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School playtime is becoming a thing of the past for a generation of British children
Just one per cent of secondary schools now have afternoon breaks compared to 41 per cent almost three decades ago, according to study by University College London’s Institute of Education.
Researchers examined how school breaks and children’s social lives have changed over time by comparing data from over 1,000 primary and secondary schools in 2017, 2006 and 1995.
There has been a “marked reduction” in the total amount of break time children are allowed, with 11 to 16-year-olds now having 65 minutes per week less than they did a quarter of a century ago.
It comes amid rising concern about childhood obesity levels, with more than 22,000 out of 556,000 of children in Year 6 classed as severely obese.
Anti-obesity campaigners have described the report’s findings as “woeful”, saying that ministers must intervene and set guidelines for schools on break times.
The length of the school day has remained more or less the same over the past 25 years but break times are being “squeezed” out, according to Dr Ed Baines, one of the report’s authors, with potentially “serious implications” for children’s well-being and development.
“Whereas at one time afternoon breaks were a daily experience for nearly all primary school children, now they are increasingly a thing of the past,” he said.
“Not only are break times an opportunity for children to get physical exercise - an issue of particular concern given the rise in obesity - but they provide valuable time to make friends and to develop important social skills, experiences that are not necessarily learned or taught in formal lessons.”
Dr Baines said that the decline in lunch breaks is of “particular concern”, adding that children now “barely have enough time to queue up and to eat their lunch” let alone have time for anything else.
In 1995, just a third of secondary schools (30 per cent) reported lunch breaks of less than 55 minutes, but now this has risen to 82 per cent. Meanwhile, a quarter of secondary schools reported lunchtimes of 35 minutes or less.
The average secondary school pupil had 76 minutes of break time a day in 1995. That fell to 69 minutes in 2006 and just 63 minutes in 2017.
The trend is mirrored in primary schools, where pupils aged five to seven had 94 minutes of break time a day in 1995, which dropped to 91 in 2006 and to 85 in 2017. For youngsters aged seven to 11, break time dropped from an average of 83 minutes a day in 1995 to 77 in 2006 and 75 in 2017.
The study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, also found that there has been a “marked increase” in the average numbers of adults supervising at breaktimes in primary and secondary schools since 1995.
Tam Fry, chair of the national obesity forum, said he is “horrified” by the report’s findings.
“We believe that primary and secondary schools should be making sure that school children have one hour every day,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“It is totally meaningless to say we will do nothing, children can do it in their own time. It is just woeful that we have taken this very uninspiring attitude towards physical activity.”
“It is up to the Government to set the rules and the guidelines which all school should be following. If you leave it to the schools they are so stretched and overworked it will fall by the wayside.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “The government has given all schools the autonomy to make decisions about the structure and duration of their school day.
“However, we are clear that pupils should be given an appropriate break and we expect school leaders to make sure this happens.
“We recognise the importance of physical activity in schools to improve both physical and mental wellbeing.”
The Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines state that primary age children should get at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a day, the spokesman said.
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BOOK: Restoring the Promise: Higher Education in America
Richard K. Vedder (Author)
Higher education in America is in crisis. Costs are too high, learning is too little, and the payoff to students and society is increasingly problematic. In Restoring the Promise, Richard Vedder shows how the precarious position of colleges and universities results from a mostly unsuccessful expansion of governmental involvement in the academy, especially at the federal level.
The book examines today’s most serious issues in higher education, including free speech and academic freedom; tuition and other costs; culture and curricula; governance; gender, race and diversity; due process; admissions; student loans; and much more. It diagnoses problems and identifies solutions.
For example, the total cost of college per student in the United States is now higher than in any other country. When combining the monetary costs of college with the opportunity costs of losing years of labor to the economy, the true cost of higher education to American society well exceeds one trillion dollars annually. Yet, despite American higher education’s immense price tag, students are learning less than ever before and continue to be underemployed.
The book discusses the three “I’s” of university reform: information, incentives, and innovation. Without information, it is impossible for taxpayers and governing authorities to ensure that public education spending truly furthers the broader interests of society rather than the narrow interests of faculty and administrators.
Shaping incentives for management would help to reduce costs and improve quality. Business practices such as Responsibility Centered Management (RCM), for example, allow profit to motivate efficiency and encourage learning outcomes.
And expanding the use of innovation in technology and open online courses, along with relinquishing old rules such as tenure and three-month summer vacations, offer new hope for institutions of higher education.
The book discusses such additional reforms as the following:
Ending or revising the federal student financial aid program
Giving departments or even professors a share of overall revenue based on student enrollments in their classes. Departments or professors would then be required to pay their share of travel, building rental, maintenance, utilities, and other such costs from the revenues they receive
Providing earnings data on former students by college five, ten or fifteen years after matriculation. Prospective students (and parents) as well as lawmakers and oversight officials would be assisted regarding school successes and failures
Increasing faculty teaching loads
Instituting three-year degrees and year-round instruction
Ending discrimination against for-profit schools
Ending grade inflation
Ending speech codes and other barriers to academic freedom
Ending affirmative action and related diversity programs
And more...
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A Solution to College Debt
Congress created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program in 2007 in an attempt to attract people into professions like teaching, nursing and public-interest law. College graduates would be forgiven their student loans if they pursued a career in such professions. The Wall Street Journal reports the program is now in “disarray.” Although 73,000 people have applied for debt forgiveness as of March 31, reports the Journal, citing Education Department figures, just 864 have had their loans erased.
While models are constantly changing — from cars, to clothes — only the education model remains the same, except for rising costs. That model says a college education is mandatory in order to obtain a good job and become self-sufficient. What if it isn’t? What if massive college debt might be unnecessary?
A new study by Georgetown University, Center on Education and the Workforce has found that by next year, “65 percent of all jobs in the economy will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school.” That means 35 percent of available jobs will not require a college degree.
The findings are significant because they offer a guide into the type of specialized education and acquired skills students will need to qualify for these jobs. In the past, a general liberal arts education was enough to find employment in many fields. As new industries emerge and existing ones expand, the jobs of the near future will require an education and training to fit employer requirements.
The implications are obvious. For many jobs and careers it will no longer be necessary to attend a four-year college, pay high tuition, along with room and board, and graduate with crushing debt that will take years, perhaps decades, to pay off.
Some other findings from Georgetown’s research that will be helpful as young people seek an education tailored to job requirements include: “Job openings in health care, community services and STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) will grow the fastest among occupational clusters. Judgment/decision-making, communications, analysis and administration will be the four most in-demand competencies in the labor market.
The demand for physical skills has continued to decline over time, "except for ‘near vision,’ which is necessary to read computer screens and other types of documentation.”
Even those who choose to pursue college degrees will benefit from knowing the types of jobs they can expect to get and design their education to fit those necessities.
The flip side, says the study, is that at the current rate of college graduates, the U.S. will lack 5 million workers with post-secondary education by next year. A combination of jobs opening up because of baby boomer retirements and the creation of new positions in existing and new industries means a total of 55 million job openings by next year. This is nothing short of phenomenal and is a contributing factor to the influx of immigration, both legal and otherwise. How many of those entering our country illegally have high skill levels?
Skills that are most valued, says the study, include “leadership, communications and analysis.” Taking into consideration all occupations, “96 percent require critical thinking and active listening to be either very important or extremely important to success.”
Parents and students should keep these findings in mind to spare themselves frustration and debt when deciding the right path to a meaningful and well-paying job in the new and ever-expanding economy. Otherwise, the jobs one is hoping to get after graduation may not be there and the parental basement could be the only alternative.
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