Summer holidays should be longer

[noblegiraffe]

Our kids have the shortest summer holidays in Europe, Italy have 13 weeks, even Ireland has 9.

They're under pressure so much at school they need more time to just be kids. Classrooms are so hot in the last few weeks of term that it's impossible to learn effectively anyway.

I think we should add at least an extra two weeks to the summer holidays, so break up near the start of July. This would bring us more into line with private schools too.

And with longer holidays it might help recruit and retain teachers, and reduce competition for summer annual leave slots for working parents. It could even reduce the cost of holidays as 'peak season' would be longer.

These points were met with "Then perhaps the government should do this" and "Perhaps the government should do that".

I believe @noblegiraffe is a maths teacher so should be aware than correlation == causation

And school should not be an escape from parents or home. If it is, neglect needs dealing with, not education being adapted and school staff's contracts being changed to bring up everyone's children for them.

Anyway, you asked what do other countries do. As PPs already said, way lower childcare costs, much better school holiday club provision at local levels - that is also affordable, France almost shuts down for the month of August, shorter or no half term/term breaks, longer days/more days per week etc etc. Basically, it would require a whole society shift. Which doesn't mean it wouldn't be good, but does make it unlikely. Not sure how the summer holiday knowledge slide could be overcome either.

Wow, I had no idea - 3 months is a long time to cover for childcare - how did your Mum manage in the years up to when you were 14/16?

Teaching requires a degree and at least one year of post-graduate training. If we consider that teachers are in school for 195 days and have a statutory entitlement to 28 days paid leave, they are being paid for 223 days, or 44.6 weeks.

Starting salary is £30k. (£30,000/44.6) X 52 gives a starting salary of £34,977. Which other public sector roles which require post grad qualifications are you referring to for this comparison?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that neglect is lovely and shouldn't be dealt with. My point was that a lot of the discussion is coming from a place of privilege, and as @SallyD00lally points out, when this is raised the answer seems to be to brush it aside as something that the government just needs to sort out.

If poverty and child neglect and abuse were simple I expect they would have been dealt with by now. Given their persistence, I'd suggest these are complex problems, and one thing that helps the children stuck in those situations is their access to school. No, it shouldn't be an escape - but it is. Cutting vulnerable children off from that for a longer period so kids from happier homes can get cheaper holidays abroad seems to me to be a little selfish, but what do I know?

I'd definitely vote for the same amount of holiday overall, but spread more evenly across the year. 2 week half terms, two week Christmas. It takes my kids the first week to decompress then we are back again. A week to chill, a week to do fun things, then back bright and springy.

If I ruled the world then the timings for the holidays would also have to vary across the schools so that annual leave allocation pressure would be eased a little and hopefully holiday peak times spread more widely.

I went to a British private school in Hong Kong and we had 8 weeks off in the summer - all of July and August. It was a shock to find out that kids here have to go to school in July - school is supposed to finish in June! Local schools were similar, maybe slightly shorter. I think it was as much to do with summer being super hot there.

I don’t think our summer holidays as a family were well organised - I didn’t have many friends locally. I just remember endless days stretched out reading books and enjoying the bliss of nothing to do and wondering hour to fill the days and time to myself.

I agree that these days the time would be filled with screens sadly.

I agree with this. All schools should remain open but with voluntary good quality activities in arts,sports etc with the emphasis on fun and learning skills. These should put on for a few hours each day but there also needs to be some wrap around support for working parents,These should be pad for by the government. We need to invest more in our children,

I would like the holidays to be longer but I am aware I am coming from a place of privilege. DH is a SAHD and we've got some disposable income and we live in London. So they do masses of enriching activities and exercise.

Having staggered holidays could make childcare even more difficult with children being in different schools. Next academic year I have a different Easter to my children despite us being in the same LA as the schools I teach in/they attend are academies and can set different holidays.

I have a lot of family in the US and they do basically still do this. My 11 year old niece is considered old enough to babysit her 8 year old brother over the summer and she and her friends often do so together. This is a wealthy suburb fwiw. But like most things in the US, suspect there is a lot of variation.

In the UK, I think WFH might be bringing this back. There are teens on my road who do this - and because the parents are WFH, they are around for emergencies and to help with meals etc.

@MrsMurphyIWish I didn't think about that. But I guess when mine are split between primary and secondary the secondary one can stay at home with friends (or is that wishful thinking) would hope for at least a week overlap. And particularly for you as a teacher as well so unable to choose your holidays....I concede, needs a rethink! 😊

I’m in the NW 3 DCs in school, 2 in primary are swealtering atm and the highschool one flicks between swealtering and shivering with a blazer and jumper on due to the old building they are in. As soon as they are out of school they are stripping off.

