Why is it illegal for private schools to be open on Saturday and Sunday?

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Geektastic

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#250763 24-May-2019 15:36

I was looking something up and came across the fact that Private schools in New Zealand are not permitted by law to be open for instruction at weekends.

I can't really see why that would need to banned by law. I had lessons on Saturday mornings and that seemed perfectly useful.

Does anyone know why it would be illegal? I'm curious for no reason other than for the sake of curiosity.

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#2244658 24-May-2019 15:43

Does that mean the schools' rugby coaches can watch their teams play on Saturdays - but not do any coaching?

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#2244661 24-May-2019 15:48

I haven't heard of this. The private high school I went to (in the early 90's) was open Saturdays and there were a variety of sport and special interest clubs, and things like woodworking classes which the boarders mostly attended to keep boredom at bay. I imagine there would have been a degree of 'instruction' in such sessions but I guess they weren't really classes.

I also recall well how my school was open on Saturday mornings for back-breaking manual labour (they called it "Fatigues") from 7am-midday - sometimes for the most insignificant etiquette infractions. If I recall correctly, I was sentenced to one of these days very early in my tenure for the unforgivable crime of walking through school grounds whilst eating at the same time.

Ah private schools - gotta love em!

sleemanj

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#2244670 24-May-2019 15:54

Because kids need a couple days off to, you know, be kids. If it was optional you'd have private schools running 7 days a week and high pressure parents sending their kids there.

Even South Korea stopped Saturday classes officially some years ago. If an oppressive high pressure conformist society like SK decided that Saturday classes were a bad idea, well...

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wellygary

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#2244684 24-May-2019 16:01

Are you sure,....

State and Integrated school are barred form opening for instruction on Saturday and Sunday, by the Education Act, but this report from the Law commission indicates that there are no such regulations that govern Private school,

(its from 2009, but I don't think there have been any major legislative changes since then)

https://www.lawcom.govt.nz/sites/default/files/projectAvailableFormats/NZLC%20IP12.pdf

"There is no requirement that private schools be open for any particular number of hours each day, or days each year. While the majority of private schools have hours similar to those of state schools, we have heard reports of some whose opening hours are much less (for example 3 days per week)."

I suspect they choose to not open as the culture of Saturday and Sunday sport means its would be difficult to participate in this if they were teaching as well

SATTV

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#2244687 24-May-2019 16:06

A friend of mine used to go to St Pauls in Hamilton as a boarder, he used to have Saturday school in the summer if I recall and in winter they had compulsory sport, that was in the 80's so may have changed now.

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Lias

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#2244895 24-May-2019 17:29

I briefly attended Wanganui Collegiate a few decades ago and we had school on Saturday mornings.

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TwoSeven

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#2244909 24-May-2019 18:00

doesn’t 390 half days a year equate to about 5 days per week over the school year?

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PolicyGuy

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#2244920 24-May-2019 18:36

I would have thought that some schools aligned to particular religions, including Jewish and Seventh Day Adventists, would not wish to observe the Christian Sunday and might prefer have a Sunday to Thursday working week , Friday and Saturday off.
People who follow the Jewish religion have their Sabbath on the seventh day of the week, from sunset Friday until sunset Saturday, whereas mainline Christians celebrate the first day of the week, Sunday. Moslems have Friday Prayers, which implies that Friday is their day of observance, so maybe the Moslem schools should have their 'weekend' on Thursday & Friday - I believe this is the case in some middle-eastern countries

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#2244921 24-May-2019 18:41

Geektastic: I was looking something up and came across the fact that Private schools in New Zealand are not permitted by law to be open for instruction at weekends.

Do you have the original source of that 'fact', or is an 'alternative fact'?!

MoE's website provides this info:

Days schools must close

State and integrated schools must be closed on Saturdays, Sundays public holidays and Easter Tuesday (a school holiday). It's possible for schools to apply for an exemption to be open on Saturday and Sunday. Contact the Director of Education at the nearest Ministry of Education office to request this.

Source: https://www.education.govt.nz/school/school-terms-and-holidays/more-information-about-setting-term-dates/#must

A fairly unhelpful page in some ways, in that it doesn't discuss or link to equivalent requirements for private schools, but given there's clearly the ability for state/integrated schools to be granted an exemption to the weekend ban I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least a similar ability for private schools. (Indeed, there could well be less control over this sort of stuff.)

blackjack17

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#2244961 24-May-2019 20:13

I teach at a private school

coach kids for sports and cultural events in the weekends
we have chapel in the weekends
we take kids for weekend trips
we teach schol in the weekends

Not saying it is legal but we have been doing this for way longer than I have been teaching (9 years) or have been alive (38 years).

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Geektastic

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#2245100 25-May-2019 01:50

The original source was Wikipedia. I went to look up what semester meant precisely and ended up on a page that described the various academic term structures in use in many nations.

Coming from a system of three terms, I was interested to see how it was done elsewhere.