time for England to re-jig their school year?

[KnittingNeedles]

As someone who grew up in Scotland and who has kids at school in Scotland, July is holiday month and always has been. Kids at school until around 20th July always seems insanely late to me.

Statistically, July is the hottest month in the UK and with climate change upon us, temperatures are going to get more extreme. Most Scottish schools finish the last week in June, returning around 15th August. England/Wales keeps their kids in school 3-4 weeks later and then they stay off into September.

Time for a total shake-up of the school year to account for climate change? The school year was originally based around the farming year as far as I know, and as that's not really an issue any more, should they be adopting a more Scottish/N Irish approach to shifting the holidays?

(Actually, I hope they don't because we take advantage of that beginning of July period to travel to England and enjoy the weather/visitor attractions when the kids are all still in school, and enjoy the cheaper prices too).

I think buildings, outdoor environments, and traditions being adapted are better priorities for re-jigging than shifting the school year. I know uniform tweaking has happened a lot around me, dropping the ties and blazers or okaying just using PE kid, though personally I think the white business shirts that become more transparent as someone sweats are the most ridiculous part of so many school uniforms.

I went to a 'year round' school when I was small, outside of the UK with far more weather extremes, so in for most of July and August when it was hottest, and then had a short break in September (parents loved this for cheaper trips). School, rules, and activities set up accordingly - like sports days were in the spring term, not summer.

I don't think the government is going to give schools the resources to do this, I know a few desperate to put up more shaded areas, but the cost just don't add up, but habit adapting seems to be slowly happening.

The school year was originally based around the farming year as far as I know

Popular myth, but no. When schooling was optional and kids would come and go as their parents pleased, summer was often a quiet time in the cities as many - particularly the wealthy - left. When schooling became mandatory and there was debates around it, that became a natural time for a long break for the wealthier areas and the other areas, who had other patterns, were brought into that.

That's also why Parliament and similar with 'breaks' are as they are. It's never had anything to do with farmers who just somehow got thrown under the bus over it. As pp said, farming is a year round thing, and July/August aren't really a time when it's so much busier than others times in many types of farming.

It doesn’t suit all children to have a long summer break, a lot of learning is lost and disadvantaged families have problems of feeding their children and finding childcare. Those children would benefit from schools being open in the summer

Many people like their children having a long summer break. Far better to invest in affordable childcare over the summer (NOT in schools) than year-round schooling for all. I would still want mine to have 13+ weeks off a year as a child.

we have 183 set days for primary and 167 for secondary school.

For my sons primary it worked
out roughly as:
back very late August
one week off October
two weeks off for Christmas
two days off in Feb (some schools take a week but then finish later for summer)
Paddy’s Day one or two days depending on when it falls
two weeks easter
May bank holiday
June Bank Holiday
His school would usually be finished by 24th/25th June.
So my son has 9 weeks off in summer. By start of June they literally do nothing in school. When he starts secondary he will have 13 weeks off in the summer.

For secondary school it’s similar apart from February where they take a full week off and they finish at the end of May.
If your doing the state exams you don’t finish in May. You do the exams in June and your done once your exams are done.

All learning is scaffolded and entwined though, you seem to be of the opinion lessons are all stand alone and can be simply 'repeated'. It would absolutely categorically not work. Also, when do you suggest the year ends?

Also, it would not work for teachers at all, holidays are the only perk of the job. If I didn't have the holidays I would change careers. I guess I wouldn't be alone either.

@BellaCiao1 many teachers say they end up working for much of the holidays anyway. Maybe with better planning they might have BETTER work-life balance if they actually had a proper break even if it means working more days overall.

But fair play, you’ve all convinced me it’s a bad idea 😂

The only thing is the planning would increase tenfold. If the days are ad-hoc then that makes life very, very difficult. Pr do the parents have to book in the holidays they are taking off at the beginning of the year?

I know you are coming from a good place but honestly, a child trying to catch up after being off sick a week is already a nightmare - never mind random days here and there by all pupils!

Why not slightly longer school days & longer holidays? Schools finish at 2.30ish in my area why not 3.30 & free up more days holiday?

2.30 is early-what time do they start? We have a local school finish at 2.05 but they start at 7.55.

I would happily go to 3.30 and get longer holidays-we finish at 3.20 already though. The problem with messing with finishing times is that schools have finely tuned set ups coordinated with other local schools and bus companies-if all of them kicked out at 3.30, that would have a knock-on effect.

I don’t know why some schools finish so early in the day, has the number of teaching hours been reduced since the 80s? I went to a few different secondaries, we finished around 3.30-3.40. One school finished at 3.55pm! This was a state school in Dorset.

Agree. August is always wet, especially the last two weeks.

The reason we have it off is historical, to keep kids off when they are needed to help with harvests. Given that most of us aren't farmers any more I'd be very keen to have the long break in june/july.

I think it’s more thats they have cut the length of the lunchbreak. My primary had an hour and twenty minutes for lunch in the 80s, many schools now only have 40 minutes.

I think it’s more thats they have cut the length of the lunchbreak. My primary had an hour and twenty minutes for lunch in the 80s, many schools now only have 40 minutes.

Yes I think you're right @howshouldibehave.. I was at primary in the 70s and we were in 9am - 3.50pm with 70 minutes for lunch. In those days lots of us went home for lunch as there were a lot of SAHMs.

Our primary finishes at 3.20 (12.30 finish of Friday) with 45 mins for lunch and nobody goes home at lunchtime

There are some directly opposing posts on this thread around the history of the long Summer school hols so thought this BBC article was interesting.

Logically it must have come about for some reason. Whether it was for the benefit of poorer families whose children helped with work or for the benefit of wealthier families who enjoyed long Summer holidays, either way it doesn't reflect society today.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49420316

Logically it must have come about for some reason. Whether it was for the benefit of poorer families whose children helped with work or for the benefit of wealthier families who enjoyed long Summer holidays, either way it doesn't reflect society today.

Hmmm, I would imagine wealthier families will still want to enjoy their longer summer holidays. My nephew is at private school and they always fly off on holiday early/mid July-they wouldn’t want to change that.

I would hate to see state schools have short met summer holidays with fines for term-time holidays, with private schools continuing to have 15/16 weeks off a year. We don’t need a two tier system, we need affordable childcare options but NOT taking place in schools.

Shortened summer holidays, that should read!

I can imagine returning to school in mid-August in England would be opposed.

I really think shortened summer holidays would be a nightmare for business, to allow people time off when kids are off.

It would make holiday prices even higher as peak season shortens.

France have a good system for February holidays. Each area has a different week. Which in turn lengthens their peek ski season to the cover the whole of February.

It's crazy that UK holidays are all on the same weeks.

@Dinoteeth UK do not all get the same February week.
The parts of Scotland that get a full week it is usually the week before England

It depends sometimes Scotland is the same as England sometimes we aren't. And not all Scotland gets a full week. Lots of areas is 2 days and an in-service day.

But Scotland is barely a tenth of the UK population. However the holiday prices sky rocket the week that England is off. It would be better if they staggered the school holidays.