Restructuring the school year

[AntiSocialDistancer]

inews.co.uk/news/education/education-catch-up-shorter-school-summer-holiday-ofsted-1005616/amp

A five term school year? With 2 week breaks and 4 weeks off at summer?

What do you think? With the understanding every school, pre-school etc falls into line.

Yanbu - let's change
Yabu - stay the same

I could take one week off the summer and split the autumn term into 3 short terms with two seperate half term breaks. One in early October would be more usable than the current Halloween. The weather and daylight are better in the UK and for off-peak travel, it's not the final week of the season as Europe runs out of mild weather. Then a mid-November week to stop children getting too run-down before winter hits and the crazy (but fun) push before Christmas.

Leave the rest alone.

"Allow" families an authorised week off like they used to years ago (yR to y9)

There are 4 LAs within 30 mins of me. At least 6 within 45 mins. Different term dates is a bloody PITA for families. One of our immediate LAs tried a fixed Easter for a few years but it was a mess. There were staff changing jobs that lost the Easter holidays entirely and one year there was a week of overlapping term between the dates of LA1 and LA2. As a supply teacher it was very disruptive spending much of the spring on 50% opportunity to work and having to turn down work opportunities to carve out some leave as there wasn't the usual clear time off.

@Pippinlily

I’d be in favour of this change. 4 week summer holiday sounds much better & more manageable for taking holiday from work. Longer holidays then in other parts of the year would be more beneficial for the kids & families too.

I think for most parents it will be worse. There are still the same number of holidays across the year but at work you are all scrabbling for the same four weeks over the summer.

It would perhaps work better for kids in specialist settings. We really struggle with stuff to do over the 6 weeks with my ds and don’t have the option of putting him in a regular play scheme. There are specialist schemes available but they cost an absolute fortune, someone I know pays £150 a day for one child

I used to get 10-12 weeks summer holiday, 2 weeks at Christmas, one month approx between a March local holiday and Easter, plus at least 2 bank holidays each month on top (not UK). I dream of salaries being half-decent for my job back in my home country, I’d love my kids to experience that. Almost 3 months off at summer was a real holiday!

@TSBelliot

Men, who have pretty all much been privately educated, want to reduced state school holidays while the private sector has always enjoyed much longer breaks. Having benefitted from their better education they continue to push the idea that state teachers need more time rather than more resources.

Quite. If long summer holidays are so damaging to children’s learning, why isn’t anyone suggesting that private schools have shorter school holidays to address this? It’s a mystery 🙄

As @MasterGland says, the independents would put a spanner in this.

I doubt the government would have the will to push this through, especially for boarding schools. (And there are state boarding schools that would also struggle with this).

It goes against the idea that you have choice in education. I’m not saying that is right or wrong, but some parents cite the longer summer holidays that you get in the private sector as a reason for choosing it.

I can see indies opting out and then they can have their pick of the teachers who are not ideologically opposed to private education.

But I agree with PP that this is not the answer. Targeted investment is needed, as is bringing class sizes down, and effective positive behaviour management for disruptive pupils.

You can’t starve education of funding, then decide that problems will be solved by just switching the timetable around.

I’ve enjoyed the long summer holidays with DS, I would hate to have lost them (he’s yr11 now, so not as applicable to us any more). DH and I both teach, so for 6 weeks we can all spent time with each other: focused on DS rather than work (allowing for the days DH has to go into school to help with GCSE and A’Level results).

Yes, it would make both of us reconsider our careers if they were lost- we plan to use the time over the next few years to travel, child-free. If we can’t do that, perhaps we think about doing something else.

Suggestions:
put money into schools so that class sizes are 24-25 ( I have 32, so do many of my colleagues), fund equipment properly- why are school constantly scrabbling around with wish lists for books and fund-raising drives for sports equipment?
Provide subsidised summer camps offering high-quality opportunities in sport, life skills and the arts. And I do mean subsidised- £50 a week would be hugely out of reach to many, you won’t reach those children most in need.
Offer something worthwhile to teens- NCS and DoE offer these, but I’m not sure that they are widely accessed in many areas and it would vary according to whether or not the school promotes it.

