As for a longer school day, the only time that is good is when there's a bad home environment. I would die (overly melodramatic) if my child was away from me from 8 until 6. That would leave no time whatsoever for any family time.
The kid has to be *somewhere* during those hours. Two years ago, my neighbor's 6yo and 8yo were unsupervised in their house for an hour before school and two hours after school, because their single parent worked 8 hour days.
That's what before and after school care does.
Well, you can't have it both ways. If you accept that many people use before and after school care now, then there's a second way an 8-6 school day could be better: if it worked out better overall than say a 9-4 school day with before and afterschool care taking the time away from home up to 8-6 anyway. Maybe you think mothers shouldn't work, but many have to and others choose to for a variety of reasons. *If* my child is going to be away from me for around that length of time anyway, it absolutely makes sense to me that his time gets planned as a whole, so that, for example, he gets both a morning and a lunchtime break that are long enough to put optional clubs and music rehearsals into, and gets sport every afternoon, with lessons spaced out over the whole day in such a way that his concentration doesn't fray for lack of movement. The way it works here is that schools that work on this kind of pattern offer an enormous range of activities inside the school day - you don't attempt to have them do lots of activities after school as well.
