Lessons about personal, social and health matters including sex and relationships will be compulsory in all England’s schools from ages five to 16.

But the government is setting up a review of how best to achieve this, saying there are "complicated issues".

Schools Minister Jim Knight said this would factor in the ethos of schools, pupils’ needs and parents’ values.

A BBC poll of more than 1,000 people found two thirds would support sex lessons from the age of 11.

Reviews of education about sex and relationships and about drugs and alcohol were ordered after ministers said teaching was "patchy".

What they have not yet given is the detail of what compulsory personal, social and health education (PSHE) will involve, to allow local flexibility.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families said the review of sex lessons had identified "a need to challenge the perception that sex and relationships education happened in a ‘moral vacuum’ in schools and says that parents and schools can and should work together to decide how best topics should be taught."

It said updated guidance would also be produced covering the content of the PSHE curriculum, based on the existing non-statutory programme.

Lessons should be "age appropriate". In primary schools, Sir Jim Rose would look at how PSHE should best be delivered as part of his ongoing review of the curriculum.

A small rural infant school has resorted to desperate measures to recruit a permanent head teacher.

The 35-pupil Ibstone Church of England School in South Buckinghamshire, is to set up class at a major education show in a bid to attract a new head teacher.

The school has had a vacancy for a permanent head teacher since the summer of 2007, despite five different advertising campaigns.

Chair of governors Helen France said a radical approach was now needed.

She said: "Our governing body decided it was time to think ‘out of the box’ and go and meet teachers who might want to be our new head.

"We hope that we will meet some prospective heads at this show and be able to talk directly to them about our school and why being our head would be a great career move."

Proud history

So pupils and teacher from the school in the Chiltern Hills village of Ibstone, between Oxford and High Wycombe, will be setting up a mini-classroom at the TES Education exhibition this weekend.

Chair of personnel at the school Matt Hearnden said: "We have been asking the pupils this week to write down what they want from a head teacher.

"We’ve also been asking them to draw picture of their ideal head teacher and of the beautiful place where our school is."

He added that there was a huge lack of potential head teachers coming through the ranks - particularly in rural areas.

"We have experienced a far greater problem than is ever admitted to by officials," he said.

He said that because of the school’s size, the local authority seemed to want it to merge or share a head teacher with another school.

But that had not worked well in the past and the school was proud of its 150-year history, he said.

A recent Ofsted report had commended the school for the value for money it provided and its "many outstanding features".

It continued: "The school through its distinctive Christian character is outstanding at meeting the needs of all learners.

"However, since the school’s last head retired in 2007 the school has had a succession of excellent temporary heads but on five separate occasions the school has been unable to appoint a permanent head."

Ms France added: "The role is ideal for a teacher looking to gain experience as a head or for a current head looking to ‘downsize’ into a role that includes teaching.

"We have an outstanding governing body; very supportive parents; and an experienced and successful staff team."

Ibstone School will be on Stand D60 at the TES exhibition at Olympia, west London, on Friday October 10 and Saturday October 11.

A primary school has stopped carrying out spelling tests because children find them distressing.

Whitminster Endowed Church of England Primary, near Stroud, no longer gives children spelling lists for homework.

Parents found out about the plan in a letter, saying many pupils found the activity "unnecessarily distressing".

A spokeswoman for Gloucestershire County Council said it was up to individual schools to decide how they delivered literacy.

School meeting

In the newsletter, the school’s head teacher Debbie Marklove wrote: "You will notice that the children will not be given spelling lists to learn over the week and then be tested in class.

"We have taken the decision to stop spellings as homework as it is felt that although children may learn them perfectly at home they are often unable to use them in their daily written work.

"Also many children find this activity unnecessarily distressing."

Parents have now been invited to a meeting, during which the new policy is to be explained.

Mrs Marklove declined to comment on the move on Thursday.

Gloucestershire County Council’s head of school improvement Karen Charters said: "It is entirely for the school to decide if they wish to use spelling lists.

"It is important that we recognise the strengths a variety of approaches can bring.

"The county council monitors the performance of schools closely and believes that partnership between schools and parents raises the level of both achievement and enjoyment for the children." 

 

 

The 20th anniversary of the far-reaching 1988 Education Reform Act, which was commemorated this week, seems an appropriate moment for a pause for reflection on where we should be heading with schooling.

The Act, which introduced the national curriculum and its associated school tests in England and Wales, was a pivotal moment. Central government took unprecedented powers to decide what and how children should learn.

