‘Wag day’: Teachers slam mum over four-day school week
Teachers have hit back at an influencer who said she wants to ditch the traditional five-day school week and give her daughter a “wag day a week”.
A mum-of-three has sparked a heated debate on social media after revealing she wants to take her daughter out of school one day a week.
Montana’s five-year-old daughter has just started school in a coastal town along Victoria’s Great Ocean Road, and instead of going along with the traditional five-day schooling routine, the influencer is examining the merits of “one wag day a week”.
“Our school where we’re at, for the first four weeks they have one day off on a Wednesday and I kind of want to keep that a thing,” she explained in a video.
“I love our Wednesdays, I love not rushing anywhere, I love the extra time I get to spend with my daughter. Her being gone so long every single day at school five days a week for the rest of her life, it just feels, I don’t know, so uncomfortable to me, so unnatural.”
Montana, 28, insisted she isn’t considering a four-day week because her daughter is having any particular issue at school, but to have “a day to slow and be chill and be with her sisters”. She also said she knows of other children who do one day of homeschooling and four days of traditional schooling every week — known as partial enrolment in Victoria — including a friend who calls the day at home a “wag day a week”.
The statement sparked a fair bit of criticism with one person calling it “arrogant and selfish”, while others said “you’re just having a hard time letting go of your daughter” and “that’s what the weekends are for”. Many others sympathised with the idea, noting that five days is a lot for small children.
Partial school attendance can be problematic for students for both academic and social reasons, according to education professionals.
Early learning in particular relies heavily on repetition, with concepts taught and practised in different ways over time. Regular absences may mean children miss the consolidation of that learning if the parent isn’t continuing the same curriculum with the same consistency at home.
One prep teacher said, “Learning is not isolated to single lessons; it’s a continuous process. Missing every Wednesday doesn’t just mean missing those lessons — it creates gaps that affect your daughter [who] might then feel left out from her peers because she didn’t have that experience or background learning.”
“The idea is wonderful but the way schools are set up don’t make this very successful unfortunately,” another teacher commented below the post.
A third teacher wrote, “The main issue is she will start to miss out on a lot of social interactions and get left behind. I see it all the time with children that take one or more days off a week — they start to get left behind socially.”
There may also be specialist subjects, like music, that are only offered one day a week, so missing that day would mean missing the entirety of that learning.
On the other hand, many teachers acknowledge that children are able to rest and play at home in a way that they are not able to at school, and many rich and diverse learning experiences can be had outside of the classroom.
Certain children may find classroom environments overstimulating and having a regular day off as part of their routine, which allows them to do safe activities in a consistent way, may be beneficial if done in consultation with education and medical professionals.
“If this helps your little one stay well and not be too tired, then it might be good during the first year,” another teacher wrote. “As she moves up it would be quite challenging from a learning point of view.”
A number of adults who were partially enrolled themselves as children also weighed in on the debate.
“Let her go,” one person said, “My mum forced me to have days off regularly when I was little and I hated it, I was so behind my peers and didn’t form a decent friend group until I was allowed to go regularly.”
“I did this growing up and I’m so thankful my parents did!” another wrote. “My [day] off was my creative day.”
A mother who has a partially enrolled child shared, “I actually am not understanding why people are [losing] their minds over this … one day a week [at] home is what me and a friend did last year.”
In response to criticism sparked by her video, Montana asked her followers to remember that she is “a mother craving a slower pace, more time with her babies, one who won’t give in to what society deems ‘acceptable’ or ‘normal’”.
“And if that makes [you] uncomfortable? Remember it’s not your family, or your kids.”
Is a four-day week legal?
In Victoria, partial enrolment allows home schooled children to attend their local school for lessons on particular subjects like science, art or maths, meaning they spend some days at school and some days learning at home. This is arranged on an individual basis in consultation with the principal and only in the instances where the school in question is able to offer that arrangement.
The attendance for the subjects the child is enrolled in are the same as those for a traditional, full-time student, and the parents must also be registered for home schooling. Similar arrangements are possible in Tasmania and the ACT in consultation with the Department of Education and the child’s local school.
Part-time homeschooling is not possible in NSW, and public schools in that state aim for 95 per cent attendance with the Department of Education saying on its website that one day of missed school a fortnight equates to an entire year of missed learning over a student’s entire school life.
Interestingly, one school in the NSW southern highlands has moved to a four-day week for senior students, with Mondays spent on remote, self-directed learning, while Tuesdays to Fridays are spent in the classroom.
After a six-month trial in the first half of last year, Chevalier College, a Catholic school in Burradoo, made the four-day week permanent in September.
Public primary and secondary schools in Queensland were given the framework to begin consultation on potential changes to school hours in 2023.
However, a spokesperson for the Queensland Department of Education said at the time, “It is expected that all Queensland state schools continue to operate for five days a week and the new policy does not give schools a green light to implement a four-day week.
“[The policy] was introduced to ensure that all schools now follow the same mandatory processes in the event they wish to change school hours, outlining what is required for consultation, approval and implementation.”
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