Changes to holidays - debate on woman's hour

[fivecandles]

Apparently Nottingham LEA is piloting a change to school holidays such that the long summer holiday is reduced to 4 weeks but the half-terms become 2 weeks long so no time lost in total, just redistributed. I think it's a really good idea for all the reasons given on the programme and I'm a teacher. Anyone else got thoughts?

wheresthe, one of the things about this thread is that people join it midway through and don't know what's been said before. And another is that some people clearly haven't read or understood previous points. Not you. Jabed, kept banging on about losing teaching weeks which is not the case.

I don't think I am attacking people for not agreeing with me. But I do get frustrated when people think they know what's best for others based ONLY on what's best for them and don't even consider evidence which challenges their views. Is that fair?

I'm not convinced of either to be honest but perhaps I'm viewing the 6 weeks summer holidays through my rose coloured glasses when 6 weeks wasn't long enough

Social advantages - things like the fact that petty crime and vandalism soar during the 6 week break. And the fact that kids with chaotic home lives get more chaos. And drive wherethe mad by messing about outside her door.

Although the amount of holiday doesn't change, 6 weeks during summer is not the same as 2 weeks during autumn in terms of the trouble kids can get into and how switched off education and routine they can become.

I think the difference was no one had to entertain/organise me or my friends as we had the freedom to just be children.

Well, attitudes have changed and that's certainly part of the problem mrz.

I said earlier that dp works in a school for kids with severe EBD. They come to school (the ones that do come in) for a break and for some routine. Honestly, 6 weeks for them is incredibly risky and sometimes they really don't come back.

Yes, that's extreme but I see the other end of usually reasonably hard working kids who've done bugger all for 6 or 8 weeks after Year 11 and it takes long enought to get them back in shape.

So, fivecandles those of us in normal jobs can just nip out at any time for smear tests and MOTs? You can leave work at 3.30 for these things. Yes, I know you do loads at home, and sometimes have after school clubs, but you can leave at 3.30 on some days if you need to.

Parents are less willing or able to let their kids play out now. And where I live now I feel able to do that. And I think it's hugely valuable. But although I think it's important in its own right its not the same as learning and 6 weeks of it is too much if there's nothing else going on. There are kids near us who are pretty much left to their own devices. Not particulary poor or disadvantaged but they do need more intervention. Sometimes they end up joining my family for whole days at a time. I'm not sure they're always fed as well as they could be and certainly don't have much of a routine. It's about balance isn't it? I think 6 weeks is too long even for my kids. Even when we do the trips to museums and reading books thing. But it's definitely too long for kids with no supervision and no routine and nothing even vaguely resembling academic learning.

It's not just academic work either. My kids are sporty and it's a long break from every sort of training that they would do at school.

Then perhaps attitudes need changing more than school holidays fivecandles ?

Thing is I pick up my own kids the minute I leave work so no, I can't get anything done after work. As I said I'm not complaining. Just saying there are lots of advantages to spreading the holidays for teachers too.

mrz, I don't think there are any good arguments in this day and age for keeping a school year based on an agricultural calendar. No, sorry. I don't see any good arguments against the proposals for change.

Attitudes to playing out and childcare generally are a problem but not really one and the same.

One of the main things about holidays is how many parents work. And it's not a good idea for kids to be left outside IMHO if parents are at work.

Also cars.

another teacher here.

my problem with ANY of the changed timetables that I've seen is that they actually don't change enough.

may/june can't be changed because of national exams.

neither can dec/jan.

then, because church & state are linked, we HAVE to have christmas AND easter off.

so there's actually not a lot more flexibility.

whatever the distribution of the holidays, it will cause problems for working parents.

and holiday companies will find a way to maximise prices (they are a business, why shouldn't they?)

i actually see as a major problem that we are too 'all or nothing' about education. it IS possible to make school run almost full time, with holiday options available at certain times (for staff and pupils), and other times, e.g. exams, when it is NOT possible to take children out.

I've yet to see a 'new' timetable which doesn't still stick to traditional patterns. Why have a holiday in October at all? Why not just have 4 weeks at school, one week off, 4 weeks on, 1 week off etc, with , some extra days for christmas, bank holidays? without the ridiculously long 8 weeks in a row, kids won't get so tired that they are struggling to learn, so a 2 week break to recover won't be needed.

there could even be an 'allowance' for number of days out of school, (not during exam times) which would then give people the chance to take a family break when it suits them. there could be certain 'options' weeks when students can do less academic work, and even be 'allowed' some time off, but with a limit to how often they are allowed to take each option.