Ever since getting their hands on the levers of control, successive governments have never relaxed their grip.

But do we still need a national curriculum? And why are schools still based on a 19th century model when we are now several years into the 21st century?

As it happens, these were also the questions aired at a gathering of education experts I attended recently in the unlikely setting of the north tower of London’s Tower Bridge.

The event was part of Horizontal - it stands for ‘horizon scanning: technology and learning’ - a futurology project funded by the Department for Children Schools and Families and organised by Professor Stephen Heppell.

Bridge to the future

The issues it set out to address - what shape education should take in the future - are as relevant to England and Wales, and the rest of the UK, as they are to both advanced and developing nations around the world.

The setting was inspirational and apt. We were inside Tower Bridge, high above the river Thames at the heart of London, with road and river traffic teeming far below.

It was inspirational because it offered new perspectives on familiar and traditional objects.

It was apt because when Tower Bridge was designed it was an example of an innovative solution to a long-term problem: how to keep London’s increasingly busy road traffic moving without disrupting a busy river port.

The experts came from all over the world. They were educators and economists, teachers and administrators, bankers and entrepreneurs. Some inhabited the world of centralised, tax-funded government provision. Others belonged to the voluntary sector. Yet others were active in the for-profit world of private enterprise.

Discussion focussed around why schooling had failed to change radically when so many other spheres of life had been transformed.

As Professor Heppell noted there was a time when every country aspired to have a national airline in much the same way as they felt the need for a national curriculum.

Globalisation

Now most have accepted there is no need for a government-owned, nationally branded airline. Why then do we still feel the need for our own distinctive national curriculum rather than taking a ‘pick ‘n mix’ selection from the best bits of curricula around the world?

As Professor Heppell noted, modern economies do not try to do everything any more. There are just a handful of countries that continue with car-making, or try to excel at film-making. The rest import cars and films from those places acknowledged as the world’s best.

So why don’t we do the same in education. If a country, Finland for example, has found a schooling model that consistently leads the world, why don’t we import it either wholesale or at least in parts?

Or, more radically, if a private school chain from Sweden or the USA has developed an effective model why don’t governments hire them rather than persisting with their own failing models?

Is providing charitable donations of second-hand computers to schools in the developing world really the best way to stimulate education reform? Or should governments offer contracts to the private sector to make investments in the country’s educational infrastructure in return for a long-term payback as a more educated and prosperous nation starts to buy its products?

These are, of course, controversial questions. They raise ethical issues. They rarely prompt easy answers. But it does seem right to be asking them.

User-generated learning

As Professor Heppell pointed out other sectors have been transformed by technological change. Take broadcasting, for example.

Two decades ago, or even less, it was nice and simple: the broadcasters made programmes for the audience. No one strayed much over the dividing line.

Now not only do the established broadcasters appeal for, and broadcast, ‘user generated content’, but they are losing out to the likes of You Tube where users provide their own material.

Or, closer to the world of learning, look at what has happened with encyclopaedias. Once families saved up to fill a whole shelf at home with several volumes. Then these were condensed onto a single CD-Rom for a smaller price. Now it is all free online and - with Wikipedia - you can even add your own entries.

So why has this not happened with schools? Why, despite the rhetoric about personalised learning, do we still have national curricula and national testing?

Why, for that matter, are schoolrooms still much the same in terms of size, shape and focus as they were 150 years ago when mass education began in Britain and learning methods were so different?

Political grip

One answer to emerge from the event was that, unlike many industries, education is still firmly in the grip of governments.

The consensus was that governments are generally not very good at innovation or risk-taking. Nor do they tend to take the long view (the sponsoring of this event by the DCSF being a notable exception) as they work to four or five year cycles.

Where new technologies have been used they tend to reinforce existing teaching and learning methods rather than taking us off in new directions.

The model for schooling still very often involves gathering large numbers of children together into a single building, dividing them into groups by age, and placing an adult with some textbooks in front of them.

Yet the evidence around us shows that young people, and increasingly adults too, learn from their peers. If they want to find something out they go on the web, searching for a user group or search engine, rather than asking a nearby figure of authority.

Of course, there are problems with this. You can get the wrong, or false, answers. You can fail to understand the information or its context. But shouldn’t we take more note of how young people learn? When they get a new mobile phone or computer, they never read the manual. They learn by doing or by asking their peers in online communities.

This may not work for all young people but it can be great for those who find conventional schooling unbearable.

