To think we don’t need more school holidays?

[Halftermforever]

The schools locally all seem to be either consulting too, or already implementing a 2 week October half term. This has really riled me because:

1. The extra childcare will cost £500
2. Schools already have 13 weeks holiday, whilst parents have 5 weeks. Is it really necessary?
3. I get fined for taking my child out on holiday, but now suddenly the extra week won’t have an impact because they’ve reduced lunch by 10 minutes!

The talk about reducing staff and student absence is baffling. Yes it’s peak time for illness and stress, but the rest of the country seems to get on with it without having to run on 6 weeks off, 6 weeks in, 2 weeks off, 5 weeks in, 2 weeks off!

From July - December the schools are off almost as much as they are in!

It’s insane and not possible for working families to keep up with.

AIBU?

If only an older wiser mother had foreseen that academies would increase the length of the holidays!

Equally you can plan with the best intentions and then Brexit comes along and ruins your business, then one of you gets ill and it wipes out the savings you had or you know life just bites you for a few years! Nothing is more gross to me than patronising people sitting in their own little bubble thinking everyone else is just not as smart as them. I imagine they have a little tinkly laugh when they spout their crap too.

I thought I'd just outlined the reasons children and teachers are tired. Significantly higher expectations, including the need to be able to evidence progress for every single lesson. You can't just take an afternoon to hand out some construction paper and glitter and let them make Christmas cards- you need a lesson plan with key questions showing how it meets curriculum objectives for DT.

What children are expected to be able to do at set ages is way higher than in the past and the consequences for the child and the teacher of not meeting those standards is harsher and swifter. Starting with the Y1 phonics test- if they fail that then not only will the teacher have to justify why, but the child is probably going to miss art/ IT/ assembly/ (insert other usually enjoyable activity) in order to attend interventions until they pass.

We need better, cheaper, high quality childcare. School is not free childcare.

But it's terrible for those who can't afford holidays at all. At least in summer it is easy to have free / cheap days out (picnics in the park etc). Cold, wet October is miserable for people who can't afford inside entertainment.

We have a two week october half term. I love it!

Taking time off the lunch time is terrible. They need time to eat and play/socialise. My school child has a 2 week half term in October, but no inset days at other times. I am not clamouring for the random days at often inconvenient times when no childcare is available. Bunching them all together to break up the extra long term is preferable.

Our primary moved to 2 week October half term around/just after Covid lockdowns

At first I wasn’t sure but now we’re used to it I think it’s great as the kids get a bit more time to relax/recharge over half term, that autumn term is so very long!

We tend to spend one week here at home and another we go away

My dc still have inset days on top of the extra week at half term. Every term they have a parents evening too which means the dc finish school at 12pm to accommodate the parents ‘evening’. So that’s more time taken away from their lessons. Thankfully the parents evening is now on Teams so I haven’t got to leave work early and instead can take a lunch break to have the appointments from my car.

I actually really like my dc school and the teachers - I think they are in a hard place and I appreciate them because they genuinely go over and above. But so are parents. Everything just fucking sucks at the moment and because of repeatedly shit governments (both sides!) all that ends up happening is we end up arguing with each other rather than holding our pompous arsehole privileged leaders to account. Rant over 🙈 Time for bed 🤣

Not if they’re an academy. Our local school (academy) added an extra week off at October half term and just increased the hours in school per day by starting earlier and finishing slightly later.

Not correct if it’s an academy.

Exactly this. An extra week holiday was added to my dc academy school after a vote by the teachers. It is not being made up anywhere else in the school day/week/year.

Our secondary does this, using a combo of inset days and a longer school day. They use 3 days of the second week for intensive GCSE prep work with all staff focused on Y11s.

I have really enjoyed it - the weather in October isn't all that terrible compared to December and February, and for those who can afford to travel it's often a much better time for a lot of destinations that are too hot in summer and in winter it's cold/short days etc.

From a schools perspective - honestly I applaud them if they're getting creative about how to attract and retain staff and this is one method. Competition for good teachers is fierce, and having good teachers is good for children.

In addition, as school numbers dwindle schools are having to market themselves much more - and having brilliant teachers who stay at a school long term is a massive USP.

This did make me laugh! Just imagining a vote in my office ‘would you like an extra weeks paid holiday or not?’ Hm I wonder what the result would be…

I didn’t think teachers got paid for all the school holidays do they?

I think if there was any suggestion that teachers wouldn’t get paid for this extra week off, we’d all know about it!

Our school usually have 5 inset days per year. These are being replaced with the extra week.

DS school has done this since he started (now y3) and I love it. Every year we've had an extremely cheap break that week. I really don't want every school to do it as it will push the holiday prices up 😂.

They do one day a week that is 50 minutes longer, and instead of classroom based work for the 50 minutes they do clubs with things like cookery, first aid, woodwork, computer coding etc. Activities rotate every half term, I think it's a great system

Well if it is the way you say it is, and the extra week is made up from 10 mins teaching per day, then teachers are still working the same hours whether it's an extra week or not, no? So of course they would be paid the same?

Or would you be happy to have your pay docked despite doing the same hours? What job do you do OP?

We have just had our 1st 2 week Oct half term. North london state school. No week taken off for summer hols, we've had the 10 mins less at break justification. We had no choice but to figure it out. We were told at the start of 2025 and we took turns in taking a week off each. It was thoroughly annoying though and objections during consultations were generally ignored. It went through as proposed because that's what they wanted.

Are you sure your got this right, OP?
LSEAT is currently advertising for a cook supervisor to start work Jan 2026. It's a term-time only post, advertised as being 39 weeks. The usual school year is 39 weeks, what would the cook be doing for the extra week if there are no pupils in school?

Teachers are paid for 1265 hours in the year which usually equates to 195 days.

They are then paid for the statutory 28 days holiday and no more.

The pay is split evenly over 12 months.

I hope anyone thinking of training to be a teacher for four years realises they’re just babysitters.

This is correct.

Why don’t you get into teaching? There is a shortage. Then you can have the holidays with your DC.

We received this notification from dc secondary school today that 2 week October holidays will
continue but will stay under review. The school also stated that staff absence between September up to last week compared to last year has halved and saved the school £40k for temp staff. The letter said nothing about the effects on student learning but obviously it is too soon to say. The school also stated there was a marginal decrease in student absence compared to last year.

Nobody is saying teachers are babysitters.

but if they weren’t caring for/supervising the kids as well as teaching then parents would need to be in school. And this is not the case.

when kids are at school they are supervised by school staff and therefore parents can work/do what ever they please.

Maybe change the word “childcare” to “supervised” if that makes more sense to you??