To think 4 weeks summer is ok

[comeonlabour]

So as the title suggests, if the plans do go ahead to make summer hols 4 weeks I for one am not against it. I always think 6 weeks is way too long so 4 is more manageable

Also we will have longer half terms of 2 weeks in some cases instead of 1 so all good

Anyone else feel the same/agree with me

My DD needs the break and I love having loads of time off to do things together. It’s so much more chilled out, 6 weeks with no rushing to be somewhere in the morning!
I get 32 days holiday a year and don’t take the full 6 weeks off but holiday clubs etc fill the weeks I’m not off and DD loves going.
Why would you want two weeks off in cold, dark winter?

I hope it doesn't happen. The six weeks holiday for me as a child in the 70s was wonderful and the same for my own children when they were school age.

My whole team will be fighting over the same 4 weeks for annual leave.

i personally love the 6 week holiday. Proper time away from school, being dc. I’ve never understood the hatred of them. My cousins in USA finish in June and get so much longer. I have so many fond memories of my own summer holidays.

I would quite like the 4 weeks, I believe they're talking about adding the 2 weeks elsewhere in the year, but from a childcare point of view having to cover (pay) 4 weeks in a row would be easier!

This to be fair I would give up some of Xmas and Easter (or put the teacher training days together at the start of September) so they get 7 weeks

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/teaching-unions-wales-write-education-28557805?fbclid=IwAR00s-S5eppPSJ46Xr-omOPSvpq2DSYP5X9FVGA8QHlZN0xwxqvnUuWj_v4

I like the 6 weeks and find it flies by. We do a mix of annual leave, a family holiday, some holiday clubs and a day here and there with grandma. It takes a bit of planning but everyone enjoys it.

It might be good for parents but it probably would be terrible for teacher retention. I like long summers - which aren’t even that long.

Urgh no thanks. I'd rather have longer (like 2 months) with proper government funded childcare clubs and play schemes.

6 weeks in a very long time but there is no way I want to have to entertain the DC for 2 weeks in February and October. So I pick we stick to the current school breaks.

Perhaps op is in Wales. They are consulting on it.
I want holidays when the weather is nice. Not Christmas, February or October. May half term possibility but Easter makes it a bit tricky

We had 8 weeks in NI when I was a kid, and they still do. Children need some proper downtime, and lacking though the British summer may be, at least it's not cold, grey, and dark like February and October.
I have heard no plans for this, thankfully OP

The unions can protest all they like, the Welsh Govt will shove it through regardless. Sadly.

I wouldn’t want it but I’m not in Wales

I wouldn’t like less than 6 weeks, I’d actually like it to be longer. We had 2/3 months summer holidays where I grew up and it was a great time with friends especially as we got older. I want my kids to have those good times too.

I understand it’s a nightmare for childcare for some people though.

I am absolutely on board with this summer too long
May and October too short
Hope it does change

6 weeks is too long, too expensive and a nightmare for childcare costs

We, and Germany, have one of the shortest summer hols in Europe. As a Primary teacher, I would hate 4 weeks. The kids all need a break and you need a definite mark between changing to the next year group. Not sure people realise how much time is spent preparing for a new cohort….especially if you have to change classrooms. 4 weeks would equate to a 2.5 week break, tops.

Ours get 8 weeks off and we love it . I do work in a school so obviously an advantage.
Holidays abroad are so expensive , can you imagine everyone trying to get the same four weeks ? Overpacked and overpriced.

It’s not just a break from school though , it’s a break from activities. One of mine has training 3 days per week plus two extra activities. The other one has two . So it gives us all a much needed break and to slow down .

Our secondary schools have three months off for the summer , now that I think could do with shortening !

I like the long holidays and always have. I'd prefer to keep it that way, but my youngest is about to start sixth form and does his own thing, so it's not a big thing either way for us now.

The trouble is that taking it off the summer and adding it to other holidays without totally recalibrating the school year is the fact that the weather is almost invariably crap for all the other holiday periods except for May half
term, if you're lucky.

a schedule that gave you, say, 2-3 weeks in May/June and then 4 in mid-August/mid-Sept would make a lot more sense from a holiday and travel POV.

And equally, as someone with all my family on the other side of the world, there is only one set of holidays with more than 2 weeks as it is and when you've got 27 hours of travel time plus jet lag, 2 weeks isn't really enough. So I'd probably start taking my kids out of school during term time if the summer holidays got squeezed to the point where I couldn't take leave in the summer any more because everyone was squabbling over the same four weeks.

I agree with this and I say this as someone who has a younger child in a private nursery too that I still have to be pay for all year round, and DH and I have no family who have yet ever volunteered to help us out with childcare in school hols. But I'd still rather them have more time off when the weather is generally better and can do lots of free park trips. As we cannot afford all the expensive indoor activities some other families do when the weather is bad.

Utterly ridiculous idea. Most teachers need at least 2 weeks in their summer holiday to mop up from last year/prep for the coming year!

Sounds like a terrible idea. Can you imagine the price increases and the lack of availability of holidays if the summer break was reduced?

One school near us tried this a few years ago (primary). Everyone hated it (I worked with a lot of parents who had kids there) as they added a week onto October half term. All it meant was they were still having to find/pay for childcare and there was less to do that was free (parks etc) as the weather was rubbish.

However, from the other side. I left school in 1996, we still had study leave back then (I understand this isn’t really common now) so I finished on 9th May. I then didn’t start sixth form college until September. Having had almost 4 months off, I just didn’t want to go back and start studying and be sat in classrooms again. Didn’t help that they were very strict and you had to be in from the morning, even if you had no lessons until the afternoon.