Take the ‘Not School’ initiative that has had great success with pupils who have been excluded from school. Instead of putting them all together in a special unit, it created a virtual school, where pupils learned from home, interacting over the Internet.

So, 20 years on, is the Education Reform Act still the right approach? Or is it time we broke out of a 19th century model of the teacher at the front of each class, delivering a prescribed curriculum, and constrained by regular pencil and paper national tests?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I’d be interested to hear yours. It’s something to contemplate over the summer school holidays.

By Mike Baker

School inspectors are writing to children as young as four, telling them they may fail in adult life because their teachers are not up to scratch.

In one letter sent to pupils at a Nottinghamshire primary, the inspector who visited the school wrote: "You are not reaching the standards you should in English, mathematics and science, and this means you are not well prepared for your future adult lives. Some of the teaching you receive is too slow and you spend too much time listening to the teacher instead of practising the skills you are learning, through exciting, purposeful activities."

It concluded: "Your headteacher needs to be clear about what the school does well and what needs to be improved, so that the correct action can be taken to put things right."

In another letter, children at a London school were informed: "Unfortunately, we found that your school is not as good as it used to be, or as it should be now."

The decision by Ofsted to revamp inspections and send letters to both parents and pupils, outlining its verdicts, provoked controversy when it was introduced three years ago. And now that the content of the letters has been seen by teachers’ leaders, calls to scrap the idea have been renewed.

Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NationalAssociation of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, said they were "ridiculous, unnecessary and ill-conceived". She went on: "To cater for their target audience, these letters often oversimplify the outcomes of inspection and in doing so misrepresent the findings. The letters in effect give licence to pupils to question the professionalism of the school and its staff. They should be scrapped."

Margaret Morrissey, of the National Confederation of Parent-Teacher Associations, said the letters were "uhelpful and can just make some precocious children even more precocious".

However, an Ofsted survey found that 70 per cent of headteachers were happy with post-inspection letters being sent to pupils, although some did suggest that the language used could be more appropriate for its target audience.

A spokeswoman for Ofsted said: "Where schools involve pupils in sharing the key messages of the letter sensitively and openly, they are a valuable tool in engaging pupils in both the inspection and subsequent school improvement."

By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Saturday, 16 August 2008

Once it was normal for children to cycle to school - but now only a tiny minority do. Andy Sharman meets the people who’re steering the Government’s £55m drive to put pupils back on two wheels

Four pm on a busy road in Bedford and cars are sitting bumper to bumper. It’s a scene played out in urban centres across England each morning and evening, as adults drive in and out of work, and children get ferried to and from school. One in five of these cars is doing trips of less than two miles.

Just off this main artery, which runs out towards the Bedford suburb of Biddenham, is St Gregory’s RC Middle School. It is here that Jason Falconer is leading a group of seven young cyclists on the playground – and leading the fight against the gridlock at the end of the road.

Falconer is the Bike It officer for Bedford, Luton and St Albans and he is on the front line in the battle to get our children cycling. Every day he boards a train with his folding bicycle to visit schools in the three cities to promote cycling. This can involve anything from "Dr Bike" sessions, where he helps children service their bikes, to Bikeability classes – cycling proficiency for the 21st century (see box) – and even classroom lessons covering health, geography and history.

"I’m 37 now," says Falconer, "but when I was at school, cycling and walking were absolutely the norm. In fact, if one of your mates was dropped off in the car, especially at Year 7 in secondary school, you’d be like, ‘aaaagh!’ – they would be shamed because, why are they getting dropped off? Can’t they make their own way around? But it’s reversed a bit hasn’t it?"

From being the norm a generation ago, cycling is now seen as a lost art. Less than 1 per cent of the distance travelled on British roads is done by bike, down from around a third in the 1940s and Fifties. On average, only 2 per cent of children cycle to school; some put the figure even lower.

But the rot is about to be stopped if the Government gets its way. In January this year, £140m was pledged by Ruth Kelly, Transport Secretary, to be channelled through the co-ordinating body Cycling England, over three years. Of this money, £55m will go towards cycling in schools. This will cover the costs of training cycling instructors up to the national standard; promoting sports partnership schemes such as Go-Ride, run by British Cycling; and paying the equivalent of £40 a child over three years for schools and local authorities to get children up to Bikeability Level 2, which says they are safe to use their bikes on the roads.

Cycling has of late been establishing more of a presence in the national transport budget. Since 2005, six UK towns have been showcasing what local authorities can do with funding (£500,000). Last week, 11 new demonstration towns were announced, including cycle-mad Cambridge and Falconer’s home town of Blackpool, while Bristol was unveiled as Britain’s first "cycling city". And, most importantly for schools, each new flagship town will get a Bike It officer, showing just how respected this scheme is.

