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.

But the cost is living actually is higher in Ireland which is why minimum wage is higher.
Collective wage agreements in Norway mean the lowest pay is approx £20 per hour- but look how expensive it is to live there.

I think the summer holidays were brought in so the farming communities could have help harvesting the crops or somesuch. Been a while since kids all did that!

Virtually all countries have long (longer than us) summer holidays though-are harvests the reason for this long holiday globally?

@BelleSausage fair enough - and perhaps this is the key, that the solutions are in fact inter dependent.

Yes to banning zero contract, raising the minimum wage, to getting businesses to support thier workers - but to have this conversation with business how do we negotiate with 6 week periods of continuous holiday required?

As set out in my original post, summer holiday inequality stretches to the job you have. For those on lower income jobs negotiating time off gets harder. Far easier if you are the boss, or the owner or self employed or the senior partner, or can afford for 1 person to stay home.

And @fedup21 something does need to change.

Holiday hunger has peaked, there are more working families than ever in poverty, more children than ever who are experiencing real challenges. And in my opinion a change to the 6-week summer hols would be a start.

We no longer use children for the harvest.
Summer hols does not work for working or struggling families
If you have money your kids will have a great time and it all works brilliantly.

What is the function of a publicly funded education system if it does not work fairly for all?

@Passthecherrycoke technically I suppose but I don’t feel a difference between here and when I was in the UK. To be honest I feel better off here and much less stressed about money. Car insurance is the only thing that was extortionately more here but with no council tax to pay I didn’t mind.

Cutting the holidays punishes children for the fact that adults are fucking up the world.

It would be much better to address the lack of affordable childcare for families than to take away the downtime for the kids.

There are quite a few countries who have longer school years than the U.K.- China, Japan, Germany, South Korea just off the top of my head....

I used to teach overseas, and our breaks were 4 weeks at Christmas and 4 weeks in August. Everything else was the same. I loved this personally, as I got a lovely Christmas break at home which wouldn't have been doable with only 2 weeks off (it was too far to fly back for anything less than 3 weeks really...and that was pushing it! 4 was ideal...it was a 30 hour journey home and then jet-lag kicked in!). I'd love it to be the same here....two decent breaks of 4 weeks at non-exam periods in school.

And @fedup21 something does need to change.

Again, this is only your opinion.

I don’t believe the long summer school holiday will change for decades. They will not mess around with teacher contracts in this current climate.

Spreading out the holidays doesn't change the need for poorer families to access cheap/free childcare.

There are problems with the long holiday, but there are also some benefits. It really is good for children to get outside, particularly over the summer.

Also, essential maintenance takes place to the school over the long break and it can't easily be fitted in at other times. Schools are too crowded to just shut off a few classrooms to work on them, and it's not safe for children to be around the chemicals used for cleaning and any building work.

But yes - just about everything about public institutions help to increase inequality, and it's not totally accidental. The Victorians stated that they wanted the workforce educated enough for employment and to know their place in the economy. Making life difficult for the poor is pretty much the raison d'etre of the Conservatives.

I can't understand why moving the holidays from summer to spring or autumn is any better. Regardless of when, working parents still have to get time off. The reality is, working parents have about 5 weeks A/L and have to find holiday cover for 13. For us summer is easier to cover a there are more groups/ clubs available then. There are also more events on over the summer that relatives can do when DD goes to them. With the October week we can split half and half between relatives. With the two weeks at Easter it's much harder to cover and one of us has to set aside 5 of days off and we're competing with everyone else looking for time off then too.

But in terms of poverty, it's not a driver, it just makes it more visible.

@lyralalala - fantastic solution love this model

'One of the best things I’ve seen locally is the introduction of one school being open to provide lunch through the holidays for children entitled to a free lunch.

They increased the uptake by inviting non-fsm families to send their children. You book a week in advance. Now that the stigma of “there’s all the fsm kids going for lunch” was removed the uptake is much higher.'

Imagine this with informal learning opportunities - surely cheaper than increasing benefits?

And if course reducing summer holidays down from 6-weeks to 3

Here’s one change that could be made -

Big companies can work with the job centre and have free staff in a “boost people’s CV” scheme. There’s supposed to be a potential job at the end of the scheme, but I’ve never known anyone.

Both one of the ‘professional’ out of school care operations locally and two nurseries have had a succession of staff from this scheme. The staff member stays either three or six months and then they move on to the next person.

We had a Mum who helped out voluntarily one day a week who then had to sign on when her husband left. She was sent on said scheme and asked if she could come to us to do the hours. Same hours. Same work. Same regulations etc. The answer was no, because you can only do that scheme for proper businesses. So she was providing free labour for a company charging a fortune to parents in return for her £73 a week.

Currently one of the childcare places has three people on this scheme. They are charging £56 a day for places and three of their staff are being provided by the taxpayer basically.

YABU, children need the time to be children.

Reading, drawing/colouring in, playing with friends, sleeping in and watching tv are all activities that don't cost money.

As pp's have said, the biggest problem now is that children seem unable to amuse themselves and expect to be continuously entertained and stimulated, preferably with expensive activities.