"Allow" families an authorised week off like they used to years ago (yR to y9)

All staff in schools as well?

Id like a radical overhaul based on evidence of how children learn best and then state subsidised good quality childcare for all the other bits. I think a lot of reform ideas are based on childcare needs and jeeping school budgets low - not learning

The article appears to lack any kind of balance. They honestly could not find one person to argue against it? Or did the journalist lack the imagination to put forward a differing perspective?

I would not be in favour for a variety of practical and personal reasons but mainly because, as many PP have said, there isn't any evidence to say that "long" 6 week holidays are the issue. It is just a smokescreen.

Don't think they could push this through in time to make up for any learning loss during the pandemic, as this year's summer holidays are only a couple of months away.

I think for all the money it would cost to open schools for more days, they may as well resource them better.

The more skeptical part of my mind thinks that this idea is nothing to do with learning loss (or they would be suggesting this to independent schools too), but more to do with looking at schools as a form of childcare (which they're not), so parents can work.

I don't think it'll come into fruition, because of all the work and disruption it would take to do it.

@TSBelliot

Men, who have pretty all much been privately educated, want to reduced state school holidays while the private sector has always enjoyed much longer breaks. Having benefitted from their better education they continue to push the idea that state teachers need more time rather than more resources.

Totally agree!

That wouldn’t work in this country as we have 6 months to pretty awful weather - you’d end up with 2 of the holiday periods falling at a time when the weather is dire - then the kids would be bored.

Summer holidays would also be astronomical and the tourist industry in places like Cornwall, which reply on tourism for a lot of their income, would be hard hit.

I think the current situation works fine. You just need to ensure that children are reading during the summer break.

Where was that? We always had 6 weeks, and called it the 6 week holiday.

Quote fail. That was in response to the person who said they only used to get 5 weeks.

@MyOtherProfile

Quote fail. That was in response to the person who said they only used to get 5 weeks.

Me??

A lot of schools in my area now do 5 weeks in the summer and 2 in October and have been for several years now. I'm in England.

I think it would be much better for us personally. But I like going on holiday in May and October. I also think the 6wks is too long and impractical for a lot of working parents.

Interesting. I don't know any schools that do that.

It wasn't you though - it was someone referring to when they were at school.

I would like the summer holidays to stay the same, they are already shorter than most of Europe/USA.

We both work but I think DC need the long break from formal education...heavily subsidised fun summer day camps would be the way to go imo. Children would gain just as much.

I think it would be a good idea if the holidays were also staggered, so some schools have their mid summer starting mid June right through to ending mid-September.

It would be hard for couples who are both teachers but massively good for other working parents and the economy as a whole.

No this only suits families who can afford to go abroad so having shorter time in summer not as much as an issue. For those who holiday in UK not only will it push prices through the roof it means you are then stuck with yet more time in winter months with nothing to do.

Six weeks never seems enough when you want to go on holiday, travel to visit family let the kids choose activities to do.

I can only see advantages for better off families.

They've just decided to do this in part of Belgium, but the difference is they are going from a 9 week summer to 7 weeks and making the autumn and spring half terms two weeks instead of one (with two weeks at christmas and easter as well).

@RestingPandaFace

I think it would be a good idea if the holidays were also staggered, so some schools have their mid summer starting mid June right through to ending mid-September.

It would be hard for couples who are both teachers but massively good for other working parents and the economy as a whole.

Surely that would be a huge headache families who have children in different schools?

So have the kids off for an extra week in February and Oct/Nov instead of over the summer? Sounds like an awful idea.

@RestingPandaFace

I think it would be a good idea if the holidays were also staggered, so some schools have their mid summer starting mid June right through to ending mid-September.

It would be hard for couples who are both teachers but massively good for other working parents and the economy as a whole.

DH and I are both teachers and have two children - we theoretically may never have a holiday together. All fine but I may also have to take a month off from school to provide childcare for my children. Guess I could use holiday clubs but then I have never had to factor this into my outgoings. These kinds of decisions may well end up pushing experienced teachers like DH and myself out of education. Maybe it’s a ploy to just have NQTs and very going staff who can be paid over 10K less than us.