"This has been a fantastically successful programme," says Phillip Darnton of Cycling England. Bike It schools have routinely been quadrupling the number of children regularly cycling to school. In Aylesbury, one of the previous wave of demonstration towns, the percentage of children cycling to Bike It schools increased from 3 per cent to 12 per cent in a year. Twelve per cent might not seem a lot, but Darnton is stoical.

"We’re not talking about being able to get every school pupil cycling to school come rain or shine every day," he says. "But if we get just 20 children cycling in a school, it becomes an OK thing to do. It’s about that critical mass. If we could get 5 per cent of trips to school done on bicycles we would have transformed the traffic in most cities."

Bike It is run by the sustainable transport charity Sustrans, which tries to help pupils overcome whatever it is that prevents them from cycling to school.

More often not, this is a combination of three things: concerns over bike parking, lack of knowledge about safe routes to school, and fears over road safety.

"Parents need to have their concerns addressed," says Falconer. "Children need to see how fun and easy it is to use the bike for school journeys. We don’t go in and say, ‘Right, you can go and ride on the nearest road available.’ We very much look at the circumstances of the school, and always are looking for the best routes, the best paths."

To help in this, Falconer often teaches cycling-related lessons during school hours – all as part of the curriculum. He does map-reading sessions for geography where children find the best cycling routes to school – he’s a trained orienteering coach. He does personal, social and health education (PSHE), in which he tests the heart rates of children, simulating driving, walking and cycling. He does design and technology where the class studies the bicycle. And he delivers history lessons, too, including on the Victorians and how the bicycle helped in the fight for women’s suffrage.

All this helps to give children a grounding in cycling culture, not bike safety, pure and simple. "It makes you fit and if you fall off, you just get on again and laugh about it!" says Molly Robertson, 12, who is in Year 7 at St Gregory’s. "In the future, people might not have a planet like ours is now – it’ll be really warm and trees and plants will die. Cycling’s good because it doesn’t use any petrol or fossil fuels."

But however much the children get the message, the general consensus is that it’s the parents who need convincing. How else can you explain Cycling England surveys that suggest that as many as half of nine to 12-year-olds would like to cycle to school, but nothing like that proportion actually do?

"I don’t feel I’m fighting a losing battle, but I think there is a lot of ground to be won," says Barbara North, who is deputy head of St Gregory’s and responsible for the healthy schools agenda. "I think that children take the example from the people that they’re with most of the time – their families – and I think you would find very few of their families would actually go out cycling together."

It’s here that Bike It can really make a difference and it offers Sustrans a unique forum to spread the word to parents and children. "Schools are a very important place to work because, at the school gates, you’ve got an opportunity to communicate with parents and kids at the same time," says Paul Osborne, director of school travel for Sustrans. "It’s a captive audience."

The ultimate aim for Bike It schools is the creation of a sustainable cycling culture. But really, it comes down to simply getting children cycling to school.

"We say to parents and children, ‘You could cycle to school,’ and they say, ‘Ah, but’," adds Darnton. "We wanted to remove all the ‘Ah, buts’ and that’s what the Bike It officers do. And, hopefully, all that’s left will be ‘OK, go on then.’"

To find out more about the Bike It project, visit www.sustrans.org.uk/bikeit or call 0117 915 0100

Cycling Proficiency to Bikeability: the history of cycling in schools

Cycling organisations first began pressing for cycle training on the school curriculum in the 1930s. But it wasn’t until 1958 that the National Cycling Proficiency Scheme was introduced by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

The programme was led by volunteers – teachers, policemen, road safety officers, pensioners – and taught bicycle control skills, largely in the playground, and largely by rote. The aim was to raise awareness of the Highway Code and highlight the dangers involved in cycling. In 1974, local authorities became responsible for cycle training for children. Some local authorities scrapped cycle training, others carried on with their own schemes, some stuck with a little bit of cycling proficiency.

By the millennium, cycling proficiency varied massively. Cycle Training UK led the review that produced, for the first time, a national standard. Bikeability is now the national standard scheme for the training of children on bikes.

Rather than warning of the dangers, Bikeablitiy aims to enourage cycling to school. It tries to teach children in real conditions about road positioning, communication and route planning. Level 1 deals with control – starting off, emergency stops and using gears; level 2 deals with simple road journeys; and level 3 is for roundabouts, multiple-lane roads and traffic lights.

