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.

100% we love the summer in our house but it takes at least a week to get into it and then after two weeks you feel like your prepping to go back. Parents need to stop seeing schools as childcare.

I have family in America and they head to Italy for a month every year and immerse themselves in the culture. I have family in Italy and they will head off on a family holiday and the children will be off in a camp in the mountains learning the stuff they don’t teach in schools. We need more of that, and parents not expecting schools to teach their kids everything.

I can’t read all the posts but other countries don’t have kids at home all holiday when they are 13 weeks long. Someone commented that in portugal the camps are £50 a week - my kids haven’t done really serious school work for quite a few weeks now (its been trips, sports day, end of term fun etc), so whats the point in making the Summer holidays longer, giving hard working parents even more childcare pressure, just to replace school with Summer camps?

As someone with multiple young children in the street screaming from morning til evening .. no.. no they shouldn’t 😂

We have 9 weeks in Northern Ireland. 😊
works well for us as i’m a teacher although i do not get the full 9weeks off

I get 20 days ...plus bank hols

I agree with. 6 weeks isn't a lot of time, plus it is usually very hot abroad, to hot for fun in the sun.

Here you go from the court verdict:

I'd like workers holidays to be longer! Inevitably the lowest paid also get the lowest holiday entitlement. Most NMW pay bare minimum in 'perks' and actually act as if you should be grovelling in gratitude
If workers and schools were more closely aligned there would be less issue over childcare. Two NMW parents would still struggle to cover holidays let alone be able to take them at the same time.

My son's school (academy) has an extra 3 weeks holiday a year, 2 are added to summer so 8 weeks and 1 in October. This is achieved by a longer school day meaning over the year they have the same amount of classroom time as any other school.
I must admit we have absolutely taken advantage of this when it comes to family holidays, saving quite a bit by going in July before others break up, or late August so it runs into September when others have gone back. We also usually manage a fairly cheap UK break in October by going in the extra week rather than main half term week.

So actually no, totally disagree, absolutely do not roll this out to everyone 🤣

Honestly, I think some of the commentators are on a wind up tonight (telling people just to swan off abroad for a month…)

Most Parents get 28 days annual leave days a year. There are 13 weeks of school holidays.

Parents usually work as part of a team so its not just a case of taking all annual leave exactly when you want (we work ours out as part of the team im in to be fair to everyone, to make sure everyone gets time with their families).

Holiday clubs cost anything from £20 a day (cheap) to £45 a day in our area per child.

Many people dont live near their families in 2025 - you move for uni, work, house prices, your job etc, so dont live up the road from family for free childcare.

80% of Mums work - we dont have all Summer off like alot of us can remember from decades gone by. The pension age is rising (most likely to 70 soon) so those in their 30’s/40’s now are most likely working until late 60’s at least and won’t be free all Summer to help with childcare in the future.

We dont need longer Summer holidays - as much as I love the holidays and enjoy every second with my kids, 6 weeks is more than enough. I’ve never met anyone in ‘real life’ asking for more than that and most children are excited to go back in September and like the routine/seeing friends etc.

What we can look at is how they are divided up through the year - would a longer October half-term be better to break up a long Autumn slog for kids and teachers? Would it reduce bugs in the classroom to have a good break and also help with everyones mental health? It’s time it was looked at and everyones views taken into account, but I dont know anyone asking for a longer Summer.

I like many others would prefer a four week summer holiday season and two weeks at October and May half terms.

I really think that the four week summer holiday would be staggered by local authority boundary’s to reduce the pressure and cost of school holiday holidays! I really want to take my kids to Egypt, but it’s impossible to do this in summer as it’s 45c, and unbearably hot! With flights departing from my local airport it would only be possible to book a five day trip to fit it into half term holidays, which isn’t long enough to make it worthwhile.
Likewise Athens is well into the 40c in the summer holidays.

I also think that there is a child welfare issue with such a long summer holiday, children in difficult family circumstances shouldn’t be unsupervised for six weeks.

If you think teachers get too much holiday, try doing it - especially the autumn term!

This is what Wales tried to implement until the bloody teachers union poo-pooed it. Would have been so much better with 8 on 2 off! 6 weeks is a long time to manage for annual leave/holidays clubs etc for working parents.

They’re good as they are. I think a month is more than enough.

I grew up with 10 weeks and hated it. Then going back to school, teachers spent about a month trying to bring us back to speed because most had forgotten what they learned months before.

That's quite clearly a ridiculous statement.

In North Africa due to the weather the kids are off 1st June to 10th Sept when it starts to cool down. They hsve 2 weeks in Dec and then 2 weeks spring. They have 1 week for Eid al Fitr and 1 week for Eid Al Adha.
They manage it by having longer school days. The kids are bright and fluent in Arabic both local and internationally, French and now some are proficient in English. They split the days up e.g Am Arabic, PM French and all the leasons are taught in that language. So when they graduate they are fluent sometimes in 3 - 5 Languages. I don't know how they do it. The curriculum is much much harder in the UK.

The issue is that parents are the cause for allowing children to sit indoors with devices being lazy bums. I never got bored eith summer holidays. All my mates from school were on the same estate and we would be out for hours biking, at the park, roller blading, climbing trees, scooter and going over each others house playing football and everything. I didn't do expensive hobbies everything I did was free. Using our imagination and being kids. Swimming was a must in the summer and our parents used to work full time. Weekends they would takenus local places, nature reserves and picnics and the larger parks. But in the week we hung out with cousins, older siblings, friends etc.

It still allows you to get cheaper holidays than many poor people who send their children to state. You have over reacted btw. Most who I know who went private were wealthy.

Totally agree 👏🏻 4 or 5 weeks is more than enough in the Summer for most children and would massively help those where home isn’t the safe/loving place our children live in.

etc.i have 2 family members who are teachers primary and secondary. They take 2 weeks and then started prepping for the following school year! And half terms they work and only take 2 or 3 days off. They have the same A/L as everyone else maybe even less. And after school mybfamiky stay and work until 6-8pm and take work books home etc. They deserve proper protected time off work term time and non term time.

My cousin left her position recently as the head of department would call her after work and ask her to do extra things and even on her weekends.

Only because our kids have longer school days including Saturdays. If you want longer state holidays then petition Labour to lengthen school day to 5pm + Saturdays. Easy!
Really not over reacting FYI, sick to death of the bigoted narrative around independent schools. Some parents are wealthy, others aren't. Just like state sector where millionaires send their children.

I would hope that those petitioning for a 4 week summer holidays would also petition for air con in schools because adding even more time in classrooms when it is hot is extremely pointless in educational terms.

Well it's not really is it. The temperature rarely goes over 30 in the UK and it's often just as hot in May and June as it is in August. 2020 was a hot summer and there was hundreds of people working from their homes and gardens, very few with aircon, and we all survived.

Don’t send your kids to private school if it disagrees with your lifestyle so much.

'survived' versus 'actually learns something'.

Ours have been out doing sports, days out, picnics in the last 4 weeks. Neither of my kids have complained about the classrooms being too hot. They adjusted the uniform at our secondary school too when the recent heatwaves were announced.

As a society, air con is going to become more widely used if the Summer’s get hotter (colleagues have been talking about getting it for their homes). So yes society is changing but the answer isnt just lets make the holidays longer. That doesn’t fit in anyway with life in 2025.