Easter holidays. The question every holiday asks.
Holy Week
Easter is this Sunday. The school holidays started Friday. In London, which is still deciding whether it is winter or spring, the holidays have arrived with the particular weather of late March — alternating cold and warmth, sun in the morning and something approaching rain in the afternoon.
The question every school holiday asks is the same question, differently framed by the season: what happens when the structure stops?
The routine of school life — the set waking time, the sequence of lessons, the social predictability of the classroom, the homework that occupies the evening — provides a scaffold for the day that children often don't know they depend on until it's removed. The first days of any holiday tend to reveal this. The children who are most comfortable in school are often the ones who are most uncomfortable in the sudden absence of its structure.
This is not a problem. It is developmental information.
What the holiday asks of children is to generate their own structure from the inside rather than receiving it from the outside. This is a cognitive skill that is as important as any taught in school, and far less practised. The school day is, by design, a structuring device. The holiday is its absence.
The school day is, by design, a structuring device. The holiday is its absence. Both states require different things. The holiday requires the skill of unstructured time — which is a skill.
The school day is, by design, a structuring device. The holiday is its absence. Both states require different things. The holiday requires the skill of unstructured time — which is a skill.
The holiday requires the skill of unstructured time — which is a skill.
Materials, steps, what to notice — the hands-on part that makes the edition usable at home with your children this week.
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