Summer holidays should be longer

I didn't need to see your update to know you're a teacher..

I love my teacher friends but they really have no idea how hard the school holidays can be for families who don't have someone off for them.

We are fortunate that we can afford childcare and there is plenty of it in our area but that's very much not the case for everyone

There’s no issue with taking holidays during term time at many private schools, so I doubt it would affect them much anyway.

Not with the cost of trying to sort childcare to cover it!
We are 1K already for 4 weeks over the summer for 1 child and both DH and I have flexible jobs.

Scotland holidays are different but it doesn't make a difference to the price of holidays unless you drive to England to fly. We have found that on average its £1500 cheaper for a family of 4 to a 3/4* hotel in Greece/Turkey etc if scottish holidays but not English ones for the same holiday, hotel and week. That's why I don't swallow holiday companies line of of its not us!

Scottish summer holidays are between 6-7 bur they don't get May half term or February half term in my area (they get 1-3 days depending) but get 2 weeks in Oct.

What fab about being stuck at home because the weather is crap and many places like amusement parks are closed (because they can't run rides in crappy weather)?
I remember from ages 9 upwards being given homework or projects to do over the half terms to "stop us getting bored". I remember thinking if they don't want us to be bored we may as well be in school.

I think it is already hard for families where both parents work to cover the summer - and this is most families now. I am in my mid 50s and When I was a child my Mum didn’t work - and neither did any of my friends’ mums - but I have always worked and the summer was a huge juggle when mine were young. Holiday clubs are costly.
People are also retiring later and so
less available to help with childcare. Two extra weeks would be a massive struggle for most.
Local authorities also have to make arrangements which include provision of food for those in greatest need in the summer holiday - hard to see how they can afford extra weeks of that sadly.

Summer holidays should be shorter so kids forget less

other holidays should be longer so they don’t get so exhausted / October should be 2 weeks and I think a late ( August) and early summer ( may ) holidays of 2 or 3 weeks

easter should be bank holidays only so that term lengths can be more consistent / avoid very long tiring terms

holiday dates should be more staggered around the country so as to reduce the pressure on holiday bookings - Scotland benefits from cheaper holidays at the start of their summer break because England is later

edit - longer holidays won’t mean most kids spend more time with family.

be interesting to rub this thread at the last week of the school holidays

Long summer holidays are essential in my view for rest, holidays as a family, just time together. I am not in favour of adding more weeks to the other depressing weather half-terms of the year!

There should be hoilday camps across the UK in every region accessible to all kids and parents. Currently in my region if you get FSM you can get free hoilday clubs but if your childs disabled they refuse to take them. I also think it should be free to every child not just those on FSM.
The hoilday club system needs looking into properly.

Sorry but its a well known fact the six weeks hoildays is part of the reason people are pulled into teaching. I have many friends who are teachers and work in nurseries and said that the 6 weeks is a massive perk and theyd probably change jobs if the summer was dropped to lesser weeks.

The long summer holiday is an anachronism and goes back to the days when children used to be out in the fields (sometimes with both parents) helping to get in the harvest.

I do think over the summer there should some primary schools open for play-schemes or day camps that are low cost/free.
The current range of childcare "camps" are often very specific theme based (football, theatre etc) and sometimes a franchise so they are expensive because they are a business.
There should be day camps that are part state funded, part low cost (free to those in certain circumstances) available in schools.
They could even be for up to age 14 (so Year 9) and those 14+ could sign up to be junior play leaders so those that don't want to leave the secondary age kids home alone can have somewhere safe they can be.

I do kind of see you point with some of it!

But I also think working people in general should have more annual leave (not just parents) which would help cover it.

I’ve always just thought we should align to the Scottish holidays, so that the kids are off when it’s actually hot, not when it practically feels like autumn. Same length (ish) but sooner.

And I’d break them up earlier in December so you don’t have those awful weeks of constant illness - usually leaving them ill for Christmas.

