Summer holidays should be longer

This is how our school holidays in Scotland work, we’re already a month into the holidays in some areas

So this may help you. I can give a Canadian perspective.

Kids go to school beginning of September ending the school year 3/4 week June. School days are the same length. So a month less of school time.

BUT they go from September to Christmas and then get two weeks off. Then again until March and get one week off and then go to the end of the year.

They end earlier because they aren’t off every 6-8 weeks.

Starting holidays in Canada are two week but most people who have worked for a while have 3+

We get 12 statutory holidays in the year vs 8 in England.

A lot of companies have summer hours and work half day on a Friday.

We don’t feel the need to go away all the time as most of the country gets 3 months of hot weather with sunshine. Super easy access to pools, lakes rivers and cottages.

The summer holidays are shorter because of so many breaks through the year. It’s good to have a like for like in terms of school days - Canada has a minimum of 194 per year. England has 190 - so less.

Unfortunately OP your argument doesn’t hold.

I’d be fine with more school holidays or even a four day week as long as it could be feasible for working parents. But the six week needs to be shorter not longer. 3/4 weeks would be fine and maybe longer at Xmas too.
Or have a fun day on the fifth day of the week with a focus on exercise/mental health/arts/creativity. No lessons, no tracking just a relaxed day for staff and pupils.

My 6 year old was rejected from all our local holiday clubs on account of his T1D. He doesn’t realise he’s missing out on so much with his friends but I’m sure I will at some point if we aren’t able to successfully fight the system.
We are limping through this summer with a combination of both our annual leave, grandparents help and yes, days where he’s amusing himself on the PlayStation all day while one of us WFH. Not ideal.
Longer holiday would finish us off. I’d love to think we aren’t the tip of a large iceberg of kids who can’t access childcare during the holidays. We are lucky we can flex enough to muddle through but many people are not so lucky.

But with crappier terms and conditions, a lesser pension and no option of 13 weeks a year off ( so screw their kids in the holidays extended or not!)

6 weeks is plenty. Im in Ireland where primary has 9 weeks, mid June to late Aug. Secondary has end of May to late Aug. 3 months is way too long for young teens and there is almost no childcare or camps for them.

Weeks per year map for people who like balance. Turns out the UK is perfectly average.

Source https://jakubmarian.com/school-holidays-by-country-in-europe-map/

I'm not sure how we compare on mental health, but I am in France and we generally get 8 weeks; beginning of July to beginning of September (also 2 weeks in Oct / Feb/ Easter)

I also can't speak for the whole country but locally to me, childcare during the holidays is high quality and reasonably priced (on a sliding scale for income).

All childcare in my village (we are outside a city / not rural but the old village boundaries/ local mairie still exist) is run by a community association, non profit. The association employs staff who are qualified and it's their full time job and it's the same people who provide the wrap around (before / lunch / afterschool provision).

It's full time for primary and there is an afternoon club for teens.

for the primary age, there is always a mix of activities, free play and days out (no extra cost). Sometimes a parent or 2 will help so they can do bike ride / picnic day or trip to the local swimming pool.

For the teens it's a bit more just a safe place to hang out / there is a teens chill out area, games, music. When my daughter was there, they did a bike ride/ wild camping night (again no extra cost).

Ultimately, I think it's a cultural thing. A lot of provision (sports, theatre, music etc) here is fully volunteer organised which means that cost is low but equally almost everyone I know volunteers in some way.

Our childcare provision, which employs staff, is managed and run by dedicated volunteers.The volunteers change as children get older, new parents join and older volunteers move on

It's a big commitment but everyone just does it, its the french way, everyone contributes (the fraternity part of the devise). I feel very fortunate to have benefited when mine were small but I don't know how you could make something like this viable without the non profit / volunteer model and the culture isn't the same in the UK.

Social workers start on £32k so it's very little difference.

I raised my ds no help, financial or otherwise, from anyone, and found the school holidays a complete nightmare. I had 26 days holiday at the time, two weeks at the end of August when there was no alternative childcare. No working from home. No ability to work from home if your child was ill. Honestly, he's grown up fine. Parenting is hard, you have to expect it to be, and expensive. I think if you have two active parents in the mix it must be a doddle. I think they get better socialisation etc. at school than at home, better routine when there's something to get up for, etc. I really think it's plenty long enough.

Absolutely not. Like so many parents we have to beg borrow and steal for childcare as it is. DS went into a school run pre school so that it actually made financial sense for me to go back to work albeit part time school hours. To add to the fun if you live rurally like we do trying to find a holiday provider that takes a reception child is very difficult as they stipulate 5 and with a summer born this complicates it. Had DS gone to nursery even with free hours which he didn't get any until the term after he turned 3 (none of this from 9 months) we would be worse off monthly. Add more holiday weeks in then I like many women end up leaving the workforce again taking our ability to add to our pension and the tax pot with it.