I spent the summer watching tv, reading, sleeping late, doing homework, drawing, playing in the local farmers field, looking after my cat and dog, and spending time with friends who lived locally.

We didn't do anything that cost money because my parents both worked (mum 5am until around 1pm only) and didn't have any money to spare.
If we were lucky, I was given 20p on a Friday to spend on sweets at the local shop.

It never did me any harm, and my 2 best friends were from more wealthy families and would be off skiing, horse riding, etc, but that's life.

We're not all equal, and never will be, and so our lives also aren't; it's just something you have to learn to deal with.

It certainly isn't a good idea to bring everyone down to the worst level, and it shouldn't be for the state to provide everything for free/subsidised, I already think we live in too much of a nanny state.

Schools are there to provide education, not childcare, that's just a lucky bonus for the time they're in school.

I think childcare is a slight distraction- the poorest families won’t use paid childcare, either leaving their children alone each day or maybe with an older sibling.

Imagine this with informal learning opportunities - surely cheaper than increasing benefits?

And if course reducing summer holidays down from 6-weeks to 3

Well that depends if you are prepared to put the investments into mental health that will be needed down the line.

There’s already evidence that mental health issues increase as opportunities for play, free play especially, decrease for children so by slashing their holidays you’d be increasing the chances of that.

Also, given how exhausted teachers and school staff already are you’d have to take into account the fact they’d be getting a lesser quality education as well.

Children don’t need to be learning constantly. In fact, what children actually need to be learning more than anything at the moment is how to be children.

Also the comment about increasing benefits is an interesting one as it assumes that the children who need these interventions most are the ones from families on benefits.

However that’s not necessarily the case in the summer holidays. The families that struggle the most are poor working families.

Where one, or both, parents don’t work the childcare issue doesn’t exist. Where both work the hunger poverty comes from trying to juggle working less with paying out for more childcare than usual.

Also families completely on benefits are more able to access schemes like schools providing lunches and the likes because many have arbitrary eligibility rules

And eating?

There are many public buildings that stay open all year round and still need maintenance @TSSDNCOP**

Know many that have several hundred under 10’s to manage simultaneously OP?

'One of the best things I’ve seen locally is the introduction of one school being open to provide lunch through the holidays for children entitled to a free lunch.

Just open for lunch or open providing learning from 8.45-3.30?

Eating is easily solved by the schemes for providing lunches for those entitled to fsm all year round.

That’s not a new thing either - my Nana talked about taking her children to school for their lunch in the holidays. She was surprised when my kids started that that didn’t happen anymore.

Just open for lunch or open providing learning from 8.45-3.30?

Just for lunch. The kids can either eat lunch in the school or take a packed lunch away with them.
They also open for an hour in the morning to allow people to collect packed lunches.

It’s a scheme to provide lunch. Not childcare (or learning since it’s the holidays).

lyralalala

Good points, I can see I was wrong in how I thought about it.

Maybe make summer childcare something that is taken in to account for taxes and deducted from overall income calculated for HMRC? I don't know, but I think eliminating holiday is far too difficult for children and families already spend little time together (plus get in heaps of trouble if they take a holiday during term time), I just don't think it's a realistic request.

Just open for lunch or open providing learning from 8.45-3.30?Just for lunch. The kids can either eat lunch in the school or take a packed lunch away with them.
They also open for an hour in the morning to allow people to collect packed lunches.

I see-great idea

And if course reducing summer holidays down from 6-weeks to 3 grin

Not really this at all, then.

People are trying to offer help and what do posters do? Make excuses.
I don't have a garden neither do any of my friends or relatives. There is not one classmate who has access to any shred of grass. There is no grass at all what so ever at all, remotely within a 4 mile stretch of where we live. None.
There are no other kids, at all, with whom my dc could play.
Well there are buying don't want to encourage my dc socialising with others now do I.
There is nowhere what so ever to walk. In fact where I live walking is banned.
So are bikes, it is illegal to go on a bike ride. Or a bus for that matter. No child ever should travel in school holidays in a bus, it might encourage bus attacks or something.
Inviting anyone else's child over to play is wrong , totally wrong. Hell, it might make my child have a more enjoyable school holiday but sod that! It's too much hard work for poor old me.
Water is banned too. So is making a drink for anyone else or a bite to eat, it might encourage friendliness! It might even set a good example for my children and those around them.
There are no keys clubs here either, at all. No dance clubs,no nothing.
We don't have any animals here either, no no animals to ever see if care for, or take for a walk. Did I say walk? Walking is banned here.
Hang on no, i'd rather moan about how hard parenting my own child is.I'll
Then pass on my awesome parenting skills to my own children, who in turn will reject any sensible solutions to actually parenting their own dc and of course will have dc whether or not they want to be a parent.

I'm done now.
I love the summer holidays.

I think it’s more important to ensure that all children have the best quality of life available to them. Ensuring that they have adequate time off school is a part of that. School holidays are for kids not parents. If you don’t want to struggle like that then just don’t have children.