It is taught by dedicated cycling instructors trained to a professional standard, such as Bike It officers.

It aims at a more practical, flexible style of teaching and encourages assertive behaviour on the roads.

Cycling England wants every child in England to have had the opportunity to do Bikeability to level 2 by 2012.

Children as young as four should be given compulsory sex education, two leading sexual health charities say.

The Family Planning Association and Brook told BBC Newsbeat more should be done to cut abortion rates and sexually transmitted infections among teenagers.

They argue gradual education from such a young age would help children not to rush into sex when they were older.

The Department for Children, Schools and Family said it was reviewing the

delivery of sex education in schools.

 Children aged four might be taught about the names of body parts and basic ideas about different relationships.

The government is not giving young people enough information about sex and relationships, the charities add.

‘High expectations’

Brook chief executive Simon Blake said: "Many young people are having sex because they want to find out what it is, because they were drunk or because their mates were.

"That’s just not good enough for young people. We’ve got to have high expectations for them so they’ve got high expectations for themselves."

He added: "All the evidence shows that if you start sex and relationships education early - before children start puberty, before they feel sexual attraction - they start having sex later.

The basic sex education that children are given in science classes does not go far enough, the charities say.

They want sex and relationship education on the curriculum across the UK alongside other compulsory subjects such as maths and English, as is the case in Northern Ireland.

The DCSF said effective sex and relationships education is essential for young people to make safe and healthy choices about their lives and prevent early pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

A spokesman added that an advisory group on the issue would be making recommendations on new policy to the government later this month.

Sixteen-year-old Bethany, from Norwich told BBC News she had not understood the consequences of having sex early on.

"I didn’t know I could get pregnant," she said. "I think if they started introducing sex education a bit earlier and teaching us a bit more about it so that we were more aware it would have helped me a lot."

SCHOOL pupils in Leek are ‘New kids on the block’ after being some of the first in the UK to benefit from a new fund-raising initiative.

Visionary company 3DKids is pioneering school photographs for the 21st Century – a three dimensional image set in solid crystal – and the company is now helping
schools across the UK with a unique fund raising opportunity.

St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School, at Leek, is one of the first schools in the country to take part in a 3D photo session which helps raise cash for schools by a percentage of the money raised from the 3D image sales being donated to the school. 

St Mary’s raised almost £400 from the sales of the crystal portraits following a one day 3D camera shoot.

Specialist cameras are used to etch 3D images of pupils into the dazzling crystals, creating an eye catching alternative to the traditional school photograph, which is an original and beautiful gift for family and friends. 

Linda Close, Secretary at St Mary’s Catholic Primary, said: “The finished portraits of the children looked stunning and proved extremely popular with the children’s families.

“The funds raised from the session with 3DKids have also helped to make a positive contribution to the school.”

3DKids Director Darius Soudi said: “I’m delighted at the amazing response we received from the parents and staff at St Mary’s and I hope the funding from the portraits has been beneficial to the school.”

School1: Brandon Hall, 9, Ashley Wattley, 11, Bryony Whittaker, 8, and Rose Finney, 11, show off their 3D portraits.



School2: Rose Finney, 11, has her image taken for her 3D portrait by 3DKids photographer Mohsen Booali, using the state-of-the-art photographing equipment.

What is bullying?

Bullying can happen to almost anyone. Almost 8 out of every 10 children in United Kingdom are victims of bullying. Bullying includes teasing, calling someone names, threatening or harassing them. Sometimes it also gets physical, with the bully taking a child’s belongings or even pushing and attacking him. Ignoring and excluding a child from friendship groups is also a form of bullying.

How can I tell if my child is being bullied?>

It is not always easy to tell if your child is being bullied. Some symptoms to look out for are:

• Your child getting upset at the thought of going to school
• Your child saying he feels too ‘unwell’ to attend school every day
• A change in the usual behaviour pattern of your child - he may become very quiet, resentful or be more demanding of your time.
• Unexplained cuts and bruises

What can I do if my child is being bullied?

In 1999, an anti-bullying policy was enforced in schools across Britain. Every school works hard to try to prevent bullying, but unfortunately it can still happen.

