to be violently opposed to the summer holidays being shortened to three weeks

[emkana]

Don't know if there's been a thread about this yet?

Suggested by Frank Field, adviser to David Cameron, because poorer children don't get the stimulation during the summer holidays and therefore fall behind.

Libby Purves wrote quite rightly in the Times yesterday that that is no good reason to deprive all children of the long summer break (and the teachers!), rather more enrichment should be offered during the holidays for deprived children.

chipshopchips - I don't think it's designed to be a 'punishment' and it's not 'for the sake of the few who don't bother with their kids' - it's for the benefit of the children it's not their fault their parents can't be bothered!

Another thing to consider is that playschemes are likely to reduce over the next few years as funding was cut majorly in July this year. Lots still went ahead as it was too late to cancel ( dh school paid it from school budget leaving a deficit elsewhere) or the activities were changed to be cheaper ones ( my work ones).

There are no council ones here as it is ( even SS ones) so private ones run from grants arent going to next year. Even they only covered 2/7 weeks

I'm in Scotland and we get a long weekend in February, two weeks in April,6 weeks summer usually beginning of July to mid August, two weeks in October which they have moved to the middle weeks this year we were always the first two weeks then down Glasgow way it was the second two weeks. A Thursday Friday inservice day holiday in November to which they have added the Wednesday this year as an extra inservice day to do with the curriculum for excellence, then two weeks off over Christmas and New Year.

If they were to cut short the summer holidays it would be a nightmare at my workplace as they would only allow a certain number of people to take time off over the summer holidays, if you got one year you wouldn't the next etc.

Oh I will just hope no.

Apart from the very real issue of people's livelihoods in tourism (can we really afford any more unemployed people?) it takes ds1 at least 3 weeks to adapt to his new summer routine before we can truly enjoy him. Before that its all meltdowns and crappiness.

Plus yes wrt to staggered holidays, we already have different sets and will even more next year- if we get placement sughgested we will ahve two in different SNUs and others in MS primary adn comp, all setting their own insets etc. It's a true PITA.

The easiest way to deal with this sort of thing is to look at the authorship, see it's Frank Field, and assume it's nonsense. Field was given 12 months by Blair in 1997/8, until it became entirely obvious that he is totally deranged. He then spent the rest of the Labour years, when arguably he could have delivered something, sniping from the back benches. He's now decided to throw his lot in with the Tories, laboured mightily (by repute, he does all his own typing, with two fingers) and produced the pile of nonsense that history predicted. Cameron, realising that insanity is doing the same thing twice and expecting the outcome to be different, has shut the thing down.

He may have been a force, perhaps even a coming man, in his youth, He has achieved precisely nothing in the past fifteen years, and is unlikely ever to do so. He's a natural man of opposition, not of policy.

A lady tweeted mumsnet about this subject, I replied to her, we exchanged views, turns out she's a lib dem baroness!

She's all for reducing holidays because her sister is a sn teacher

Totally agree with tokyonambu regarding Frank Field, while I thi k we need people like him he doesn't ever grasp the wider implications of his policies.

Personally, I love the long holidays ( and my kids get eight weeks), but I could accept that there needs to be a discussion in order to help working parents.

Or if teachers were saying there was a better way of working.

But to completely rearrange the system to help disadvantaged children is insane.
When will the left realise the state cannot parent children via the education system?

The way to help disadvantaged children is not to disadvantage everyone else.
This is the same argumenbt that says there should be no homework, because some children's parents won't or can't help them.

What next? I can't read to my children? Or feed them healthy food?

Bucharest - as far as I am aware, there is no EU legislation whatsoever on the length of the school day/year or the content of school programmes! Hence they vary wildly!

I don't agree with shortening the summer holidays, but I do think that society as a whole has a responsibility to ensure that children from families who do not support their children's learning can attend playschemes and other structured outside the home at low/no cost so that children who are already disadvantaged do not slip further behind over the summer break.

When I think of all the enrichment activities that my own (wildly privileged) children did this summer it is quite quite obvious that those activities helped them to progress hugely.

FioFio - there is nothing wrong with any of the things you suggest, but it is even better, IMO, if children can swim, play tennis, travel to another country (or two or three) and live a different lifestyle, learn a new skill that school doesn't offer...

Isn't there enough time for chilling out/relaxing/playing in the garden/baking cakes at the weekend?

Since when did these things require 6 continuous weeks?

What are the millions of kids who dont have gardens going to do all summer with no school playground to run about in? It's not like kids are allowed out into the street to play these days.

If the holidays were reduced childhood obesity might be reduced too.

i think that 4 weeks in the summer and an extra week in autumn and an extra week at xmas would be ideal. its too hard to expect parents to be able to have so much time off work

All these arguments need to be twittered to Baroness whatsherface, she's on Twitter @meralhece.

She sounds overly keen on social engineering to me.

Or you could just not feed your child troughs of crap food, that might work too

I don't chibi-no need to get personal

I've worked in deprived areas and the teachers have said that the only time a lot of children get fed properly is when they are at school.

I meant 'you' as 'a person could do this'

I would have said 'one could just not feed one's children troughs of crap food' but thought I'd get accused of elitism

Yes some children are poorly fed at home

I am not convinced that major changes to the school year is the best way to fix this

Childhood should not be all about school and living and progressing within the confines of an institutional context. Hence the absolute necessity of long holidays.

Completely agree that there are some children ( not the majority I'm certain) who only get fed properly at school.

But the response to that cannot be to make all children ( most of who are adequately fed ) stay at school longer.
It is cracking a nut with a hammer.

There are some children whose parents let them stay up all night. The answer is not to force all children to board.

The state should target the disadvantaged. Of course they should. Try to help them as best they can.

But they should leave the rest of us alone.

LOL Litchick. You are quite right, of course.

Long summer holidays were fine in the days when you could let your kids out with their friends all day, armed with some jam butties and instructions to to be back by sundown. They were also essential when children were needed to bring in the harvest. These days they're a complete anachronism. I've got three kids of disparate ages and am a capable, resourceful mother but the summer holidays are definitely the most challenging time of my year. Three or four weeks would be more than enough.

Ideally I'd like 2 weeks holidays in place of current half terms and hols. All the terms would be nice and short and manageable - some of them seem like a bloody marathon!

I just think there should be standarised holidays for all schools nationally. Any break should be a minimum of 2 weeks so that if you do wnat to take a holiday then you have enough time. Summer should stil be the main with a minimum of 5 weeks, so other weeks can be spread around as needed. Training days can be flexible but the main term dates in the UK should be the same. That way we all know where we are and when - have primary school and a secondary next door to each other but they don't have the same dates - argghh!!