Summer holidays should be longer

People also always ignore that the whole of the UK doesn’t have 6 weeks.

NI have 8 week long summers.

My kids are in private so get long holidays. I spend my money on fees and could never afford to put them in clubs and camps (that they didn't want to go to anyway) - I imagine most parents don't have the funds available to cover the cost of holiday clubs and the timings are always awkward and inconvenient. Mine are entertaining themselves while I work from home, mostly on screens or going to the park with friends. It was much trickier through primary.

I agree that if good quality and affordable options were available, it would be best for children. But there are kids who seriously decline over the six weeks, kids who don't get fed properly without a school dinner - the awful things we saw in lockdown when some children were off the radar of adults who could spot safeguarding issues. I don't think schools are currently run for the benefit of children, teachers or parents; I think the system doesn't work and that's reflected in how unhappy the UK's children appear to be. I don't think extending the holidays is a solution in itself.

Irish here, most kids do summer camps throughout the summer. They can range from €80-€200 for the week depending on what the camp is and the hours they provide. I personally have 5 weeks holidays and then I can take unpaid parental leave. Some people use grandparents and family, or childminders/crèche throughout the summer too.

Oh no no no!

Feb and Oct are both fab, and long terms very unhealthy for kids. The wait from Christmas to Easter would be sooo long.

I would question the accuracy of this chart since the Netherlands do not have 8 weeks of summer holidays, they only have 6. Although when I first moved here 20 years ago secondary used to have 7 weeks holiday but that is long gone.

They do get 2 weeks in April/May but no separate break for Easter (even Good Friday is not a bank holiday in NL) or end of May bank holiday.

In fact Dutch schools have 12 weeks of holiday over the whole year, 1 week less than UK state system. Secondary students do tend to get more non-teaching days though.

I feel torn on this issue.

From a selfish point of view, my 2 Autistic children would most definitely benefit from breaking up for summer a couple of weeks earlier. By the time we get to the end of the school year they are completely wrecked. The first week of the holidays is usually a write off as they're exhausted.

I work in a school and many children do not cope well with the heat, the last couple of weeks of school this year they were sweaty, tired and bursting into tears and falling out with each other at the drop of a hat. Very little learning happens once the temperature goes above 25°. Most school buildings aren't designed for hot weather and there is absolutely no money to improve this. I can see why schools in other countries break up earlier before the weather gets really warm.

On the other hand, there are children I worry about over the summer break. For some children school is their safe place and their school adults are the only adults in their lives who give a shit. Extending the school holidays would not be in those children's best interests.

In northern Italy for childcare there are council run play schemes, which run the entire summer and which are only accessible if both parents working (up here most do!), or similar but more costly private ones, or else church run Oratori, which are run out of a space next to a church and manned by church helpers and unregulated and inexpert teens. But it is cheap (around €20/25 a week plus extra if going on a trip) and runs all day. However, it only runs to mid July. Thereafter relatives are roped in where possible, if not there are childcare swaps or you pay a babysitter.

in Italy it’s 13 weeks because:

• we have no half terms
• Easter holidays are only 4 days long
• Christmas is a bit longer as we have epiphany here but we break up very late in December
• it’s too bloody hot to sit in a classroom from June onwards and there is a national aversion to air conditioning

I would much rather holiday was split throughout the year, 13 weeks is interminable. But then we’d still have issue of the heat.

God thats a long time ago. I think she was with my dad at that stage and she gave up work for one year.

Then she went back to work, and i think she put us with a summer childminder for a while

My DCs' school is closer to this pattern, and they appreciate it (particularly as they're ND and find school mentally draining)

They'll have 5 weeks over the summer which is enough for a reset. We strategically go away in the middle which gives time to unwind, breaks the break up, then time at home again.

They're in their teens and just want to vegetate now with little interest in structured activities, and even they recognise that 6 weeks is too long for them.

They enjoy the longer recharge time in Oct and Feb which breaks the two long, sloggy, germy wintery terms up better.
There is the shorter Easter break, but with Whitsun it's still broken up and tends to be an easier time of year.

This model works better for us than the standard English structure, although comes with the caveat that we can afford winter sun (which is priced favourably against summer peak season)

I think the October and February half terms are kind of pointless as the weather is often rubbish and there's not much to do other than hang around at home.
I would scrap them - add a week to Christmas and a week to summer.
To be controversial maybe even get rid of the May one so the summer hols is 8 weeks.
So 3 weeks at Christmas (with at least a week before the 25th off - none of this breaking up on the 23rd nonsense), 2 at Easter, 8 for the summer.
Or.... Keep the October one, 3 at Christmas, 1 and a half at Easter (because Easter covers a long weekend), 1 in May and 7 and a half for the summer.

I live in Spain and get pretty much the same annual leave as most people in the UK but kids are off from around 20 June to 15 September. It's a nightmare when they are little if you have no grandparents. Ours did summer school for two months some years (arts and crafts and pool all morning, subsidised by the council but not free)

I think the long summer break is healthy for a total brain break from school, but what we have seems adequate for that. I think what kids really need is increased investment in school and all supportive services (like camhs and youth work).

I do think the temperature is a concern in July, so that may need a rethink in the near future.

You are forgetting that teachers do not get paid for any more holiday than everyone else. Most of our holidays are unpaid. So we don't get 'more than enough'. We get the same. You are welcome to have unpaid time off during the year, if your employer is happy.
If they reduced the amount of school holidays, they would have to pay teachers more.

I’m in NI. We are now in week four of the holidays. My kids are older now but when they were in primary we did: split leave ie me one week DH the next, unpaid leave, camps which were £££ and impossible to find if you have a child with special needs. We get shorter half terms eg week at Halloween, two weeks at Christmas, two weeks at Easter and a week in February.

More than 6 weeks would be a nightmare. Instead of school all the kids would be shoved into more childcare clubs or just left watch TV while parents worked. No thanks!

With the world getting hotter, extra time in October, or around Easter/Whit would make more sense. We've had glorious weather all year and once again, it's starting our rainy season, here in the NW.

no!!!!!!

it costs nothing to walk to the park and play out. So why do so many children not leave the house for weeks?

because, as i see here on MN, everyone in the UK is petrified to let their child go to the park with friends. Or not able, as a parent, to rouse themselves to take them?

@Mitaramost children can be left at 14 and 16 but what did your mother do when you were primary age?! Three months is a long time to pay for childcare and prohibitively expensive.

A quick Google tells me that annual leave in Italy is 20 days and they have 12 bank holidays per year.

As pp said, if it’s cheaper to live there then perhaps there are more households with a SAHP.

Also classrooms here are only too hot in one part of the country. I grew up in NW England and can assure you it was never too hot to learn!

there are better and far more effective ways of dealing with/improving mental health than just longer holidays. But it costs money that governments don't want to spend.

Some of the more batshit school rules probably add to that, btw. All this Blazer wearing in a heatwave and absolute bonkers reaction to school shoes that aren't plain black leather sucks up teachers' time.

In Finland where school summer holidays are 10 weeks, annual leave is 5 weeks but one of those weeks has to be taken in winter usually so its 4 weeks in the summer so even if both parents don't overlap their leave you can't cover all of it. Most children will just be home alone at least part of the holidays (apart from those 7 and under who can go to nursery for the holidays) unless they have local grandparents who can provide childcare and people are generally OK with that. Though in some cities they can go to supervised playgrounds every day for free and get a free lunch but elsewhere there's nothing except a week or so of camp run by churches and sports clubs but at very reasonable prices.

I agree the summer holidays in the UK are way too short, and not good for the children or the teachers.