Over on Canoe.ca I read this article about a new school opening in Ottawa. What makes it newsworthy is that it is giving up the traditional two month summer vacation and going to instead be schooling year round.
The balanced calendar school year is a three-year pilot project that will provide a year-round schedule where the number of vacation weeks remain unchanged, but are redistributed throughout the year giving kids breaks in October, an extra week off for Christmas break and two weeks off in March.
They have a reason for doing this.
Lise Bourgeois, director of education, said research has shown this type of calendar year better enables students to retain information and cuts down on student and teacher absenteeism.
[...]
She said studies show the format increases learning in kids by 10% to 20% mainly in language and mathematics.
Personally, I'm all for it. If I recall correctly, summer vacation from school was oringally to allowed childern to help on family farms and whatnot during the busiest time of the year. But our society is overwhelmingly urban now and two months off in the summer perhaps allows too much to be forgotten from the previous school year. I'm interested to see what becomes of this pilot project.
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