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

I'm already guaranteed to be in work for a minimum of four weeks over summer because it's the only time to get a lot of the work done. I have one week that is guaranteed sacrosanct. All other holidays require me to be working for at least half, again because it's an absolute necessity.

Drop the break down to four weeks and I wouldn't actually get anything other than a couple of days at a time and a few days at Christmas. I can't take time off during termtime, either, due to the requirements of the role. Pretty sure you'll understand that this would be illegal.

It would also mean that far more people would then decide to take termtime holidays, as concentrating the demand into 4 weeks in summer and for two weeks at half term would result in the prices going up significantly for those periods.

There's already a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention. The long summer break is just about the only carrot left. It's the only holiday long enough to properly unwind and forget about school. An extra week in October would absolutely not make up for it. Probably seems unreasonable to non-teachers but if you don't do the job, you wouldn't understand. Teacher friends who have left the profession for other jobs thought they would miss the summer break but don't because they say they don't need it in their new jobs.

6 weeks is too long, I’d rather have 4 and an extra week in February when it’s so cold and half of them are in and out with colds anyway.

Disagree 100%

Childhood is already too short on this crappy rock.

I thought 5 in summer and 2 at Whitsuntide was nice, not sure why that changed. 6 is good too though, 4 is not long enough for teachers or pupils to decompress.

If they take weeks off in the summer when are they going to add them on? If they do it for the May/June half term then that will impact GCSE and A-level exam dates otherwise it would have to be Oct/Feb half terms when the weather is crap.
I'm glad mine is in his last year and I don't have to worry about this!

As a teacher I agree!

I feel like climate change has changed when the good weather is in the UK and I wish the school holidays would adjust too.

It feels like these days the weather in the UK is glorious in June especially but often also September - but July and August can be poor.

I would love to have 3 weeks in late May/early June half term and then 4 weeks in late August/early September.

If they end up with the two weeks being added on to half term it will still be the same amount of holiday clubs.

Im a teacher. I would be happy with 4 weeks at summer if all of the half terms that are currently one week were two weeks instead.

I would love to have 3 weeks in late May/early June half term and then 4 weeks in late August/early September

Which would require wholesale changes to GCSE and A level teaching and assessment.

I chatted about this with two teacher friends last week. One was keen to cling to the 6 weeks holiday, as that's one of the main reasons she became a teacher.

The other thinks that kids would benefit far more by making the holiday shorter, her main reasons being that loads of kids have crap holiday provision, little to no stimulation for weeks at a time, and they forget so much of what they've learned and it takes ages to get them back up to speed with their learning.

Most teachers would - I assume - be in favour of keeping their 6 week holiday period (three teachers in my family, I hear this a lot), so my friend's perspective is possibly an outlier, but her concern was for the children who don't thrive during the summer. Four weeks is long enough to decompress and rest, in her view and anything more stops being beneficial, basically.

Agree. Kids have the whole of their adult lives to hardly have any time for themselves. Let them enjoy the summers.

What, hell no! Why would you want that? If anything they should be longer!!

I think 6 weeks works in Enid Blyton land where children could run along the lane and have adventures all day with a basket full of ginger beer and be parent free. The reality is that lots of kids spend 6 weeks on screens.

I wouldn’t leave an 11 year old at home without any supervision for 8 plus hours a day.

Yes.

But there may be quite a lot of change if we move to the advanced British standard or a different baccalaureate style system anyway

Who wants a long October or Feb holiday in soggy cold Britain not everyone can afford abroad and all this would do is make summer more expensive and harder to get as all parents now competing for 4 weeks not 6

You’ve got two children with different schedules. That’s the issue.

Also a lot of holiday clubs are round out of secondaries so they’re gone too.

Good grief! We have 12 week school summer hols here in Ireland.

I guess on the plus side, we’ll be able to visit the UK and enjoy the attractions without hordes of English kids getting in the way. 😂

Nope. Lone parent with a full time job and no family childcare ever, even for a day. And my kids can't do clubs so I have to pay for nannies for them in the school holidays and for wrap around care.

I still think that 6 weeks isn't long enough. School is a terrible environment for children and they need at least one decent respite from it per year.

@spriots

*But there may be quite a lot of change if we move to the advanced British standard or a different baccalaureate style system anyway

There's not a chance you could align all the nations of the UK to a 'British' standard.

The "advanced British standard" is years off, if it ever happens.

I'd have loved this when my dc's were younger, as long as the extra holiday time was added to Xmas and Feb half term.

Hated rushing around on dark days, illness and putting them in holiday clubs in winter.

Having said that, long holidays for teens gives them the opportunity to engage in self directed projects that younger kids can’t, which is valuable for exploring what they like and want to do after secondary school.

This is bonkers. Young children especially learn more through natural play and are less suited to a school environment. My children get so frustrated with school because they have so many projects they want to do at home: ideas for drawings and crafts and things they want to make out of a cardboard box etc etc. Their imaginations and creativity are crushed by the demands at school that they do what school wants them to rather than drawing prototypes for robots and playing music and collecting random stuff from outside to make a collage with or whatever. Books they want to read, music to listen to, puzzles to do. They are early primary. It's bad enough they have to spend so much time at school as it is. The summer holidays are what make it almost bearable.