AIBU to say that summer hols are a driver of inequality

[Teaandcrisps]

Myself and OH have had mixed personal fortune over the last 10 years - so from personal experience know the difference.

Summer holidays with no money is shit - especially when the weather is crap. If you can afford it however, it's great fun.

It's not just the obvious things - summer hols, trips, activities, camps, increase in food costs; it's also if you have the kind of job that can give you time off.

Given that food bank have launched the holiday hunger campaign, AIBU to say that summer holidays is an unequal construct and the 6-weeks off needs to go.

This is one of the few arguaments for shorter holidays that i can get on board with. There is some research from the states (much longer holidays) about the summer holiday slip and how in affects poor families. In fact some wealthier children learned more in the holidays than at school just by how their families structired holidays. I think the country could do something to mitigate this. Whether more school is the right answer i cant say. But proper state funded quality holiday childcare would help.

You don’t need money to read with a child or keep on top of maths etc. It just takes a willing parent. There’s no need for children to slip back during the holiday if parents are engaged with learning.

And if the parent can’t read?

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss
I’m the chronically ill one. The large mortgage you refer to was taken out never factored in my salary because I didn’t have one. We had moved from another country. I was heavily pregnant and not about to work going through a rough time.

I never recovered after the birth and became very ill when dd was a preschooler. Dh offered to become my carer and not go back to work when he lost his job.

How exactly could we have factored his becoming a carer in had I agreed? There is no insurance for that.

Always the ones who have no idea. 🙄

I’m in France, DS gets 8:weeks in the summer, 2 at October half term, Christmas, February half term and Easter, then nothing till break up at the beginning of July, as there are at least 3 banks holidays between the Spring holiday; which doesn’t always coincide with school.

As said by pp, they need good quality, inexpensive holiday cover.
Unfortunately the summers of the 70s and 80s where you just roamed around and came back at dinner time just don’t exist any more.

@Mabellia
When I was a child, my sister and I would spend hours playing in the garden over the summer holiday
Presumably you had a parent home?
Most people use the camps as childcare whilst they work. Not entertainment. It’s bloody expensive entertainment.

I think looking after my son full time, working pt and in full time education is clever.just because I come from a ok ish family and have been lucky enough to attend a good school doesn't mean that I don't work bloody hard.

I'd never thought of it like that before.

I always had eight weeks off in summer and so did my offspring. It was good! Lots of fun, we'd have a holiday but most of the time were at home and did lots of things. I worked two days a week when mine small so that meant five days of not having to get up early and rush around getting ourselves ready. I loved the school holidays.

I think kids need the time off to recharge and would rather my DD(9) had a proper break even if that means she’s slipped back a bit over holidays. Childhoods are about play as well as learning and while she hadn’t done much reading in the last 6 weeks she has been out everyday playing on out with her mates.
We haven’t been away this year or gone out much but she’s loved her summer off.
So what if the kids do slip back a bit does every second of their life have to be worrying about grades anyway?

Ps I work 3 days a week so 3 days has been with the CM and her friends there and 4 days has been playing with the neighbourhood kids.

I haven’t experienced this as my D.C. start school next week but considering MN is full of parents whose children is exhausted to the point of zombie by July, how about a couple of weeks in June and all of August? GCSEs etc would be over and a small chance to recharge

When I was a kid there was a great scheme in my local area with free or heavily subsidised school holiday activities scheme
You could do all sorts sports, outward bound, camp, art, photography for a couple of hours, whole days or even a couple of days
It was city wide and a massive scheme and you had to book in advance but helped give everybody great opportunities no matter what background you were from.
The problem is schemes like this need funding and funding for greater good is not on the current governments radar.

I think looking after my son full time, working pt and in full time education is clever

You were not looking after your son full time if you were also working and in full-time education, unless you were "clever" enough to clone yourself.

Many parents aren't confident in engaging with their children's school work, though. Their own maths or English skills may be weak. Or they may be working opposite shifts to a partner and knackered. Or stressed out by their financial situation and have other priorities. Or maybe they just don't understand the importance of doing this.

The parents who tend to engage with their children's learning the best tend to be affluent and /or well educated themselves.

I think looking after my son full time, working pt and in full time education is clever.just because I come from a ok ish family and have been lucky enough to attend a good school doesn't mean that I don't work bloody hard.

Absolutely. And yet still you wish that you are your partner were entitled to social housing, and you’re trapped in a DV situation that you haven’t been able to ‘mindset’ your way out of, SS are involved in your life, your child is on a CIN plan, and you’re fostered and don’t speak to your family (apart from your private school headteacher dad, obvs).

I guess this just goes to show that no one has it easy

There does seem less research on UK and the 6 weeks ( I assume Scotland and N.i have 6 week breaks ) did find this -
suggests spelling is more an issue perhaps because spelling is harder to practise at home.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5635200/

In summary, this study is the first UK-based study to demonstrate that that summer learning loss, or at least stagnation, occurs in a population of children attending schools in areas of low SES in relation to spelling, but that after 7 weeks of teaching, children were able to exceed the level they achieved prior to the summer holiday. However, the summer holidays did not result in a loss of word reading skills. Although children maintained and did not lose skills in reading over the summer, the results of this study suggest that, unlike spelling, they did not make any achievement after 7 weeks of teaching.

