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.

As much as I love that there's far less traffic on the roads during school Summer holidays, I could do without the rise in youth crime rate and anti-social behaviour in general.

Plus despite all the various schemes, some kids still go hungry during the holidays.

I wouldn't want to prolong that for them.

Where do they catch it up?
I know they don't have a May half term (some of them break up in late May!), but I think the rest of the holidays are the same, are they not?

I grew up with a single mother.. she worked.
During the school holidays in secondary school, we were just old enough to be left by ourselves.

and before then?

6 weeks is enough - i'm in Germany, the country is so big that each federal state starts and ends the summer holiday at a different time, they stagger it to lessen the effects on industry etc. (the factories that close down for summer maintenance, afaik, time it to coincide with the start or end of holiday in their state, to help the parents out)

for us? I took 2 weeks, my DH took 2 weeks and we sent the DCs to my parents for the remaining weeks. If we went on holiday together, my parents often took them for 3 weeks or a bit more. Or we paid an absolute fortune to our childminder to take them full time for a week or two.

Absent schemes for all (or most) children, with priority given to those with working and single parents (etc) longer holidays mean stress and expense for many families.

I don't know about the rest of Europe but in southern Italy (where all DH's family are) the cost of living is much cheaper, so families can live on one income. There aren't any school or state provided holiday clubs etc because they just aren't needed.

This. Sadly we do have to cater to the lowest. Many of my students will be barely fed during summer. And not anything worth eating. This isnt a lack of funds, it is a complete lack of effective parenting, lack of skills, lack of effort and most likely huge amounts of undiagnosed issues in the parents too. it costs nothing to walk to the park and play out. So why do so many children not leave the house for weeks?

i once read on mumsnet our childcare issue is because summer holidays are too short. Longer ones and then more camps would be economically viable. But again, that non-working barely surviving section of society would have so many children in squalor.

Perhaps this poster is including bank holidays?

@noblegiraffe that is exactly what I think and have said here!

Thats a pipe dream though!

Most services have already been cut, and are being cut again. Most councils are seriously in debt.. how do you suggest these services are funded?
Cant raise taxes as people are already up in arms.

The six weeks would be best spread out to other half terms and shaved off, would give working parents less competition to get the same time off as their collegues too. Six weeks is ridiculous its simply for the teachers, its not for the kids at all.

That’s what I get , I’m sure people get less but that entirely my point. Parents can’t cope with the holidays as it is!

The reality is the whole system needs an overhaul. We have a system that pushes low paid parents back to work once their DC turns 3. But provide childcare 30 hours a week term time only and provide parents with 4 weeks annual leave a year. Holiday clubs and wrap around care (where they exist) are expensive and often short hours. Parents are set up to fail, kids are set up to fail. Of course many children are going to be unsupervised or on tech all day as low paid parents often don't have a choice. I don't think children spending their childhood following an outdated curriculum is really the solution.

In Finland where school summer holidays are 10 weeks, annual leave is 5 weeks but one of those weeks has to be taken in winter usually so its 4 weeks in the summer so even if both parents don't overlap their leave you can't cover all of it. Most children will just be home alone at least part of the holidays (apart from those 7 and under who can go to nursery for the holidays) unless they have local grandparents who can provide childcare and people are generally OK with that. Though in some cities they can go to supervised playgrounds every day for free and get a free lunch but elsewhere there's nothing except a week or so of camp run by churches and sports clubs but at very reasonable prices.

I agree the summer holidays in the UK are way too short, and not good for the children or the teachers.

How can you claim it is ridiculous and 'for the teachers' when it is the lowest in Europe?

there are better and far more effective ways of dealing with/improving mental health than just longer holidays. But it costs money that governments don't want to spend.

Some of the more batshit school rules probably add to that, btw. All this Blazer wearing in a heatwave and absolute bonkers reaction to school shoes that aren't plain black leather sucks up teachers' time.

A quick Google tells me that annual leave in Italy is 20 days and they have 12 bank holidays per year.

As pp said, if it’s cheaper to live there then perhaps there are more households with a SAHP.

Also classrooms here are only too hot in one part of the country. I grew up in NW England and can assure you it was never too hot to learn!

@Mitaramost children can be left at 14 and 16 but what did your mother do when you were primary age?! Three months is a long time to pay for childcare and prohibitively expensive.

it costs nothing to walk to the park and play out. So why do so many children not leave the house for weeks?

because, as i see here on MN, everyone in the UK is petrified to let their child go to the park with friends. Or not able, as a parent, to rouse themselves to take them?

no!!!!!!

With the world getting hotter, extra time in October, or around Easter/Whit would make more sense. We've had glorious weather all year and once again, it's starting our rainy season, here in the NW.

Ah, maybe we could have longer holidays down south then, and the NW can stay at school longer. I think they have lower educational outcomes than the south so it might help reduce that inequality. (Note I am not being serious).

More than 6 weeks would be a nightmare. Instead of school all the kids would be shoved into more childcare clubs or just left watch TV while parents worked. No thanks!

I’m in NI. We are now in week four of the holidays. My kids are older now but when they were in primary we did: split leave ie me one week DH the next, unpaid leave, camps which were £££ and impossible to find if you have a child with special needs. We get shorter half terms eg week at Halloween, two weeks at Christmas, two weeks at Easter and a week in February.

You are forgetting that teachers do not get paid for any more holiday than everyone else. Most of our holidays are unpaid. So we don't get 'more than enough'. We get the same. You are welcome to have unpaid time off during the year, if your employer is happy.
If they reduced the amount of school holidays, they would have to pay teachers more.

I think the long summer break is healthy for a total brain break from school, but what we have seems adequate for that. I think what kids really need is increased investment in school and all supportive services (like camhs and youth work).

I do think the temperature is a concern in July, so that may need a rethink in the near future.

I live in Spain and get pretty much the same annual leave as most people in the UK but kids are off from around 20 June to 15 September. It's a nightmare when they are little if you have no grandparents. Ours did summer school for two months some years (arts and crafts and pool all morning, subsidised by the council but not free)

I think the October and February half terms are kind of pointless as the weather is often rubbish and there's not much to do other than hang around at home.
I would scrap them - add a week to Christmas and a week to summer.
To be controversial maybe even get rid of the May one so the summer hols is 8 weeks.
So 3 weeks at Christmas (with at least a week before the 25th off - none of this breaking up on the 23rd nonsense), 2 at Easter, 8 for the summer.
Or.... Keep the October one, 3 at Christmas, 1 and a half at Easter (because Easter covers a long weekend), 1 in May and 7 and a half for the summer.