To think that the school year should be reformed so that there are only 6 weeks of holidays instead of 13!

[bollywoodfan]

...Yes I am finding the holidays difficult! They are too long and there are far too many imo. I don't see why children & teachers need so many holidays! They are a nightmare for parents to arrange childcare for, which also costs a lot of money. Most households don't have a sahp and the govt is discouraging this anyway. So it makes sense for there to be the same amount of school holidays as there is annual leave i.e 6 weeks
OK, before the teachers start moaning - the workload for teachers could be more spreadout as there would be a longer period of time in which to fit the curriculum. You could also have weeks where you did other things, like sports or music week, activities etc, so that it is not all book learning all the time.

Benefits: more time to learn, less workload for teachers as slower pace, less childcare issues for parents, less bored children in long holidays
Disadvantages: may need to increase tax as it would cost a bit more to keep school buildings open & staff would have to be paid more. Less time for kids to relax I suppose..although as I said, there could be activity weeks or days which coukd break up the routine

So my plan would be:
2 weeks for summer holidays
1 week christmas
1 week easter
1 week in Nov
1 week in Feb
Who's with me?

Also the school day runs from 9am-3pm so not your working hours so you'd still have childcare issues.

As a teacher who's spent hours of my 'holiday' marking, report writing etc. I'm actually getting a bit of a giggle at this post.

I have some sympathy for the OP here.
YY children need downtime & to spend time with their families. YY teachers need time to recuperate, plan etc, YY buildings need to be maintained.
However if 2/3 of families DON'T have a SAHP, then that is 2/3 of families where the kids are not necessarily having this family downtime. The fortunate ones may be spending time with one parent, grandparents, cousins but there are others who ARE being shuttled into various activities their parents can find/afford, complicated childcare swaps etc.
My dc are not yet school age but this will be an issue for us. Jobs are just not that flexible & in this climate there is little chance of forcing that/finding ones that are. Family all live hundreds of miles away and grandparents getting on so would struggle to have DC for more than a couple of days (incl overnights). I love the ideas that we should all be working a bit less intensively & more flexibly - solve overworked parents, unemployment & childcare issues all in one go...

It can be frustrating to have to find cover for the school holidays or make adjustments to your life to be able to care for your children.

But I see the holidays as a part of a child's learning as well as a much needed break.

It gives me the opportunity to teach the children some independence, a trip to the park with their older sibling without an adult being their is a lesson.

The chance to teach them to cook, or tie their laces. Or they spend time with their friends, while us parents have a natter they play games, argue, squabble and negotiate.

By the way I'll be glad when they are back at school on Monday, I relished my 2 minutes of childfree time I had today, and rainy days can be a bind but its the way it is and the way it was before choosing to have children.

I love the summer hols with the dcs. I can't imagine having only one week at christmas, even 2 isn't enough.

Not even going to imagine the extra work i'd have as a teacher!

What about the may half term? Easter till july would be a long long term!

if they changed the holidays like that i agree with exotic I would take my kids out and home educate them.

My family is from South Africa and the system there is that the kids finish at one and come home for lunch afaik.

how would parents work? well they would share the responsibility, they would work different times from each other!

Not all jobs are 9-5, but 99% of childcare is 8-6 so how do those people whose jobs arent 9-5 work now? people need to stop thinking they are speaking up for all working parents, when they are actually speaking up for only those in office jobs!

Should we have school opened all hours as it is hard for night shift workers to find childcare?

I do not feel we should erode family time for the benefit of valuing money above anything else. to me family time is more important then money.

I do wish it were set up differently here in the US...there are some schools nearby that do a week off every so often and then 7-8 weeks in the summer as opposed to the long three months off. I'd like that.

God no, I'd miss the little blighted too much!!

Blighted = blighters. Why is it I never notice I've been Autocorrected until the very moment I press post?!

YABU simply because school is not a babysitting service.... Shouldn't really need to explain any further than that

I haven't read any of the thread, but might it be a good idea if school holidays were a bit more flexible, e.g. let the schools decide. That way not everyone would be off at once and not everyone would want to go on holiday at the same time.

May be a silly idea, but just a thought.

So you want a longer school year for free childcare?

Okaaaaaay.

Sod all the other businesses as well who rely on tourism and so on.

I think there was a thread a while back where Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire County schools had different holidays, which caused no end of problems for parents with children at different schools.

In Germany the different Laender have different holidays, but there is also a fair difference in the systems as well, so it would be unusual for children to go to school in a different Land to their siblings.

I think if it were to happen the way in which the country was divided up would have to be a lot bigger than simply by county. Also academies can do what they want to an extent so wouldn't have to stick to the guidelines.

I used to think like the OP, I solved the problem by becoming a teacher, I now have a rewarding job and plenty of time with my children.

I do think it would be a good idea to use school buildings to offer heavily subsidised means tested childcare - or even free for so long and to be paid after so many weeks of a % of the 13 weeks. It would not make sense for teachers to run these programmes because:

1. It would do the children good to experience someone/something else in the holidays
2. Teachers would be more expensive to pay than childcare professionals
3. Teachers would leave teaching

I became a teacher, primarily because I wanted more time with my children. I am a very good teacher, highly qualified and in many ways the world was my oyster in terms of career. I would leave teaching straight away if you messed with my holidays and would find it quite straight forward to get another job - having worked in another field previously and being very highly qualified.

I do not do any work in the holidays, not that is worth a mention anyway. I work from 7am until 6pm five days a week. Monday to Thursday I also work from 9pm until around midnight. I then do a further five or six hours every Sunday. I think I put in enough hours over the year, I just choose to compress them into term time, as my contract dictates I can do.

Finally children are utterly knackered at the end of a half term/term as our staff. I always think at the end of a term/half term - that if we had one more week the place would self implode.

I've got two school age children, and think the summer holidays are far too long - they could do with having a couple of weeks shaved off and making them only 4 weeks!
NOT because I don't want to spend time with them. far from it. Not a childcare issue either.
It's because half way through they're climbing the walls, restless and miss the routine.
They whine they're bored every 5 minutes.
That's even when we do football, swimming, soft play, crafts, computer games, etc etc every day,
They still moan they're bored regardless of how many they're doing.

I don't ever remember whining because I was bored in the holidays. I found stuff to do.

Children in Scandinavia get longer than six weeks off and their societies and education systems are generally hailed as being the beacon of the civilised world to which we all aspire.

HesterShaw - what do they do differently?

I don't think school holidays are lost time for my DC, we do lots of different and educational stuff, and they learn, grow and develop.

And we still do a bit of reading and maths over the summer.

I find DC are more tired and exhausted and tired after a couple of weeks holiday than when they are at school - maybe a bit more physically tired than emotionally.

I guess whether holidays feel too long to children depends where they live - if you live somewhere where children can walk to friends' houses, play outside, have lots of friends around etc. etc. and intersperse days of lazier mornings and mostly free play with friends between about 11am and 5pm, with the odd sleepover and a day out once a week or so, holidays seem to pass all too quickly. My kids are 7, 5 (and 2, but he's home all the time so doesn't count) and I certainly find holidays easier than term time (the 5 year old is at Kindergarten rather than school but it comes to the same thing in terms of holidays as I keep him home when his sister is on school holiday).

Oops meant to say as they are "school age" but young I have ye4t to discover whether the "I'm bored" syndrome starts at some point when they are a bit older - I can't see it happening as they have so many of their friends living close by, but it may, especially as we live in a rural village so its perfectly likely they will be bored as teens and then we can move to a town, yay ...