‘Utterly ridiculous’: Three-day school week makes no sense

What’s going on at Education Queensland? Sending kids back to school for three days after a two-week holiday makes no sense at all, writes Kylie Lang. TAKE OUR POLL

The first week of this Queensland school term is bookended by public holidays.

What was Education Queensland thinking when it set the 2025 school calendar? Not much, it seems.

It is utterly ridiculous, and impractical for families, for classrooms to be open for three days this week.

Coming off the back of two weeks’ holiday and the Easter break, children are expected to be in school Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, before another public holiday – Anzac Day – rolls around on Friday.

Surely it would have made sense to close schools all week and give families three solid weeks off.

I’m not one for chopping back on learning – Queensland children’s performance in benchmark testing such as NAPLAN indicates less time in the classroom isn’t what they need – but I can’t see much being achieved in these three days.

A smarter idea would have been to trim the terminally long summer break in order to extend the Easter one.

Instead, many families are choosing to keep their kids home and take those three weeks anyway. Good on them.

Education Queensland should have handled things so much better.

Originally published as ‘Utterly ridiculous’: Three-day school week makes no sense