However, this study is not without limitations. First and foremost, this study did not assess whether summer learning loss occurs in relation to maths skills

I agree with you, OP. My local council provided lunch during the holidays for kids who are entitled to free school meals during term time. I think it was just a trial this year, but might become a permanent thing.

I think looking after my son full time, working pt and in full time education is clever.just because I come from a ok ish family and have been lucky enough to attend a good school doesn't mean that I don't work bloody hard.

Sorry, I think I’m missing the point here somewhat but, Can you be a SAHM if you work part time? How can you be a SAHM if you’re a full time student?

There is actually decent funding for summer playschemes still available (admittedly less than previous years, but it’s still doable). However, what there isn’t is as many volunteers as previously.

I’ve been running a volunteer led after school and holiday group for 15 years. In the beginning there were so many SAHP and college students looking for the experience, training and reference that I’d have to turn people away or have a rota.

It was also a bit of a standing joke - is apply for the funding, I’d sort the training and all the checks, I’d do all the organising and be in overall charge, then after two years helping us in the holidays I’d write people a reference so they could get a job doing the same thing elsewhere and get paid for it.

The reasons for the lack of volunteers now are two fold. Firstly people can’t afford to volunteer, and secondly the people who can want paid for it. I had an amusing conversation with someone earlier this year when they were looking for their reference to add to their uni application - they were genuinely surprised that they wouldn’t be getting one for turning up to one session at Easter.

There are also some parents who instantly hear a setting is lead by volunteers and rule it out as they want their children to go to a “professional” setting so you have to deal with that. Mostly once they realise that our “bunch of SAHPs” are currently a special needs assistant, two teachers, a retired HT, two childminders and parents with various other skills (the football coach was particularly popular this summer) and our Ofsted is better than the £40 a day one they change their minds.

The things is though it takes a lot of work on the paperwork side and that’s what isn’t as easily available now. It’s also thankless - I juggled it with my youngest DDs medical appointment this summer and the first three things in the suggestions box were “better trips” (we did the zoo, safari park, castle etc), “open earlier/later” (we do 9am until 5pm) and “don’t put prices up again” (we had to increase our costs to £25 a week because the building hire is higher). We also had two parents complain that they have to provide packed lunches each day as it’s inconvenient.

Summer Playschemes were traditionally staffed by Mums and now as a society we just don’t have as many households where one parent isn’t working because life is too expensive.

many parents aren't confident in engaging with their children's school work, though. Their own maths or English skills may be weak.

I did really well at school, like really well.
However, the stuff my kids bring home bares no resemblance to what I did.
Phonics, didn’t do it. All these new funny names English terms they HAVE to fit in to every bit of creative writing they do. I didn’t do that either.
The maths in primary is the stuff I covered at secondary. It is so different now.
I wouldn’t know where to start with doing stuff over the holidays.

There are 2 aspects to this. If the number of holidays are the same throughout the year, then the aspect of childcare is significant, whichever weeks and days if the numbers are the same.
What to do with children is a separate issue. I maintain it is slightly easier for children to be off school in the summer than at other times.
Yes, I once took my children away at October half term (UK), but it got dark at 6.30 and too cold for the beach. Extra school holidays at Christmas or October usually mean extra heating and expensive outings (cinema, etc)
I was fortunate, in that while my DC were at primary school, I worked part-time, but looking back, it is those years that are a constant juggling of different childcare arrangements, and yes, sometimes separate holidays, (once borrowed a frame tent and took 3 DC camping on my own for 2 weeks)
I always found the very first day of the school holidays was the worse, as they suddenly had no structure to their day. Taking them out merely displaced the unstructured day to the following day.
I once paid for an expensive ‘summer school’ (daily, not boarding). Yes, they had fun, but frankly, the cost was expensive, and I only did this once, and will admit this is something many other parents could not afford.
In the end I did what most parents do – struggled and had different arrangements where I could.

Its not just reading and maths. Children go to music camps where they learn an instrument which boosts their maths incidentally, or a drama camp which brings all that english to life, or they get all the 'cultural capital' by going to museums and castles that are an expensive train fair away.

music camps??? really? where do people live?

@ShiftHappens I’m in Ireland and in my city we have
Science camps
Music camps
Sports camp (tasters of football, dodgeball etc etc)
Swim camps
Cul camp (Irish sports)
Art camps
And some country schools do camps (again sports, crafts etc)
Mine even went to the beach for a morning with their camp.

I live in surrey. Amongst the haves. The wealthy children dont go to the free church group whilst their parents do well paid work. They go to places like rockademy or rocksteady music school for a few weeks, or stagecoach. Not all summer. Their parents get more than statutory annual leave so they go on holiday.