Yes, my employer (HEI, like pretty much every other HEI currently) has just made pretty much a third of staff redundant and the unions are battling a 1.4% pay rise proposal... And we're one of the few with a (albeit small) surplus this year.

There's no way in a million years they would be able to "step up" to help support longer school holidays.

I'm professional services staff and although I get substantially less annual leave than academic staff (who still only get just over half of what teachers get despite their arguably higher workloads 🤪), it's more than some people get. Despite this, DH and I still struggle to cover all of the holidays and like many, cobble together a spreadsheet, taking very little together and paying out a fortune in holiday care.

Yes, most children benefit from time out of school, but I think six weeks in the summer is plenty (and probably would be better for them for it to be spread more throughout the year - both my ND and NT child were on their knees with exhaustion at the end of the last seven week term).

We could start with social workers?

I work in the public sector and I have a degree , so I do know!

Italian here. Some few points:

• Italy historically has very long summer breaks because of the hot weather conditions and poor school infrastructure, meaning it's really too hot for children to be in school in the summer. Also, there has always been a higher than average percentage of SAMs and grandparents play a vital role in childcare.
• However, with the country quickly changing (more women in work, population aging quickly, very low birth rates) there is an increased demand/conversations on shortening the summer break as cost of childcare/summer camps is extortionate for working parents with little support.
• Three months of summer holidays is a very long time and children get a huge, huge amount of homework to do. Several books to read, full books of math exercises etc. They are expected to do them every day, to avoid forgetting what they learned the academic year before.
• They don't get many breaks during the year, typically about 7-10 days for Christmas and a long weekend for Easter, plus some random days off for a couple of other celebrations. Most schools are still open from Monday to Saturday.

I have a DS in school in England and I much prefer this system to be honest. It's great to have a break every 6 weeks during the year, and I can tell towards the end of the half term my DS really needs to pause. The six weeks of summer break are so needed, but manageable. It's just the right time to relax, have fun, have some adventures and by week 4-5 normally he's asking to go back to school and see his friends regularly.

Correct, this chart is wrong. I was in school in the Netherlands 1990-2005 ish and we had 6 weeks of summer holiday. Where I grew up this year it's 5 July to 7 August.

That said, the education hours are shorter. The UK minimum is 32.5 hours per week/ 1045 hours a year. In the Netherlands it's 880 hours for the first 4 years of primary. We had Wednesday afternoons off from 12. I think they've mostly switch to a 8:30-2pm day now. I think most kids and teachers there are generally still happy about the balance.

She got us a childminder during the school holidays/ put us into summer camp for two weeks

How does it work for families that live on a border, or is it like England/Scotland where hardly anyone goes to school across the border?

We don't have half terms though. Only a week at Easter and two weeks at Christmas.

@noblegiraffe where is that graph from? I can only find it in a Twitter post. It looks like it was produced by the Guardian but I can't find it on their website. It says the data comes from Statista, so here's one with the correct amount of weeks for the Netherlands. Data is for primary school only.

It's not about being selfish to benefit those already at an advantage, but it's not for schools to pick up the pieces in all cases. There are other professionals who ought to be jointly responsible for improving chances, who aren't also tasked with delivering and assessing the curriculum. Schools' remits are already bigger than they used to be, for less remuneration, and with less support or funding. Outsourcing parenting in the way some would have won't improve society overall.

Absolutely not. Like so many parents we have to beg borrow and steal for childcare as it is. DS went into a school run pre school so that it actually made financial sense for me to go back to work albeit part time school hours. To add to the fun if you live rurally like we do trying to find a holiday provider that takes a reception child is very difficult as they stipulate 5 and with a summer born this complicates it. Had DS gone to nursery even with free hours which he didn't get any until the term after he turned 3 (none of this from 9 months) we would be worse off monthly. Add more holiday weeks in then I like many women end up leaving the workforce again taking our ability to add to our pension and the tax pot with it.

My solution improve holiday care provision for working parents. Make more offer longer wrap around care (9-4) is useless for most parents. Also make it easier for them to offer it from the age of 3 so that school age children and their siblings can both attend the same holiday club setting and take away the OFSTED red tape to allow them to do so.

Boils my pee people saying yeh let's give the kids more holiday. Who are you expecting to pay for that? Yes if you work term time or don't work it's a nice little extra. I think people are a bit future blind in that retirement age is going up, who is going to help look after these children in the future? I'm late 30's and both my parents still work full time (late 50's early 60's) and offer help where they can. What's going to happen when retirement age moves to 70 and people don't have the same luxury of retiring in their 50's?