So on balance I think I disagree with the longer summer as I’d give more time off in the winter instead. I do see your arguments though.

I’m also not convinced the govt couldn’t legislate for the holiday companies and peak times - I’m sure you could say no holiday should cost more than x times (x being something very low like 1.1) what it did the week before/ after, and word it in some way that worked. Yes there would be a week mid summer hols when the price was steeper but overall it would even things out. Better for teachers too!

My DS only gets 5 weeks and an extra week on October half term which is totally useless - we can't go on a family holiday as I'm busy at work and DD doesn't have that week. But it just means an extra week of finding childcare.
At least the summer week he's in school is a week when there are clubs for DD.
This isn't a problem any more as DH is retired and DD is going into secondary so she'd rather see friends and do things with just DH but it was tricky for a couple of years.
Can't imagine what an even longer summer holiday would be like. In the US all the summer camps (childcare type rather than Scouts type) are full by February.

I think the school year needs balancing out better, so shorter summer holiday and longer breaks for Whit week and Autumn break.

But 13 weeks off in summer? Yikes.

I don't understand this, why are children forgetting things during holidays. What are the parents doing? Surely you do some learning with your kids? Reading etc?

Don't the countries with longer summer holidays not have half terms though? Italy in particular doesn't have the 3 half term weeks the UK does and has shorter off for Easter.

If you are going to compare you need to compare the whole holidays from school not just one block. The UK still gets less but alot less disparity than the chart initially suggests.

You’re not comparing like with like. Italy doesn’t have half terms, and just has a week for Easter. It’s also not unusual for schools to run on Saturdays, and have 6 very short school days. I doubt anyone would prefer to move to that, just for the 13 week summer. It’s just a completely different set up.

Summer camps, family help, dividing annual leave, stay at home parents, shorter working year in the civil service where you can take unpaid extra leave etc. It's a struggle but I wouldn't change it, I loved the long holidays as a child and liked my DS having the same experience. It's 3 months in secondary, June, July and August.

Unfortunately there are many children who are better off in school, longer holidays would not be good for mental, physical and emotional health.

I remember a few years ago one of the local primary schools here decided to have 2 weeks at October half term and shorten summer to 5 weeks. It caused uproar (I worked with a lot of parents who had DC there).

The weather is so poor in October that they were stuck at home or having to fork out for activities indoors. I worked in an educational setting at the time, but even parents who were TTO only had a week off as there was only this 1 school that had 2 weeks.

Didn't help that the primary school was a Catholic one and was a feeder for the local Catholic high school so lots of parents had DC at both. Couldn’t even get a cheap deal on a holiday, unless it was Saturday-Saturday as the high school kids were only off for a week.

It only happened once!

I live in a town where there are virtually no summer camps. People on here always wang on about putting your kids in for the summer but they aren’t provided universally.
DD went to the odd one but they were often part days so absolutely no use to going to work anyway. They also might only be once a week or for 3 days only. The onlt ones I see that go on for more than a few days are football and tennis.
DD is also ASD and getting her to go to these things with strange kids and strange adults were a nightmare.

when my friend moved back to Belfast she said there was loads run by churches and she just moved her DC from one to another to cover the holidays. Here she had to take unpaid leave.
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In France the kids are shipped off to live with grandparents over the summer.

I can only speak for Sweden but we get 10 weeks in the summer, 1 week end of October/early November, 2 weeks over Christmas, 1 week end of Feb/early Mar, 1 week easter + the same amount of bank holidays as the UK, but different dates.

Adults get a minimum of 5 weeks off a year + bank holidays, but most people these days get 6 or 7 weeks off. Childcare is quite cheap though. Summer holiday club at school where I live (Stockholm) is £90/month for the first child, £40/month for second and third child and if you have more than 3 the other children are free. That is including lunches and snacks and they are open normal hours, so roughly 8-6 I think but it's based on the needs of the parents.