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.

the solution is tax the rich and fund the poor.

We already do, the top few percent of earners already pay the lion's share of the tax take.

If you go too far, the top earners will take evasive action, including moving abroad. Why do you think there are so many tax havens in the World??

The James Herriott author's biography was illuminating, saying how nearly all the UK's popular authors left the country in the 70s due to the eye-wateringly high taxes they faced. So instead of the UK receiving a fair amount of tax from them, the UK received nothing!

The 50% tax rate reduced the amount of tax from the richest - when it was reduced to 45%, the tax take from them increased!

Look at the current situation with GPs - they are taxed at 62% on earnings between £100-£125k so they're working fewer hours to avoid that tax rate. Same with their pensions they're refusing extra shifts as they have punitive tax charges if their pension fund breaches the lifetime limits. Those were two initiatives to "tax the rich" which have backfired badly - not just reducing overall tax take instead of increasing it, but also worsening the shortage of GPs!!

Op, 3 weeks is ridiculous. People talk about those that can afford the holidays being selfish but it’s also selfish to suggest what you are. The education system does provide equally. It is not there to assist outside of school. But some do. I absolutely do not agree that a country should develop its educational system based on those in poverty. Yes help them of course but not to the detriment of everyone else. It’s ludicrous that you think it’s ok to lower everyone else’s standard of life to help one population. There will always be inequality, reducing holidays won’t change this but merely make life worse for many others. You are being very small minded op.

@Teaandcrisps

You’ve still not said how you think an urgent problem, as you keep calling it, can be solved quickly with a revamp of the education system that will take years?

What do you suggest in the meantime?

And since you acknowledged previously that the main issue is that two parents working don’t earn enough to live, but said that issue would take too long to sort surely the time, effort and money that it would cost to sort the former would be better used to sort the latter? You’ll need interim measures to deal with the urgent situation anyway so why not use them to address the actual core of the issue - big businesses not paying staff a wage they can live on.

How is having 3 extra weeks off being funded by public services? Quite the opposite. And actually, op, I think it would significantly damage the UK economy having 3 weeks less in the Summer, where spend would be significantly reduced as a consequence affecting holiday companies internationally as well as uk tourism. Poverty needs to be tackled but not as you are suggesting op. You have not thought through your proposal enough.

Tourism now...beggars belief

Not really op. You are missing the bigger picture and financial impact. You are pretty clueless really. Your heart is in the right place but your suggestions are not.

My DH works in a school and it's during the summer holidays that all the maintenance and upgrades are done. This summer they installed 400 computers. When is all the work like redecorating and updating classrooms going to be done if the holidays are significantly reduced?

I know my sister's school where she is the headteacher is having 3 weeks at Christmas this coming year. This has been welcomed by parents

4m children currently live in poverty. Why should things not change

Very few posters seem to have a clue or empathy of what this kind of extreme poverty is like

I think you need to be more precise. Poverty is defined by ONS as households with less than 60% of median income. By the nature of the measure there will always be households in this bracket. It does not mean they are all relying on food banks to live

4m children currently live in poverty. Why should things not change?

They should. But altering the structure of the academic year and making teachers' lives even more impossible is not going to do one tiny thing to change unacceptable levels of poverty in the UK. (Although ousting BoZo at the likely snap general election might).

It's like stating Britain has a worrying level of alcohol abuse and therefore moving Christmas to May. IT would achieve doodly-squat, and might even exacerbate the situation. Take, for example, the scenario that many decent teachers will do a bunk and leave the UK even more educationally impoverished than it is now. What then? It's likely that anyone who can reasonably afford it will make sacrifices to send their children to private school, those who can't will be left with a substandard state education system, and the result will be a two-tier system with a divide that will significantly increase.

Hardly going to be to anyone's benefit, is it?

Very few posters seem to have a clue or empathy of what this kind of extreme poverty is like

Again with assuming you have a clue what people have experience of...

4m children currently live in poverty. Why should things not change

By the way it's calculated, if you doubled everyone's income, there'd still be 4m in poverty!

