To wonder why some private schools have longer holidays?

[Notgivingin789]

DS goes to a private specialist school so this may be different.

But DS is on Easter Holidays for 3 weeks! I'm enjoying my Easter break with him, but I am desperate to go back to normality .

Is it common that some private schools have longer breaks ? DS half term was for 2 weeks and vice versa.

If your children are in private education, how did you cover childcare and so forth? as it's a pain for me as most holiday clubs finish by the time when the majority of kids go back to school.

If they are at an SEN school and have local authority transport the transport is likely to be only available at the statutory pickup time so wraparound care is not usable unless you can transport them yourself, which is not always possible. My DS's school cover some of the extra days with an activity club, but not all and it ends at 4.30, so again, no wraparound hours.

I'm not complaining really BTW, overall it is by far the best school for my DS and I would no way change it, but the logistics are a little challenging with having the other DC in local mainstream school.

Ds still has 3 weeks off - 4.5 in total.... I could cry! It's, Erm, dragging shall we say!

I'd love it if I didn't work!

My dd's school has a 2 week Autumn half term and 8 weeks in the summer but the rest of the holidays are similar, about 2.5 weeks at Christmas and Easter, and 1 week half terms in the spring and summer. I think it's about right.

I think it's mainly a perk for the teachers.

Longer days I think mainly, and lots of classes/teams after the school day has finished.

Mine gets 2 weeks for first half term, eight days for the others, four weeks at Christmas and Easter and nine weeks in the summer. I love it but we are very fortunate to be able to go away with them a lot and that family time makes up for how busy we are during term time. They're seasoned travellers already and I love that.

Random long holidays here too. TBH we did not realise what an utter childcare nightmare it would be. Sounds naive but there you go. Would be the same in any school but these holidays are LONG

I teach in a private school. From my pov the longer holidays make up for the shortfall in pay. We have three weeks at Easter and Christmas, seven weeks in the summer, and two extra days at October and May half terms. We very, vary rarely have Saturday duties (two Open Days a year which include all the staff, Headboy and Headgirl and the prefects, and very occasional sports fixtures), but we do have slightly longer school days. We teach until 3:30pm, and we have shorter break times during the day, and no afternoon play. We do meet the 190 days requirement, but we do it across actual hours of teaching in a year, rather than the number of days.

zombie I didn't know teachers in private sector were paid less than state schools. Is this the case across the board?

Feel your pain!
Ds at state boarding and is off for Easter for 3 and a bit weeks, 2 weeks when other schools have one and will have 9 weeks in the summer.

Simply because they have a longer school day and are at school 6 days a week.

Agatha I can't say for sure if it's the same everywhere, but most Indys I know of pay less than state. I suppose if it were a big, well established school making huge annual profits then the pay would be higher. But most independent schools seem to be just breaking even. I'd be earning £10k more every year in a state school, and that's without taking into account my subject responsibility. Plus I'd have enhanced maternity pay, sick pay, and access to a pension. But I stay in my job at the Prep because of the longer holidays, much smaller classes, and because there's less nonsense with government initiatives and hoop-jumping!

We regularly had 3 weeks at Easter, 3/4 weeks at Christmas and 8/9 weeks over the summer. But we did have longer days than state secondary schools so maybe it all balanced out?

I couldn't imagine trying to find that sort of childcare for my DCs. Of course, I loved it as a child

I think it's just tradition.

Not all private schools have like longer days. However, private schools have had longer holidays for decades. I think if there was a demand for shorter holidays schools would provide them.

However people seem to accept longer holidays, and relatively speaking, more private school parents are able to take their children away on holiday and pay for holiday childcare.

I'd love my kids to have longer holidays and proper sport daily in school...

If I was to go back into teaching I'd fancy the private sector...

Look on the bright side...my DH works at a public school.

I have him home for 17 weeks a year!!!

In answer to your question op the reason that private and public schools have longer holidays is due to a large amount of P schools having evolved from being boarding schools with oversea boarders.

Due to this the school term was kept shorter without half term breaks and longer holidays to allow boarders to go home oversea for holidays just 3 times per year for a reasonable length of time.

Half term breaks for a week would have left termly boarders being at school for holiday periods and longer teaching days were adventagious to termly boarders.

In the early 1990s army structure and pay changed withdrawing school fees as a perk, this meant many boarding schools lost boarders and thier boarding houses, converting to purely day schools.

Traditions of longer days and shorter terms however have stayed the same.

Just to add, I know it's not just army children that were boarders. A large percentage were though so this was why it had such a dramatic effect on boarding school as the loss of so many boarders meant they couldn't afford to keep running the boarding houses.

Some boarding schools tapped into the Asian market and others will have found other markets.

As I understand it there are a minimum number of hours you have to be in school. Private schools do the minimum and make up the work with homework.
State schools do the maximum and have less homework.

That may be a historical reason as that's what I understood back in my time, ahem, 20 odd years ago.

Dd had 4 weeks off at Christmas, three and a bit weeks off at easter and 9 and a bit weeks off in summer. School day 8.30 until 16.00

agatha I work in an Indy - I earned significantly more in a state school.

Sometimes independent schools pay more than state and sometimes they pay less. You get longer holidays and free term-time lunches though.

Independent schools do longer days starting at 8.30 so they have longer holidays. I've never heard of a state school starting at 8.30!

Longer school days, and teacher training days tend to be incorporated into school holidays, rather than as incidental days.

I have a friend with two sons, one st a grammar and one at a private school.

The boy at the grammar did lots of convoluted calculations to make sure he wasn't being expected to go to school for more hours than his brother, over the course of the year.

I think ivy is right about half term. It never seemed to be a big thing in any of the boarding school stories I used to read.