Summer lessons catch-up plan ‘half-baked’, says head of Oasis Academy Trust

Steve Chalke said teachers are exhausted and cannot be expected to work more hours
Steve Chalke, head of the Oasis Academy Trust
Handout
Anna Davis @_annadavis11 February 2021

Holding lessons during the summer holidays will not be enough for children to catch up on all the work they missed during the pandemic, the head of a major academy chain warned today.

Steve Chalke, head of the Oasis Academy Trust, said if a whole year’s worth of work could be covered in four weeks during the summer then “why bother going to school all year?”

He criticised the idea of using volunteers to run catch-up lessons for pupils as “half-baked”, saying that it is vital for children to be taught by teachers.

But he said teachers are exhausted and cannot be expected to volunteer to work for more hours, so a longer term plan is needed to help children.

It comes after schools minister Nick Gibb said he is open to “all options” to help children catch up, including cutting the summer holidays and extending the school day.

The Government has appointed Kevan Collins, former head of the Education Endowment Fund as its “catch-up tsar”. Mr Chalke told the Standard: “If you can do it all in four weeks over the summer, why bother going to school all year? We are asking the impossible. People have come forward with some fantastic ideas but when you stop and think about them it is actually is a lot more complicated.

“Last summer the Prime Minister and Gavin Williamson said let’s have all our schools open through the summer.

“Why didn’t they open? Is it because teachers don’t care? Of course not. It is because neither Boris nor Gavin thought about the next level down — what does this mean, how do we resource it and how does it happen?”

Mr Chalke said teachers are exhausted and it would be unfair to ask them to volunteer to work for even more hours.

“These are half-baked ideas until someone puts a budget to them and says who will the teachers be — you can’t just take the same people who have taught all week and say ‘oh by the way do another eight hours’.”

Nick Brook, of the National Association of Head Teachers, said there were “better methods to help pupils than lengthening the school day” and warned against “loud calls for superficially attractive schemes”.

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