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.

It’s just the same as adults would forget a proportion of what they had learnt on a course after 6 weeks if they had not been actively using the new knowledge. Nobody has a perfect memory.

My sense is that in places like Ireland and Italy, there have traditionally been more SAHMs and more grandmothers living locally and providing childcare.

It would almost certainly be regressive for women to do that here.

There could also be an scheme to encourage people to work as summer child minders in their homes.
Childminders are usually for pre-school age and they have to follow the early years curriculum etc.
An official summer childminder scheme for older children would have guidelines to follow but would be a more laid back environment.

I don’t disagree with your general point about it being an issue that childcare falls predominantly to mothers.
But to be fair to that poster, it’s a campaign in Italy started by mothers. She didn’t choose to specify mothers.

I am from one of the European countries listed as having a much longer summer holiday. From my point of view growing up, this worked well for those families whose grandparents still lived in their village of origin. Their parents would send kids to 'the village' to spend the summer with their grandparents, where they would be frolicking in nature with other kids that would also spend the summers there.

We didn't have that. We didn't have the extended family, we didn't have much money, and both parents had to continue working throughout the summer. This meant that the summer holidays were utter torture for me. Three months of desperate boredom, of noticing that everybody else had family to spend time with and money to take holidays, all my friends would be spending time elsewhere whilst I'd be at home in a city with no money to do anything and no one to do nothing with.

September used to fill me with joy as preparing for the return to school meant less boredom, contact with peers and a bit more structure.

I much prefer how UK holidays are structured.

Yes, I have just checked and it was the mothers (as usual everything falls to them):

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/78b9eba1bb346acf

Mine doesn't want 6 weeks off! She'd rather have 4 weeks in summer and an extra week at May and October, spread the breaks plus she loves being in school.

It cannot be a shock to you that for cultures that are more likely to have one working and one stay at home parent, that this parent is likely to be the mother, and that these are likely to be the more patriarchal countries.

To answer your question

For us, expanding the summer holiday further would mean the kids would just spend more time in holiday clubs as mine and DH's holiday isn't going to magically expand. For inset days they are at home and have far too much screen time.
And we are the fortunate ones who are able to take a chunk of leave in August, and afford holiday clubs.

Six weeks is plenty of leave for teachers.

I’m in Ireland and we use summer camps. Between DH and I we take around 4 weeks off and two weeks overlap where we are on holiday and the other two weeks we each stay home while the other works. Our kids go to rugby camp €80/child (10-1pm) an activity camp (9:30-3pm) €140/child, another activity camp €130/child so multiply by two kids. There’s also tennis (3hr), cricket (3hr), soccer (3hr), an outdoors adventure one that cost €60 for a day or €250/week including pick up and collection (9-4:30). They’re now 12 and nearly 10 and sometimes go to the childminder on shorter camp days.
Dh used to work from home until changing roles early this year and I used to be on shift, much easier then. But yes in Ireland it costs a fortune to keep the kids entertained. We usually budget between €800-€1100 for summer camps. When they were younger, they were taken to and collected from the camp by the childminder.

Ah. You’re a teacher. I get it now 😬

Personally, I would want to fundamentally reset house pricing, so that families do not normally need two full-time incomes to afford a mortgage. I don’t think endless summer clubs and camps are ideal, and I don’t think more time in formal education is great, either. More family time, without huge financial pressure, would be ideal.

The whole school system and the time off is so outdated and frustrating for working parents (as is the length of the school day). I would not enjoy longer summer holidays - 6 weeks is plenty - but I appreciate others feel differently.

Im dreading the spread of the two week October half term - we don’t have that (yet). Who wants to take two weeks off in the wet dark months? Move it May if anything when it’s nicer at least (yes I know, exams - but no pain no gain and once done people would get used to it)

Northern Ireland has all of July and August off as well. Doesn't seem to harm their results.

I used to have an office job in Germany (long time ago). I worked for a large well known international company. I used to get 6 weeks annual leave plus days off in lieu of overtime. I think that was 1 day a month in lieu of overtime, so that brought my annual leave to 8 week and 2 days . There are also more bank holidays in Germany. Many people I worked with would take 4 weeks off at this time of year. I also used to go home at 1pm on Fridays but I did do overtime Monday to Thursday.

i grew up in Ireland and had 2 months off in primary - i was sent on a LOT of summer camps for weeks and weeks so it wasn't exactly me just relaxing at home haha

we don't get the may mid term break either that we get over here. So really its only a week longer overall

How many holidays do Italy have in total? How many holidays do Ireland have?

