Why do school s insist on having the 6 week break in August...

[EezerGoode]

Why not have a week of every month? Or just allow each area to set its own holidays..we could all then go on holiday in June or may ,when there actually was nice weather..and it would be cheaper..we all seem to accept it often rains in August..meaning we pay top whack for holidays when it pisses down....so what is stopping headteachers spreading the holidays throughout the year so we can take advantage of decent weather and cheaper prices??!!

Has nobody else been bugged by the ear worm that is phineas and ferb's theme tune over this discussion. I know it's only a cartoon but there's 104 days of summer vacation! one hundred and four!! You do the maths. 6 weeks is nothing.

So don't be a bloody teacher then! Geez. It's not a voluntary post, you are indeed paid for being a martyr.

I work for a lot of teachers and none of them moan as much as the ones on MN. They know it's a job with pros and cons like every other job and don't expect to be put on a pedestal. It's weird on here with teachers.

I'm sure in NI it's about 11 weeks or something. They break up around or before Scottish schools and don't go back until the English schools do. I think that's similar for Private Schools all around the UK. No idea if they get less holidays at other times.

in which professions does it HAVE to be taken between certain dates by everyone, no negotiation and no flexibility?

Plenty of areas where leave is banned at certain times. Arable farming doesn't have summer holidays, and tourism jobs often don't either. Retail may not allow leave at times of peak trade. And some jobs close the business over Christmas and employees have to take annual leave then, even if they'don't ptefer to work.

Probably they're mostly not as restricted for as long as education, but it's certainly not not a problem restricted to people working in schools.

I never moan in rl- it's only on here we get harangued .

People aren't saying we're special, just that most of us don't want the holidays to change. We are entitled to state that we don't want radical change to our working conditions to benefit not our service users, but their parents.

Given the shite state that teaching in England is in, I expect that you'd end up with an even worse recruitment crisis if the one week per month holiday was brought in. The staff need a long break imo, from what I see online far too many are working during the summer holidays as it is.

So don't be a bloody teacher then! Geez. It's not a voluntary post, you are indeed paid for being a martyr.
Umm actually I like there to be some teachers in my children's schools. And a lot of the best could earn more with less stress in another job. So I'd rather they stayed thanks all the same @Snap8TheCat

Primary schools might be able to take a 2 week half term in May and only 5 weeks in summer. BUT Secondaries cannot - there is a one week break in the GCSE/A'level exam timetable - if they want to take more time then they still have to open the school for exams (and lots of the teachers have to work).

What has been proposed a lot but never seems to work is: to move to a post results system of applying to University, and moving external exam earlier.

So don't be a bloody teacher then! Geez. It's not a voluntary post, you are indeed paid for being a martyr don't worry Snap - thousands and thousands of teachers are doing just that

In ireland we get eight weeks starting beginnig July. Handy in some ways because we have more choice on when to take holidays depending on weather and price but its a long time when you have to try arrange childcare.

In Scotland the Exams start at the end of April and run to the end of May/beg of June. Oupils then return to school for a month after the exams to start their timetable for the next year. My understanding is that that wouldn't work as easily in England as a lot (most?) pupils don't return to school after GCSEs, they go on to 6th form college.

So, we have pupils doing Nat 5 exams at the end of S4 (roughly equivalent of GCSEs) then they return to start S5 at the beginning of June to start their Highers (a one year course) then when they finish exams at the end of May, they again return to school to start S6 before the schools break up again at the end of June.

Pupils can leave at the end of any of these years but apart from the end of S6, they'd be expected back at school after exams until the school year ends at end of June.

Anal leave.... That has truly made my day. I needed a laugh this morning

Holidays will always be more expensive in school holiday time so it wouldn't matter if they spread it across the year in that sense, the prices will always be pumped up.

It's fairly important for schools to have the same holidays across the board for parents with children in separate schools.

But I agree on abolishing the six week holidays . It's far too long. Not only for parents but for children. They get bored eventually and when they do end up going back, it's been so long away younger children especially find it unsettling.

The summer holidays in the USA are about 2.5 months long. In Argentina it's 3 months for secondary schools. It's 14 weeks in Egypt...

Yet here we have people moaning about 6 weeks because they think it might save them some money on a week in Spain (it won't).

Threads like this just serve to highlight the ignorance that people have around the teaching recruitment and retention crisis. People are leaving a profession where you get 13 weeks holiday a year in droves. Do the general public not get that?