• Some children are afraid to talk about bullying as they think telling an adult might make things worse. Whatever age your child is, let him know that you are there for him to talk about anything if he needs to.
• If your child does tell you he is being bullied, help him to feel that it’s not his fault and that he doesn’t deserve to be bullied. Talk together about what you can both do to stop the bullying.
• Do take your child seriously if he says he’s being bullied. The problem may be easy to sort out, and it may even seem trivial to you, but he needs to feel you’re on his side. Remember, girls can be bullies, and they often bully boys, too.
• If other students at the school are bullying your child, the school has a responsibility to try to sort the problem out.
• If your child is being bullied at school, encourage him to talk to his teacher or form tutor as well as to you.
• Contact the school and make an appointment yourself, too. A teacher, tutor or year head will know all the children well and will be able to help you decide the best way of sorting out the problem.
• During this appointment, do address the issue calmly. It’s natural to feel angry but there isn’t any point in being confrontational with the teacher. Discuss the problem and try to come to a resolution. If you feel the issue isn’t being dealt with effectively, you may need to contact a more senior member of staff.
• If your child tells you about being bullied, keep a record of every incident, noting down what happened with dates and times. This will be useful evidence to take to the school if the bullying continues.
• Sometimes bullying takes place out of school hours. It might also be done by students from a different school. If this happens, schools may need to work together to resolve the problem.
• Parents of children being bullied could get together and form an anti-bullying action group to support their children.

 

What if my child is a bully?

If you find out that your child is bullying others, it’s likely to be a shock. Do try to stay calm, though, so you can get to the bottom of what’s going on.

• Discuss what has been going on with your child and find out his side of the story. Children bully for a number of reasons. It may be that he is being bullied himself, or he may be trying to get attention or become popular with a group.
• Help your child to understand how his actions are affecting other children. You may need to talk about this over a period of time. He needs to know that bullying is totally unacceptable.
• If the bullying is happening at school, talk to your child’s teacher or form tutor to get a better picture of what is going on and what can be done.
• If there are other children involved in the bullying, they may be putting pressure on each other. It may help to speak to their parents - they will probably be as anxious as you are to put an end to the problem.

Based on an article by A Suri

Source BBC.co.uk Schools

 

Big variations in holiday dates are causing problems for families with children at different schools this Easter.   Differences in school holidays make life difficult for the Jarretts   Parents have told Newsbeat they can’t afford to pay for two lots of childcare. Others want to take their whole family away, but that’s impossible without taking some children out of lessons. Changing Easter dates There are often slight differences in holiday dates, but it’s much worse this year because it’s the earliest Easter since 1913. Why is Easter so early? Some local authorities have asked schools to start the break this week. Others are waiting, because they didn’t want such a short half term. Madeleine Jarrett’s family live on the border of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. My husband works shifts, so planning leave is already difficult.   Madeleine Jarrett   She said: "It’s an absolute nightmare because we can’t take a family holiday unless we take some of the children out of school, which we don’t agree with." Her step-children Jake, 13, and Amber, 10, break up for a fortnight today. But her children Owen, 11, and Darcy, 4, don’t get a long break for another few weeks. "My husband works shifts, so planning leave is already difficult. "Now he’s got to take a few days off when two of the children are on holiday, and a few days off later for the others. It makes life very complicated," she said. A change in the law? In 2005 the government recommended a move to a standard school year to allow all pupils across England and Wales to take the same weeks off, but only around two-thirds have adopted it.   Madelaine tries to negotiate the tricky childcare schedule   The Local Government Association reckons nine million families could save up to £500 a year on emergency childcare and playschemes if all schools switched to uniform holidays. Local Authorities in Scotland and Northern Ireland tend to pick more similar dates already, but there is still some variation. The National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations wants a change in the law to make all schools across the UK adopt the same holidays. Spokeswoman Laura Warren said: "School holidays are times for families to get together. "Guidance on dates isn’t enough. We need a formal structure that isn’t influenced by when Easter falls. At the moment some parents are having to spend hundreds more on childcare." The government says it does want schools to match up term times with their neighbours to reduce disruption for parents. But it has no plans to impose a standard school year at national level. It says it’s up to local authorities to decide which dates to chose. At the moment some parents are having to spend hundreds more on childcare   Laura Warren   Private schools already choose their holidays separately. Cheap breaks away If your family has managed to get the same time off this spring, there is a chance you could save money on a holiday though. The Association of British Travel Agents says because of the normal two-week Easter break, demand is spread over four weeks. Not all companies are charging as much as usual. So if you shop around, you could get a good last-minute deal. That’s not much use for Madeleine’s family though. "We’re in a situation where we’re lucky if we even get a few days together. "We spend time at home, but going away is special, and we’re in a situation now where we can’t do that," she said.