My solution improve holiday care provision for working parents. Make more offer longer wrap around care (9-4) is useless for most parents. Also make it easier for them to offer it from the age of 3 so that school age children and their siblings can both attend the same holiday club setting and take away the OFSTED red tape to allow them to do so.

Boils my pee people saying yeh let's give the kids more holiday. Who are you expecting to pay for that? Yes if you work term time or don't work it's a nice little extra. I think people are a bit future blind in that retirement age is going up, who is going to help look after these children in the future? I'm late 30's and both my parents still work full time (late 50's early 60's) and offer help where they can. What's going to happen when retirement age moves to 70 and people don't have the same luxury of retiring in their 50's?

It's not about being selfish to benefit those already at an advantage, but it's not for schools to pick up the pieces in all cases. There are other professionals who ought to be jointly responsible for improving chances, who aren't also tasked with delivering and assessing the curriculum. Schools' remits are already bigger than they used to be, for less remuneration, and with less support or funding. Outsourcing parenting in the way some would have won't improve society overall.

@noblegiraffe where is that graph from? I can only find it in a Twitter post. It looks like it was produced by the Guardian but I can't find it on their website. It says the data comes from Statista, so here's one with the correct amount of weeks for the Netherlands. Data is for primary school only.

We don't have half terms though. Only a week at Easter and two weeks at Christmas.

How does it work for families that live on a border, or is it like England/Scotland where hardly anyone goes to school across the border?

She got us a childminder during the school holidays/ put us into summer camp for two weeks

Correct, this chart is wrong. I was in school in the Netherlands 1990-2005 ish and we had 6 weeks of summer holiday. Where I grew up this year it's 5 July to 7 August.

That said, the education hours are shorter. The UK minimum is 32.5 hours per week/ 1045 hours a year. In the Netherlands it's 880 hours for the first 4 years of primary. We had Wednesday afternoons off from 12. I think they've mostly switch to a 8:30-2pm day now. I think most kids and teachers there are generally still happy about the balance.

Italian here. Some few points:

• Italy historically has very long summer breaks because of the hot weather conditions and poor school infrastructure, meaning it's really too hot for children to be in school in the summer. Also, there has always been a higher than average percentage of SAMs and grandparents play a vital role in childcare.
• However, with the country quickly changing (more women in work, population aging quickly, very low birth rates) there is an increased demand/conversations on shortening the summer break as cost of childcare/summer camps is extortionate for working parents with little support.
• Three months of summer holidays is a very long time and children get a huge, huge amount of homework to do. Several books to read, full books of math exercises etc. They are expected to do them every day, to avoid forgetting what they learned the academic year before.
• They don't get many breaks during the year, typically about 7-10 days for Christmas and a long weekend for Easter, plus some random days off for a couple of other celebrations. Most schools are still open from Monday to Saturday.

We could start with social workers?

I work in the public sector and I have a degree , so I do know!

Yes, my employer (HEI, like pretty much every other HEI currently) has just made pretty much a third of staff redundant and the unions are battling a 1.4% pay rise proposal... And we're one of the few with a (albeit small) surplus this year.

There's no way in a million years they would be able to "step up" to help support longer school holidays.

I'm professional services staff and although I get substantially less annual leave than academic staff (who still only get just over half of what teachers get despite their arguably higher workloads 🤪), it's more than some people get. Despite this, DH and I still struggle to cover all of the holidays and like many, cobble together a spreadsheet, taking very little together and paying out a fortune in holiday care.

Yes, most children benefit from time out of school, but I think six weeks in the summer is plenty (and probably would be better for them for it to be spread more throughout the year - both my ND and NT child were on their knees with exhaustion at the end of the last seven week term).

I’m in the NW 3 DCs in school, 2 in primary are swealtering atm and the highschool one flicks between swealtering and shivering with a blazer and jumper on due to the old building they are in. As soon as they are out of school they are stripping off.

@MrsMurphyIWish I didn't think about that. But I guess when mine are split between primary and secondary the secondary one can stay at home with friends (or is that wishful thinking) would hope for at least a week overlap. And particularly for you as a teacher as well so unable to choose your holidays....I concede, needs a rethink! 😊

I have a lot of family in the US and they do basically still do this. My 11 year old niece is considered old enough to babysit her 8 year old brother over the summer and she and her friends often do so together. This is a wealthy suburb fwiw. But like most things in the US, suspect there is a lot of variation.

In the UK, I think WFH might be bringing this back. There are teens on my road who do this - and because the parents are WFH, they are around for emergencies and to help with meals etc.

Having staggered holidays could make childcare even more difficult with children being in different schools. Next academic year I have a different Easter to my children despite us being in the same LA as the schools I teach in/they attend are academies and can set different holidays.

I would like the holidays to be longer but I am aware I am coming from a place of privilege. DH is a SAHD and we've got some disposable income and we live in London. So they do masses of enriching activities and exercise.