I have 2 young kids and right now pretty much the only thing keeping me in teaching is the fact I don't have to find child care during the holidays, and even that thread is starting to weaken. Start fucking around with the holidays and I will be gone. And so will everyone else.

And then you will be able to book holidays more flexibly and cheaply in better weather. But there will be no one to teach your kids when they are actually at school.

Look I don't care either way if the holidays are changed, I am self employed and have chosen to to work around my children , because DH is a shift worker.

However it's annoying that teachers just think they're the only ones a change would affect, or affect the most.

People leave teaching because it's stressful even with the summer holidays and inflexible. The reason why a of teachers are underpaid is because of the amount of holiday given. Far better for teachers if schools got rid of summer holidays entirely and just put in a week's gap between terms with the understanding that it only applies to students (not teachers). Teachers could then get standard 5 week holiday allowances to take when they want like the rest of us.

I would like the holidays staggered. I don't want to go away in August where everywhere is packed out and it is too hot for my children. I think most parents are getting fed up with being dictated to about when the can go away.

Schools that don't follow LEA dates would incur additional costs.
VA schools tend not to deviate from set term dates (even tho they are allowed to) because they would then be billed for extra transport and possibly catering costs.

It would affect teachers more. Your child is in school for far less time than a career in teaching (with a retirement age of 68).

But I agree on abolishing the six week holidays grin. It's far too long. Not only for parents but for children. They get bored eventually and when they do end up going back, it's been so long away younger children especially find it unsettling.

Then you have all the parents at work fighting to try and get two weeks off in a 4 week window and what will that do to the cost of holidays/the risk of poor weather for it all?

Ed well yes there would still be teachers, they would just be less qualified, less experienced and paid less and staff turnover would be higher. That's what happens in every other workplace. Staff get devalued and at the end of the day it'll be the same people then complaining that their children can't spell and that the UK is down at the bottom of international league tables for ability.

The status quo really isn't perfect but I've not seen any suggestions that are any better tbh. Maybe 3 blocks of 4 weeks where there is always the chance of some good weather abroad? Parents could then choose to take their larger two week holiday in any of those 4 week blocks? They'd need to do something with the exam system though for that to be practical. Bring the start and finish of the school year back to April maybe?

Actually I would have said that the recruitment crisis is down to the ridiculous demands being heaped on teachers, Genghi. Paperwork, tracking, assessments etc. People starting work at 7am, leaving work at 6 to do more, and then working at weekends and evenings. That stress doesn't need to be there, we cope damn well in Ireland without that shite.

Summer holidays are a major carrot for people to stay in the profession. The inflexibility of the school year is the payoff for that.

If you don't like the inflexibility offered by state education around holidays you could always make your own education arrangements...

Or you could go on holiday during the 2 weeks at Easter or Christmas. Or the various half term weeks.

In practical terms, whether a dispersal of the holidays would work for you as a family would depend entirely on what you use for childcare at the moment.

Without 'standardised' core holidays, no holiday playschemes, children's clubs, activity weeks, sports camps, music courses, activities at the leisure centre, special events in the parks etc etc etc would run - because there would never be an economic number of children available for them.

So unless you have a nanny, childminder or only use relatives for childcare, then a dispersal of the holidays would leave an enormous number of weeks to cover, with nothing to cover them.

Even as a teacher, I use some holiday childcare / courses - they are brilliant for the days / weeks when i have to prepare / clear classrooms, plan for next year etc. My children benefit hugely from county / nationwide courses in their 'things'. They also benefit hegely from term-time extracurricular groups - dance, sport, music - which again would be hugely disrupted by every school being different, or 20% of the children being off for any given week. They compete in events which are planned to take place in school half terms, when school facilities are available for hire and pupils from masses of different schools come together.

I would support an absolutely standardised dispersal of holidays - so a shorter and slightly earlier summer break, 2 weeks for half term in October, maybe 3 weeks at Easter or a 2 week May break if all external exams were moved. I would not support a free for all in which different schools set different holidays, or in which very short breaks were distributed throughout the year in a scattergun fashion.

As a teacher, having 'a 6 week break' is not what keeps me in the profession. However, having 'holidays that coincide, by and large, with my children's' IS something that I value about my chosen career, and without it the career (which is my second, much less well-paid and lower status than my first) would seem much less attractive to me.