Summer holidays should be longer

Because in this country those are the main factors to strike a balance between in my opinion and it works well.

In hotter countries the temperature has to be considered, in countries where traditionally there’s a stay at home parent or a whole family raise the children then less emphasis is placed on struggling parents or low income families if the burden is shared between more family members or holiday club cost isnt such a big concern because there are cheaper options.

Each country does its best to suit the needs of its children and, although I’m not basing 6 weeks being the best balance on scientific evidence or anything, just seems about right to me to balance everyone’s needs to time off, childcare, vulnerability in low income families etc etc and suits what is the “norm” in our society of single parent/two working parent households who largely manage their own childcare.

I disagree, it's part of our salary. There is the potential to be asked to attend a course, but we are still paid regardless. Also we most definitely get more holiday than those outside of education. As a teacher, after planning, marking and preparing materials, and teaching extra curricular activities, I still have way more time to spend with my children than I ever did working outside of education.

Teaching is hard work and yes you do sometimes feel like you want to go and lie down in a dark room for a week at the end of term, but is it worse than people experience outside of education? No, of course it isn't.

Can I clarify something:
When it says the starting pay for a newly qualified teacher is around £31,000, does that mean they get £31,000 (gross) or that they get £31,000 minus however much they would be paid for the weeks they are not paid for.

It means you've already done all of the work for your salary by working your 190 pupils facing days and 5 INSET, before having the summer off. What they pay you in August has already been earned now!

We love the Finnish ski resorts like Levi. But totally all about the skiing in Feb holidays.

@K2054 we get paid IN the holidays but not FOR all of them

@birdling what do you mean we don't get more holiday than other people and that most of our holidays are unpaid? Believe me, as a teacher if I didn't get paid during the holidays, I wouldn't do it. Having worked outside education and now as a dedicated teacher, I still have way more holiday than I did before. I also agree that children should have less holiday over the summer. Research shows too much information is lost over the summer.

IMO children and teachers (I include myself in this), would benefit more from a shorter summer. We wouldn't suddenly be doing extra work, because those days would be added to other holidays during the year to give the students and teachers more balance.

I actually think the summer holidays should be shorter. I would like to see the summer holidays reduced to 4 weeks, but an extra week added to the February and October half terms.

Incorrect. My kids school have two longer days and this means that that get an extra 222 hours of learning over their school career. Lunch remains the same. They finish at 4.

@Madsciencecovid2020
'We also get extremely tired looking after your kids - as surrogate parents' This type of attitude is why teachers lose a lot of respect.

Everything is country specific though. You can understand when the temperatures regularly hit high 30’s/40’s through a very long hot Summer, that it would be difficult to open the school. Its currently 21 degrees in our Southern town in the UK and its peak Summer. It would be totally pointless closing the school for that long, 70 million people going on a ‘go slow’ for 2 months for perfectly normal temperatures. I completely understand why they do it in other countries though.

We call it the ski holiday in Finland, because that's what people do during it. So much so, that they have to stagger it over 3 weeks so more people get a chance to visit the ski resorts (not us though, my poor kids are stuck with cross country skiing at home )

Why is 6 weeks striking the right balance? What do you base that on? Are other countries not striking the right balance then?

It’s not that 6 weeks is a reasonable time for children to be left with their unsuitable families, but it’s impossible to have school all year just to protect those children. It’s also unreasonable not to allow other children breaks because some others are vulnerable.

The trick is to have empathy with those vulnerable children and try to keep their time away from school minimal and also have empathy with students and teachers who need a well deserved break.

When you balance those things, 6 weeks seems fair to me - not because I think vulnerable children are fine for 6 weeks but not 7 and not because I think children aren’t deserving of holidays not because 6 weeks is what it is (when I was a child I had 9 weeks summer holiday so it isn’t even the norm for me) but because the decision makers have to do their best with all the factors given appropriate weight to come to compromise.

You clearly place your own desire to have two months off your job (no other equally high pressured jobs get anything like that!) over empathising with the fact that longer breaks are detrimental to some children.

I grew up in Spain and absolutely loved the break from June to September. I like that my daughter gets to experience that too. A true break from school. She is off from 20 June to 7 September.

The February half term came from private schools for skiing holidays. In Scandinavian it is actually called sports week and most people go skiing.

But there are real dangers for kids at risk of neglect in term time too. Because even when they're in school and we're flagging it with other services, no one intervenes until there is a crisis.

It's obviously a problem in Italy, where the childbirth rate has declined drastically.

"We get monthly cheques but we need practical support, too, like free summer camps for the children," she says, pointing to the three-month school holiday from June that can be a nightmare for parents who work.

"The government wants a bigger population but at the same time, they're not helping," Eleanora says.

"How can we have more babies in this situation?"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y76483200o

From an Irish perspective (9 weeks summer holidays in primary school and 13 weeks in secondary), I think that because the primary school day is a bit shorter and most schools don’t offer wraparound care, there’s less of a reliance on schools for childcare in a general sense. Families with two working parents need to have non-school-related childcare set up, whether that be with grandparents, a childminder or a crèche, and those arrangements often just continue through the summer.

As a parent - and having been a child here - I love our long summer holidays. But I do accept there are real dangers for kids who may be at risk of neglect.

Now you’re just being deliberately obtuse.

Of course children need a break from constant schooling. Of course it needs to be taken into account when assessing the length of those breaks that some children will really struggle in low income families.

The correct striking of the balance is 6 weeks.

6 weeks is a long time! Really don’t know why you would want more (except of course that you’re a teacher and want to work less!)

Thank you, Miss 😀

@noblegiraffe sorry I missed your countdown question....lost my phone signal for a bit so didn't see it.

Yes but the over stuffed English curriculum is causing massive anxiety issues for those taking GCSEs and reading for pleasure levels are down for teenagers.
Not your fault. You teach what you've got to teach.
I have HUGE respect for teachers ♥️