I’m a teacher and a parent.
Yes, children have missed out terribly but all the different suggestions coming from the government about how to help them catch up is a load of nonsense. Summer classes, 5 term years, etc. Ultimately, the unions have a firm hold on teachers pay and conditions (thank god). Teachers cannot be forced to work extra weeks, so who would be doing this extra teaching? Those who volunteer who want some extra money. Lots wouldn’t volunteer, maybe because they have children, many because they are exhausted from remote learning. Children need consistency and teaching from staff that already know them and their individual levels, in order to make progress. Instead, they would get whoever has volunteered.
As PP have said, a switch to a 5 term year will still be the same number of teaching days and hours - it is all detailed down to the last hour in teachers’ contracts. So the children wouldn’t get more teaching at all. It would just be spread differently. Would that make a difference in terms of child fatigue? Personally, I’m not convinced. And the longer holidays do allow teachers to recuperate, it’s an exhausting and relentless job. There aren’t that many perks to the job (teachers don’t even get paid for the holidays), so if you take the long breaks away, I suspect even more will be driven out early by burnout. The dropout rate in teaching is already huge.
And from a parent perspective, I far prefer the longer holidays when the weather allows me to get the children out and about every day, getting their vit D hit and just enjoying themselves outdoors. I’d be really sad if some of those weeks were shifted to months where the weather is rubbish.