Sorry but I can't afford all this childcare so no im happy with what we have!

Holidays throughout the year are shorter though.

And in Ireland secondary schools finish the end of May so almost 12 weeks off whilst state primary finish around the second/last week in June. I get 26 days holidays and I’m will be taking some parental leave.

I love the 6 week holiday now dc are teens. It was definitely trickier when they were younger but you have to juggle and make sacrifices - comes with the territory of having dc. This week my dc are chilling, then room sorting and hanging out with friends, then family holiday then final week of freedom. Dh and I used to tag team and only have one well annual leave together over a year but now we can have 2 weeks together. Not sure they’d need longer but children in independent schools broke up a couple of weeks ago so maybe an extra week would be fine. Parents just need to expect to organise childcare and save up/plan for it.

Yeah and I think the thing is that as a teacher, the OP is purely seeing it from the perspective of her kids and her family.

She gets a professional salary but has to pay no childcare costs over the school holidays. Blissful! Doesn't have the financial pressure of losing a salary to be a SAHM but also doesn't have to worry about childcare. I have no doubt it would be wonderful for her and her kids

It would be fine for mine - more holiday clubs, but they do enjoy these, just a bit more expensive for us.

But I am capable of thinking outside my personal circumstances.. for poorer families and those without family support, it wouldn't be great at all. I spent my summer holidays being ditched with random family friends many of whom didn't want me around, weeks sat in the stockroom of my parents' business, it was miserable for me as it was, another two weeks would have been even worse. Lots of kids in that position.

That's why we need a compromise and I think 6 weeks is a fair one.

So who do you suggest takes care of them for these extra weeks? The flower fairies? Holiday clubs are expensive as it is and not everyone has a handy granny who can step in.
I am lucky as DH is a teacher and handles all holiday childcare, often for our son's friends too. For some it is a nightmare.

To be fair yes, school holidays here seem miserably short. My best childhood memories are by far the 3 blessed, long awaited months of summer holidays.

Saying that, it’s very tricky for parents if they don’t have a support system.

Also I honestly don’t think kids here are under pressure in school. It’s quite easy and adaptable and you’d have to be exceptionally bad to be held back a year, for example.

In Australia, we get 20 leave days, unless you're in an emergency service or a teacher (obviously). Often almost half of leave days are gobbled up by Christmas closures as most businesses close for two weeks & force you to use your own leave for it. (My office apparently tried to change to a three week closure a few years & there was mutiny).

School holidays are a nightmare. Even worse if your DC are in private school (longer holidays) or have aged out of vacation care.

We have school hols 6 weeks mid Dec-Jan (summer) and 2 weeks each April, June/July, September.

There's a lot of begging for flexibility, WFH, using long service leave, unpaid leave, grandparent care & and fighting for expensive vacation care places.

I loved school holidays until I returned to work. Now my DC are juggled about & we have lower paying jobs because the company is reasonably accommodating.

I'm in ROI. My DC have been off for 4 weeks and are back on 5 weeks.

I get 28 days AL but only expect to take 7 days of this through the summer holidays. I take some time off at the other midterms.

We had an 8 day trip to London at beginning of July. For the rest of the holidays DC are with the childminder or at camps. I have 2 DC and the camp they are at this week (10am to 2pm) is €120. The childminder looks after them at our house and we live in the country so they get plenty of outside time.

By the time June comes around, both DC and me are exhausted and worn down by the school year and can't wait for the holidays to come around.

The 9 weeks fly by and nobody gets bored so for us it's great but we are in the fortunate position where we can afford the extra childcare and camps.

Edited to add:
My 11yo is in a class of 10 and I am the only mother there working full time.
My 6yo is in a class of 7 and I am the only mother working full time in that class as well.
This means they only have mornings or a couple of days a week that they need cover for in the summer.

My DC have 12 weeks summer holidays in both primary and secondary. I have always loved the long break (as do they!). Obviously more challenging & expensive when they were very young ( DH & I both work FT) but it’s just something we budgeted for. Funnily, I was more nervous about getting to the 11-14 age bracket where they would be getting too old for camps / child minder but too young to be left alone. However since Covid, DH & I can split our WFH days so we’re covered. Educational outcomes are very good here so I don’t necessarily agree with the argument that children will forget what they have learned if the break is too long. Having read the thread, I do understand the challenges other working parents have though and I accept we are lucky. It has helped hugely that DH & I are both in senior roles and with that comes a lot of flexibility.