Summer holidays should be longer

I don't think returning to the past where women lacked economic agency and were SAHMs is desirable personally..

I think the evidence on summer learning loss is quite significant. It has to be balanced against other things and on balance 6 weeks seems fair but I certainly don't think the evidence that families want/need longer holidays is there.

Obviously your position as someone who gets all the holidays off makes you highly unbiased here

And this shouldn't mean that extra provision must come from schools. Other areas of society are also responsible for playing their part.

My SIL in Italy finds it quite a struggle. Most of her friends either have grandparents nearby that they outsource the kids to or they have only one working parent.
She used to get an au pair for the summer when the kids were younger. Now they split between UK grandmother coming over for a week, going for a fortnight to Italian grandparents at the other end of the country, and summer camps. It's not easy especially as the GPs get older and are not as able to look after kids.
I think I prefer it spaced out over the year but maybe we could have a couple of weeks extra.
France for example have far more days holiday than the UK - I think the French part of my office gets 35 days basic while we get 25 - so they all basically take the whole of August off.

Yeah like making the summer holidays shorter...

I think YABU in terms of longer summer holidays - I think the youngest ones in particular find it confusing enough having such a long break and then trying to get in to the routine of school again. I also wonder if it makes school refusal more likely for some kids when they have had a such a long period off.

But YANBU if you wondered if a shorter school day would be better and to have more breaks during the year imo (maybe half terms could be two weeks?). I realise such ideas won’t be popular as most parents need to be at work and it would increase childcare issues/costs, but I do think from a health perspective that we overeducate our youngest children - I personally don’t think it’s ideal that under 7’s usually spend over 6 hours a day at school (and that it’s too focused on educational goals/too much time sitting at a desk even at that age, but that’s another thread).

What about those who go away in those holidays. February is perfect for skiing/snowboarding holidays and we like a city break in October when it's cooler weather.
We personally miss the 2 weeks DS used to get off in October in primary as we could go to places like Mexico on holiday, it's not feasible in the summer.

I don't think they should be longer, six weeks is about right. Other countries arrange things differently as it's over 30C for three months of the year.

I do think they should be earlier in England though. June/July is actually when summer is, not July/August.

I had 10 weeks off growing up. It was too long towards the end I was board. Then there's the adjustment to going back after a long break. My own DD struggles after the school holidays settling back into routine.

If we put aside the issue of annual leave and the cost of holiday clubs, for my daughter, sure, a longer holiday would probably be fine.

We do a little bit of maths and a little bit of writing every day, read with her and to her, and incorporate learning into our day. We go out to places and she gets lots of time outdoors and does physical activity. We also have the odd TV day and sometimes she gets bored, which I think is good for her. She will go back to school in September having had lots of educational experiences and ready for the next academic year.

However, consider that there will be other children in her class who haven't picked up a pencil or opened a book since July. They're going back to school a whole term further behind than they were when they left. They've played a lot of computer games and done little to no exercise. They may not have eaten every day and what they have eaten has been low quality. They've been left home alone a few times because their parents couldn't afford clubs and activities.

The summer break is one of the biggest factors in educational inequality, with middle class and more affluent parents spending the summer enriching their children and children from poorer backgrounds sliding back, forgetting half of what they learned the year before and certainly not building on it.

Meanwhile, you are completely right that the last week or two of every term is a waste of time, children are often too exhausted or excited to learn. Splitting up the holidays more so that children have regular breaks and aren't doing 7 week stints of school with only a 1 week break at the end would be much more productive for everyone, along with more options for low cost, high quality childcare for parents who need to work.

And whilst we're at it, we should be improving conditions for teachers so that the 6 week holiday is the only perk that makes them put up with the rest of the year.

Because they have longer school days! My DD doesn't finish until 5pm. Bet there would be uproar if state schools didn't finish until that time!

My DC are in private school and have 19 weeks of school holidays, including 8 weeks in the summer and nearly 4 weeks over Christmas and Easter.
We LOVE it.
Term time is very full on - they are at school from 8.15-5.30 most days with extracurricular activities. Then homework. For us, it is the school-related admin - emails, concerts/fixtures, laundry for various kit, supporting homework esp projects that require creating (mess). All that completely stops during the holidays.

Neither of our jobs are ones where we can generally wfh - max is probably 1/day per week each but that is not guaranteed.
Organising childcare when they were primary age was not easy and if you don’t have the family who are willing to help, flexible employers and money for clubs then it is very very difficult so this needs to be considered if this is to be general change across the state sector. I would have thought that most families nowadays have two working parents but I maybe wrong.

Now they are teenagers, it is so much easier. They sleep until late and can be left home alone or can take themselves off to activities and meet with friends.

The minimum is 28 with bank holidays

What about before you were old enough to be left alone?

I feel for the parents that don't have enough holiday entitlement, family support and have expensive childcare to pay for over the school holidays.

But what about before secondary school? The OP obviously isn't asking about kids who are old enough to look after themselves. You and your brother weren't always 14 and 16.

Clearly childcare provision and employers would need to step up to support this.

My employer just made 10% of our workforce redundant due to extra NI and other costs. I think asking employers to “step up and support this” may just mean more redundancies and unfortunately more families falling into poverty.

It’s a tricky balance - that’s for sure!

I get stat holidays = 28. Those 8 are BHs and I have to take a week at Xmas which leaves 3 weeks annual leave that I can choose to take throughout the year, it's most definitely not enough. DH is pretty much the same. Thankfully my kids are now teens and can be feral look after themselves in the holidays.

What did she do when you were 8 and 6 though?

Where is the childcare for disabled children? There isn't any! I can only assume you don't have DC with complex needs and have no idea about the realities of families like mine and therefore don't care.

My parents had to work. My brother and I were alone by the age of 8 and 10 j t my mum got home at lunchtime. We weren’t allowed to touch the cooker.

I think if we're doing what's best for the children, their mental health and their learning, then shorter terms and more frequent 2 or 3 week holidays would be better than an 8 week summer holiday and the rest of the year being long terms with minimal breaks, surely?

Plus, I don't really understand how it would help to recruit teachers by adding an extra two weeks of unpaid holiday to the year? They already bitterly complain about their salary, reducing it by a further 2 weeks pay is unlikely to help.