Summer holidays should be longer

Ah. You’re a teacher. I get it now 😬

I’m in Ireland and we use summer camps. Between DH and I we take around 4 weeks off and two weeks overlap where we are on holiday and the other two weeks we each stay home while the other works. Our kids go to rugby camp €80/child (10-1pm) an activity camp (9:30-3pm) €140/child, another activity camp €130/child so multiply by two kids. There’s also tennis (3hr), cricket (3hr), soccer (3hr), an outdoors adventure one that cost €60 for a day or €250/week including pick up and collection (9-4:30). They’re now 12 and nearly 10 and sometimes go to the childminder on shorter camp days.
Dh used to work from home until changing roles early this year and I used to be on shift, much easier then. But yes in Ireland it costs a fortune to keep the kids entertained. We usually budget between €800-€1100 for summer camps. When they were younger, they were taken to and collected from the camp by the childminder.

It cannot be a shock to you that for cultures that are more likely to have one working and one stay at home parent, that this parent is likely to be the mother, and that these are likely to be the more patriarchal countries.

To answer your question

For us, expanding the summer holiday further would mean the kids would just spend more time in holiday clubs as mine and DH's holiday isn't going to magically expand. For inset days they are at home and have far too much screen time.
And we are the fortunate ones who are able to take a chunk of leave in August, and afford holiday clubs.

Six weeks is plenty of leave for teachers.

Mine doesn't want 6 weeks off! She'd rather have 4 weeks in summer and an extra week at May and October, spread the breaks plus she loves being in school.

Yes, I have just checked and it was the mothers (as usual everything falls to them):

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/78b9eba1bb346acf

I am from one of the European countries listed as having a much longer summer holiday. From my point of view growing up, this worked well for those families whose grandparents still lived in their village of origin. Their parents would send kids to 'the village' to spend the summer with their grandparents, where they would be frolicking in nature with other kids that would also spend the summers there.

We didn't have that. We didn't have the extended family, we didn't have much money, and both parents had to continue working throughout the summer. This meant that the summer holidays were utter torture for me. Three months of desperate boredom, of noticing that everybody else had family to spend time with and money to take holidays, all my friends would be spending time elsewhere whilst I'd be at home in a city with no money to do anything and no one to do nothing with.

September used to fill me with joy as preparing for the return to school meant less boredom, contact with peers and a bit more structure.

I much prefer how UK holidays are structured.

I don’t disagree with your general point about it being an issue that childcare falls predominantly to mothers.
But to be fair to that poster, it’s a campaign in Italy started by mothers. She didn’t choose to specify mothers.

There could also be an scheme to encourage people to work as summer child minders in their homes.
Childminders are usually for pre-school age and they have to follow the early years curriculum etc.
An official summer childminder scheme for older children would have guidelines to follow but would be a more laid back environment.

My sense is that in places like Ireland and Italy, there have traditionally been more SAHMs and more grandmothers living locally and providing childcare.

It would almost certainly be regressive for women to do that here.

It’s just the same as adults would forget a proportion of what they had learnt on a course after 6 weeks if they had not been actively using the new knowledge. Nobody has a perfect memory.

I was reading the other day that mothers in Italy were protesting about the long holidays as they can't cope.

20 days average here although decent companies 25 days. Ours is in fact 10 weeks (depending on the school). Have to muddle through with a mix of camps/annual leave/grandparents until kids old enough to stay by themselves...14 +

I DISAGREE!!! I grew up in one of those countries. We had 12 weeks of summer holidays, it was long and it got boring pretty quickly. I couldn’t wait to go back to school every summer holiday and see my classmates.

That's because you are not a teacher. We could have 10 weeks with two weeks designated as prep time for teachers (beginning and end of hols). That would fit with most of the rest of Europe and also extend holiday times thus reducing holiday prices.

God no! I’m a full time working single mother and I struggle over the summer. I’m self employed so don’t earn if I don’t work and have to fork out for holiday clubs every week so I can continue earning!

Well considering since Brexit farmers can't get seasonal workers to pick the harvest - perhaps we should get the kids helping out again. Some would prefer that to school 😁

The mental health of our kids can not be attributed just to the holidays though !

Exams / testing , square pegs in round holes has far more influence !

20 days annual leave plus bank holidays is all Irish get- Some companies might offer more say like 25 days. Its 8 weeks for primary school and 12 weeks for secondary school ( age 12 upwards). My sister ahs done a spreadsheet to cover the two months. Combination of paid childcare, she working a compressed week, both parents taking annual leave ( separately) and camps. Don't get her started on the camps only operation 10am to 2pm. The kids are also coming up to me for a few days. Only week three at mo and she counting down the days till the go back

It's the wrong way round that kids' time is better spent at school than with families or that schools teach them how to behave well and parents don't.

The default should be home life, and needing to go to school at times (190 days) for education. For too many, the impression is that school is the default and time off is a hassle to contend with their kids.

Living rurally, there is not much to do for kids if the weather Is rubbish. We don't have all these summer camps, activity clubs etc you get in larger places. Def think they should stagger the holidays in different areas though. So more people can afford a holiday.

Ok Norway and the Netherlands then, just up from us in your graph.

They both have 2 weeks more over the summer but only one week at Easter, and no half term in summer (they do have week long breaks in October and Feb). So works out the same.

A graph of just summer holiday lengths doesn’t give the information you need.

Send them to private school? The PS hols are insane, my DD has 7 weeks over summer, which I think is insane.