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.

This is exactly why children need more unstructured time.
They (in general, not specifically yours) shouldn't be bored after 3 weeks of some time doing activities and some time playing independently or meeting with friends.
Children seem to be losing the ability to entertain themselves more and more each generation.
It's such an important life skill to have as adults, to be able to find interests and think of things to do, as well as being able to handle being bored and then occupy themselves.

If school were about childcare then there wouldn't be fines for taking your kid out of school and it would stop aged 13 (tops!).

Like I said, how many of my sixth formers need childcare?

Teenagers don’t need childcare generally (obviously not referring to anyone with a Sen child etc). It’s widely accepted that they often stay on their own for some days in the Summer holidays in teenage years or go out with friends. Most families have two parents working full or part time from baby/toddler age upwards so there are alot of years where school has the dual purpose of educating and childcare. It can be both things! Holiday clubs/annual leave have to be used in the holidays until teenage years (which is why longer holidays would be totally impossible for the majority of parents - to answer your original question).

I dont see school as childcare anymore for our teenager but our primary school absolutely is childcare for our younger one. Without it, I physically couldn’t do the job I do as I have to be in my workplace and have no option to stay home (as millions of others in the same boat). You did live through Covid right and see the nightmare alot of parents had working with children at home?

Definitely agree. Especially now my child’s in secondary. She gets so exhausted that she could do with a huge chunk of time to decompress and become herself again. To be fair, I could also do with that time.

The purpose is to educate. The reason it takes so long is precisely because you need to put thirty+ kids in a class and cater to all of them at once. It's infinitely less efficient than what could be done in a small group, but if class sizes were five, you'd need an awful lot more qualified teachers, and there are currently shortages.

Or you could have the same number of teachers teaching 5 children for an hour a day each X 6 = 30 children per day. First five 9-10, next lot 10-11. Parents to arrange activities for the rest of the day etc.

But you can't actually fit everything into an hour a day even with just 5 children and sometimes you need a lot more - how would PE work for instance? My DD's primary class was near enough that ratio (14 students, one teacher and one TA so 1:7) but still couldn't teach everything they needed to in the time in the day so homework was required daily, to finish the tasks they didn't finish in class. Though tbf the days weren't as long as in the UK, some days were just 3 hours - because school isn't childcare, but the week total was somewhere between 25 and 30 hours depending on the year.

Like Scotland we have a extra week in October and break up first week in July then the kids go back in August. We don't celebrate the same holidays as England so when u have a week off in may we don't and we break up earlier for Easter

This survey is out of date, there is no information on the sample size, and by its own admission it has been scaled up, so it’s finding an are unlikely to be representative of schools.

The information doesn’t consider the funding for School improvements and rebuilding taking place: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2024/03/how-were-upgrading-school-buildings-across-england/

I also question again if you believe that people shouldn’t work in hot weather and that offices, hospitals and restaurants should all be closed down in hot weather. If you are suggesting hot weather shuts down schools, then that would have to apply everywhere!

Finally do you believe that children are more likely to have air conditioning at home or at school?

I would suggest that it’s more likely to be at school.

I feel that you are clutching at straws to be suggesting extending the school holidays, for a potential heatwave despite the detrimental impact this would have on children’s education and wellbeing is a little bit selfish as you seem to want to avoid doing the school run!

The information doesn’t consider the funding for School improvements and rebuilding taking place:

You'll note that article about school improvements talks about RAAC and asbestos, not fitting air conditioning.

You think the government has a 'put air con in schools' programme? 😆 They need billions of pounds of investment just to bring the school estate up to a satisfactory (i.e. safe) standard.

The idea that you could fit the whole school day into an hour if you only had 5 kids in your class is pretty funny.

On the subject of air flow etc - I bet kids can open their windows wide at home. My classroom windows open 15cm at most. There are 32 in the room. It’s awful but thankfully in the British climate it’s only like that for about 10 days at most throughout the year.

Also, on a hot day at home they aren't going to be forced to try to learn to solve quadratic equations. They can go just lounge around eating ice lollies and fanning themselves. Or choose to go somewhere that's air conditioned. Or do some suitable activity like have a water fight.

My classroom is definitely hotter than my house too.

I've always thought the school summer holiday starts far too late. Invariably it's sweltering for the last few weeks, then they break up late July and the sky turns grey. The nights are drawing in towards the end of the holidays.
I think late June break up, return mid August would be better. With a 2 week Autumn half term break. Most other countries have it earlier.

My children might not be doing maths when they are off, but a good chunk of it will be spent at a holiday club...in a school. So not working but not exactly lying around fanning themselves. So more holiday would be more of that.

Not working, far fewer kids shoved in a classroom, opportunities to go outside, no actual expectations to learn anything...

Our independent school used to offer 3 x full Activity weeks FoC for 5-13 Yr olds over summer holidays, unfortunately that's no longer due to impact of VAT. So that's 3 x weeks local parents now have to find alternate (and expensive) childcare. There is no alternate council provision available.

There are a lot of assumptions in this post:

That children have somewhere to have a water fight… not every child has access to outdoor spaces.

That children have someone to have a water fight with.

That homes are cooler than school buildings, this is often not the case especially homes either retrofitted with insulation or new builds which require a high level of insulation.

Fans don’t cool temperatures in a home, and can be expensive to run.

On a hot day opening a window makes it hotter in a home.

Holiday camps are often I. Schools and include a lot of physical activity. We use a holiday club that offers a full week of football coaching, or one operating from my daughter’s school.

Oh yes, one must consider the child who is stuck in a cupboard when deciding whether being in a sweaty classroom trying to learn quadratic equations is better than not being in a sweaty classroom trying to learn quadratic equations.

It needs to be realised that in other countries the kids probably get less overall holidays and have longer school days! The kids in my town seem start school and 9 am and be all well on the way home by 3!

There's a very overlooked aspect here! It's ok for teachers who can all go off at the same time as the school shuts but spare a thought for the rest of the working world where it's already 6 weeks of juggling multiple staff absences and people's childcare issues impacting workmates! It can't be all about the parents in the workplace monopolising the summer, child free people should be allowed to have time of as well! I work in a team of 7 where we can't manage the workload if more than one person is off at a time! Very few people would want an extended break because the teachers are the only people that see the benefit!

You are just looking for excuses to get out of teaching! You and everyone else is going to have get used to increased hot weather! We can't all down tools and sit at home through June July and August!

I’m in Canada. Kids get 8.5-9.5 weeks off for summer depending on how the year falls, plus bank holidays and 2 weeks at Christmas, 2 weeks in March. School is generally 8:20-2:30 but some variations of 8-2 or 8:45-2:45. Always six hours.

Plus as adults we get 10-15 days off for annual leave a year. The vast majority only getting ten.

The kids here get loads of holidays, they get about two weeks at Christmas, they get a week in Feb, two weeks at Easter, then a week between Easter and the school summer holidays, they'll get another week off in October or something like and then off for Christmas again.

Adding two weeks to the summer holiday doesn't mean downing tools for June...we'd still break up in July!

That Autumn term is really badly worked out though. 7-8 weeks is a really long slog for the kids, especially as the weather gets darker and colder. Then they all get silly af in December, and the schools don't break up until it's practically Christmas Eve some years. I'd support adding two weeks onto the start of the Christmas holidays and pushing the October half term back a week. Let parents deal with their over-excited, over-stimulated, feral children and see how "magical" they think it is then. 😂