There was exciting news on Tuesday for Israel's schoolchildren: they may get an extra day off.
The head of the Israel Teachers Union, Yaffa Ben David, has confirmed that she is negotiating with the Finance Ministry to cut the school week from six days to five.
Israel is one of the only countries in the OECD to have a six-day school week, with pupils in classes each day from Sunday to Friday.
The reduction is one of a number of measures reportedly under discussion as the ministry looks to radically reform the education system.
Ben David confirmed that her union would support such a move, but railed against reported plans to shorten the summer holidays and get children back in class as early as August 15, instead of the current status quo of September 1.
"I agree to shortening the week to five days, but I have conditions: teachers will work four days a week and have one day at home for errands and professional development," she told the Association of Local Government Education Department Directors conference in Eilat.
"Instructional hours in elementary schools need to be reduced to 23 hours, like in middle schools. That is what I will demand. We will fight to reduce teaching hours.
"[But] shortening the summer vacation will not happen, period."
According to Hebrew media reports, the shortened week would see Friday classes scrapped altogether.
But the Education Ministry denied reports that a pilot scheme would begin in the near future across 30 municipalities.
The Israeli proposals come amid a similar debate over the length and positioning of school holidays in the UK.
Speaking on Tuesday, Sir Martyn Oliver, chief inspector for educational regulator Ofsted, suggested that the structure of the English school calendar was “pretty bizarre”.
“In England, there are 195 days that schools have to be open,” he told the LBC radio station.
"Five of those are for teacher development and 190 days to actually educating children, child-facing.
"I think 190 days of children going out of 365… I think the question should be is that long enough?”
Oliver suggested that long breaks, particularly in the summer, led to a phenomenon of “dysregulation”, where children were knocked out of the routines cultivated at school.
This, he said, was particularly detrimental to those pupils who struggle the most in class, as well as those living in economically deprived households.
"I think it probably is time to think about school holidays again,” he went on.
"And some areas of the country have got even slightly shorter summer holidays and equalled out the holidays. You don't go one week, two weeks, six weeks.”
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