Essex family's may be able to get cheaper summer hols if they move the holidays forward by one week

[SummerSpringWater]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyl951lr8doessex

Sou ds like a great idea to me

What do you think ?

A few cons to consider:

Private schools will already have finished, plus anyone with only GCSE and/or A level aged children so there is still a fair amount of competition for holidays on those dates so there is less likely to be a significant price differential than with e.g. a random week in June.

It may be an extra headache for people who live close to borders where they may have children attending school both in Essex and other areas that don't have the same holidays which could mean they have to cover extra childcare weeks.

School isn't childcare tho us it ?

Yes but if children aren’t in school parents need to sort out childcare for those extra days they are of holiday 🤷‍♀️

I live on the border of two local authorities. Their school holidays are offset by a week, and a third does something different again with Easter. It doesn’t really help - it just extends the “holiday” period of travel companies.

It won’t become cheap because if enough schools or areas move their dates the holiday companies will just extend what is prime time prices. Rather than 6 weeks of high they might get 7 or 8.

I live in Leicestershire and we finish for the summer around the 9th-10th July. This has been the case in Leicestershire for years (Google the ‘Leicester fortnight’). Yes we get cheaper holidays (we’re away for 2 weeks now, left on the 10th). I wouldn’t change it.

Private schools are already off by this point and there are lots of independent schools in Essex; it’s really not much cheaper as it is, and they’d only reduce this more

It is cheaper, as I said above Leicestershire already has this holiday pattern and we certainly get cheaper holidays. It’s also nice to have a week to visit certain attractions before the hoards descend.

My kids are in private school so we fly at these times from the south east, the difference is minimal

It just means that the travel companies will hike the prices earlier.

Did they deliberately choose people too thick to realise that?

Again… Leicestershire already has this holiday pattern. Holidays are cheaper. Holiday companies haven’t hiked the prices for Leicestershire families (despite us having this holiday pattern for years and years), so no real reason they’d all of a sudden hike them because Essex changed their holidays.
Did you mean to suggest that everyone in Essex is thick?

From what I remember the high prices cover school holiday period not just the state school holiday period

My kids are also in private school. We fly from the midlands, and it’s significantly cheaper for us to fly a week earlier.
Bonus of not living in the SE I guess.

I'd be happy to never see or hear 'school isn't childcare' again.

Just the ones who think they're going to get cheaper holidays out of it.

Yes, in Leicestershire, as you keep saying,

This post is about Essex in the SE where those weeks are already only marginally cheaper. Continually posting that you get cheap holidays in Leicestershire is irrelevant.

People can travel to airports. People from Essex, if they finish a week earlier, can travel to a midlands airport to fly somewhere 😂

They’d rather pay full price

Scottish schools finish at the end of June and we enjoy much cheaper holidays during the first 2 weeks of July.

Even cheaper if we fly from Newcastle of Manchester

More fool them! Must have more money than sense.

Lol

I’ve put unreasonable as that puts the start of the term very close to GCSE results day. This would be putting the new term the Monday following the results on Thursday.

Not a lot of time to sort out places if students haven’t met their entry grades etc…

Last year DDs school finished a few days early

We did get a slightly cheaper holiday. But the hotel was also quieter for the first few days. That was the real benefit.

The flight was still packed... but more adults than families.

That would be great for the kids at school in Essex , but less good when you are a teacher in a neighbouring LA and can’t get those weeks off!