to not want shorter school summer holidays

[mum2030]

I don't get the benefit to working parents at all apart from possibly (but unlikely) cheaper foreign travel. DH & I both work and use a combination of our holidays and paid for holiday clubs/ childminders etc.

The number of holidays will be the same but surely by chopping them up into little bits it will become more difficult for things like holiday clubs/ activity clubs to function economically - e.g. how are they going to staff these things for a couple of weeks at a time at random dates - all different for different areas.

Plus I like the fact that kids have a nice long break between years to really wind down and refresh themselves. Plus it gives me time to do things like get all uniforms sorted out, get new kit for school and break a few of the bad habits that have crept in during the school year.

Inset days are bad enough when you have different children at different schools in different LEA's. But if different schools were able to pick different holidays you could end up even increasing the number of holiday days you had to provide child care for.

The long summer holidays are one of those things you look back on with pleasure and create some of your happiest childhood memories. Don't take that away from today's children.

I remember crying on the first day back every September because the holiday had been so long and I didn't want it to end. I could probably have coped better if it was shorter.
You can fit a lot into 4 weeks.

all this talk about changing school holidays is a complete smoke screen by Gove. he says schools are being given the opportunity to choose when they have holidays and that by staggering holidays it will be cheaper. this is total rubbish. point 1 - holidays cant be that staggered can they. Christmas has to be off, so does Easter. all kids have to do their SAT's at the same time and their 11+, GCSE's, A levels, AS levels, mocks for all of these exams and more. Once you put these fixed things in the calendar - ie when all schools have to be there at the same time, there is very, very little wriggle room left to change dates. secondly holidays will not be cheaper. they will not be cheaper. airlines, travel companies, holiday places they all have access to calendars with school dates on and will adjust their prices accordingly. it is a gove smoke screen because the change to out of school holidays has caused such up roar.

Mine get about a month at Christmas, same at Easter, and two months in the summer. They do long school days but I love the long holidays. Am lucky in that I work from home and me and ex h can manage to cover it between us. If we had a shorter summer I would end up taking a lot more leave when the weather is poor. We don't do expensive holidays - mostly it's camping. We spend about a month a year in caravans / tents.

Exactly what Mummymeister said.

I think if the summer holidays were only 4 weeks long then the prices would go through the roof and the holidays would get booked up a year in advance.

Yes to longer at Christmas. There's so little time to do the festive Santa, Christmas lights thing - in fact I've only managed it twice in 12 years due to them breaking up as late as the 20th

Totally agree. Though i've noticed my dc only get 5 week in the summer these days. With no increase elsewhere. In my day it would be 6 weeks, plus inset days.

Extra week off at christmas would surely be harder for working families? I know many workplaces who restrict taking time off at this time of year.

The pattern here (which is not the same in all the home nations anyhow) just habit. If you look at, say, Australia they're fine with four 10 week terms and more even holidays (longer for Christmas).

Gove, BTW, didn't give schools the power to set their own term dates. He is talking a lot about it (especially following that petition and the Parialmentary debate) but the actual powers were give by Labour when they set up,academies. And VA schools have always had it.

YANBU Op - I think 6 weeks is too short as it is (from NI where we get 9 weeks summer holidays) so any shorter is just terrible!

I agree with extra at Christmas & Easter too, but keeping minimum 6 weeks in the summer

Both myself & my DH work full time & I don't understand how any of the proposals help working parents - seems like another smoke screen rather than doing something to sort decent quality affordable childcare.

I agree with a PP that a month for summer and an extra week tagged in to Christmas and Easter would be good, keeping holidays the same across the country. Don't see the point in having them at different times, it will just cause confusion.

People do actually want to go on holiday at times other than the summer, not everybody likes the heat.

some of my happiest childhood memories are from the summer holidays, I love it that they have 6 weeks to unwind, go out with their friends & just be kids.
I work, its my choice, we juggle like everyone else, but we manage.

Don't deprive the kids of a great summer.

Utter nightmare; suppose you have a Dc in primary, one in a grammar school in the next town, and another in a local comp. Then you teach in a school over the border into the next county. That would be potentially four different holiday patterns.
I have heard it mooted that schools could agree with others in bordering areas to have the same hols, but those areas border others too, so that would result in everyone having the same hols....oh...wait...

Exactly indigo18 Most schools already have the power to do this but don't exercise it. The rest are set to get it (which is this Govt bringing the remainder into line) but I doubt very much they'll use it. Except perhaps for the Easter holiday (and knock on to spring term half term) but they vary already as parents near county boundaries know all too well already.

In my workplace parents struggle to get time off through the six week break as the business cant cope with so many being off at once.
Imagine what it will be like with everyone trying to squeeze 2 weeks holiday into a 4 week window.

If they do shorten the summer holidays I expect there will be a rise in children with rickets and vitamin D deficiency. Since the only sun exposure poor children have is during the British summer :(

As a mother of an asd child I think 6 weeks is way to long.

As a mother of a NT child the 6 weeks is perfect.

I am on the fence on this

I grew up with 12 week summer holidays & find the English 6 weeks almost brutally short.

The strange thing about this is that gove spends a lot of his time going on about how other countries are better at this, that and the other but in this case fails to point out that we have one of the shortest summer breaks in the world.

We'd still get the same length school year, though. Just differently arranged.

I hope that the 'powers that be' take that into account indigo, staggering could be an utter nightmare for many families.
I loved that feeling of timelessness at the start of the summer holidays, it would be so sad to lose it.

Delphinium they wont take the fact that staggering holidays will be a nightmare for families. just like they didn't take into account that saying you cant have time off in term time affects a number of people (like me) who are self employed running their own business and the nature of it means that I have to work at weekends and school holidays. If you think holidays are expensive and booked out early now, just wait until there is a 4 rather than 6 week window. by reducing the summer holidays they would also be hitting the UK tourism industry very hard indeed. no one is going to take the extra time allocated in the winter in the uk are they. they will all fly away to the sun. still it would reduce the costs of school heating bills to keep schools shut longer in winter. Make the school day slightly longer to help with child care costs and make the holidays even longer. cut out mid morning breaks and just have a longer lunch break. why aren't these ideas being discussed and tried.

I don't want an extra week tagged onto Christmas and Easter. The weather is even more likely to be crap than in the summer.

I love the long summer break.