bit. Leicestershire schools return in August (so far so good), but split their term into uneven halves, with 9 consecutive weeks after an early October Half Term break. Nine weeks of teaching in a row seems highly inadvisable given how pupils’ concentration wanes as the nights draw in. Our boys (and teachers) get tired and regular breaks are required to refresh batteries.

I am very open to change, but will be a follower rather than a leader in this respect because of how irritating it is to parents when holiday dates vary significantly for their different children. The reasoning behind the school year running from September to July is poor. It goes back to an agricultural past that is long behind us. However, the academic year hasn’t changed because it would be extremely painful to do so. The period of transition would be exceptionally complex and a whole generation of school children would miss out somewhere. I actually think that university admissions will move to post-qualifications application, but this will, in the clichéd management-speak that I sometimes hear myself using, be more an issue of evolution than revolution.