I'm a Ta and feel very fortunate to have the 6 weeks off with my ds and would actually like the summer holidays to be longer! Having said that, from now until the October half term break it's 8 long weeks which is exhausting for pupils and staff alike, so I would be willing to have an extra week there and a week less in summer. This isn't a criticism just an observation, but most parents work nowadays whereas years ago, parents didn't work so as a result didn't struggle with childcare. That's not an easy problem to solve though so i guess more childcare in the holidays is needed for those who work.

Not this again. Then come fines for term time absence saying we're have enough time off school anyway
Poverty is a completely issue to address.

Tourism now...beggars belief

What sort of field do you think us poorer parents actually work in ?

Cutting the school holidays will not solve poverty. Responding to teachers who say they would quit by saying 'My job is hard too, and it's made harder by having to take leave in the summer' is pointless and irrelevant. Proper qualified teachers are already quitting in their droves. You can't shame them into staying by comparing your job with theirs. Schools can barely afford to stay open 5 days a week during term time as it is. Losing teachers and forcing schools to open longer is not going to improve things for parents or kids.

All these people saying they did free activities as a child during the summer holidays. I assume you had a parent at home with you during that time. Or were you old enough to say at home by yourself whilst your parent/s worked?

Well both goodeyes. It was the 1970s - old enough was 9.

Increasing and collecting corporate taxes would be a good start. Particularly as those companies threatening to move elsewhere should be asked just where they plan to go - what with the UK's corporation tax being the lowest in the developed world. And re-nationalising as much of the infrastructure as possible would also help: privatisation has been another way of asset-stripping the country to increase the wealth of a few.

No one did "activities".

You lay on the floor watching Robinson Crusoe and Daktari in the morning, read a book/comic/met with friends in the afternoon. Extraordinary fortune would constitute a 99 from a van , otherwise it was a choc ice from the freezer.

Parents did not entertain their dcs. There was the occasional day out or picnic etc, and maybe a week or two's holiday (in the UK) but certainly not a constant stream of "fun".

And I'm proud to say that the tradition has continued and atm ds is slumped in front of Netflix and dd is reading a book. This morning we looked round an old church and had doughnuts in the graveyard. Top fun!

Activities does seem to be a trademarked event, deemed as necessary at all times. I think much more so in middle class circles. This summer on the class whatsapp group there were some children scheduled into 3 'activities' a day. I got tired just reading about them. This wasn't for childcare purposes either (which would have been understandable)

I grew up in 70s and 80s and we holidayed in uk but I remember spending most of the time at my grandmas building tents in the garden out of blankets with my siblings and cousins. There was a 16 year old baby sitter too at one point who I argued with as a 10 year old thinking I was old enough on my own. I loved the long summers. All kids deserve those memories, whatever they are nowadays.

Well both goodeyes. It was the 1970s - old enough was 9.

I'm younger, but yes. And if we dared to complain about being bored, parents would find us chores to do.

I think the reason some do activities is for the parents sake as they get bored and feel guilty otherwise. My DH is like this and tries to suggest we do activities sometimes. I know it is because he feels like that is what we should be doing or something. We just tend to do things like mooch about in cafes or at the shops.

I think the summer holisays should be three months long as they are in Italy,but I don't think children need to be entertained all summer long. The issue of child care is really an issue of low wages, and that needs addressing.

Parenting is very different nowadays. I think generally it’s much more child-centric and most kids expect to be kept entertained. My son asks every day what we have planned and thinks it’s the worst day of his life if we just stay at home and chill out. I normally have to do something with them, like baking etc as a minimum.. My son loves playing out and my daughter loves art work at home. I do tell my son that coping with being bored is an important life skill but he doesn’t believe me. They are on holiday most of Summer but have the cheek to say they are bored for the week or so at home!! Rod for my own back there!! I think good old fashioned free stuff is still there but I guess if kids see their friends doing lots of activities they want it too. It’s a sign of the times unfortunately but again shouldn’t change the length of our summer off school.