As I said earlier I have no problem with changing holiday dates but I don't think the option of cheap or more frequent holidays abroad is a good argument for change.
My parents and my friends parents also worked and we weren't left outside and yes there were cars.

Hmm, I can see both sides to this one.

On the one hand, I definitely don't think childhood is all about education and I wouldn't be too bothered if my own child regressed a bit academically after the long holidays if I felt like they were beneficial in other ways (rest, fun, growing). I have very happy memories of my own childhood summers just hanging about doing nothing, as well as visiting family abroad and having a holiday. I think you probably need 6 weeks to do all that.

On the other hand, living as I now do in a cramped 1st floor flat with 2 DCs, it doesn't feel at all the same as growing up in a house with a garden. I can say now that I will definitely be taking them out every day. I just find it too stressful otherwise, as we are all under each other's feet. Of course I will be aiming to do as much free stuff as I can, but there is usually a cost incurred somewhere (bus fares, lunch etc). For families living in similar accommodation who can't afford to go places or whose parents just can't be arsed, I can see it might be more stressful for the kids to have a long time away from the routine of school.

I don't think there are any good arguments in this day and age for keeping a school year based on an agricultural calendar

From your insular world it may not seem appropriate but farming and related industries are still a major industry in this country fivecandles. A calandar based on this is far more reasonable than one based on the issues related to the needs of a minority of deprived children.

While we're on the topic(ish), what does anyone think to the story about free schools being able to stay open until 8pm, 51 weeks a year?

our insular world it may not seem appropriate but farming and related industries are still a major industry in this country fivecandles. A calandar based on this is far more reasonable than one based on the issues related to the needs of a minority of deprived children.

But the children are not allowed to work any more in the farming and related industries as it is now illegal - so it is irrelevant as they don't need the summer holidays to go home and help out

though I would count under 0.9% of gdp as a major industry

But the children are not allowed to work any more in the farming and related industries as it is now illegal - so it is irrelevant as they don't need the summer holidays to go home and help out

I worked in a very deprived rural school. There is deprivation in rural areas and it can more than rival that of inner cities so I understand it. However, it is not true to say children are no longer allowed to work in farming. Most of the pupils in my school did work on farms in the summer. Most still had "chores" before and after school in farm related work. There are certain thibngs they are not allowed to do but they are still allowed on the farm to work. That may surprise you but its true.

This country is in a financial and pupilation crisis. We currently import 40% of our food but the economists and are saying we have to increase our land usage and our farmers have got to come up with the goods otherwise we will drop to a starving nation. One more reason why farming is so important and it has to grow.

You are wrong about its GDP - it is currently the third largest industry in this country and stands at about 20% of our economy.

Of course children from farming communities do "work" on the farm. I live in a farming community and everyone "mucks in"!
The UK has a highly efficient agricultural sector by European standards, producing 60 per cent of its food needs.

I keep finding studies that say there is little academic loss in long summer holidays, OP, and little evidence that alternative calendars would alleviate the underlying causes of social deprivation. I can't contribute coherently, but do you realise how badly you are coming across? If the holiday time is to be redistributed, I'd like 2 weeks at Whitsun, actually, but otherwise I don't care about whether it changes.

Rather academic study saying no statistical diff. across all groups, although some evidence of summer slide among the most deprived groups in the long (12 week) US holidays, but that may not apply in England, and no "evidence that shows alternative calendar patterns will alleviate the problem"

NUT says no evidence.

On top of ignoring the mixed evidence you keep banging on about foreign holidays might be cheaper, like it's what everybody secretly aspires to &....needs?, and claiming that the academic slide would be so much worse except for "middle class" parents who drill their kids all holidays -- WTF are you on?

Okay, fwiw, the link you gave at 4:11 yesterday, from the National Summer Learning Assoc, they are

A) American (dealing with traditional 12-13 wk summer holidays)
B) only provide 2 references to back their points up
C) mostly a coordinating body for summer school programmes (that people pay for); I'm a bit cynical when they stand to make money out of parents' worries on summer slide

Some of the IPPR research.
I can't find anything on Demos though about school terms, summer slide or school holidays, though .

'From your insular world it may not seem appropriate but farming and related industries are still a major industry in this country fivecandles. A calandar based on this is far more reasonable than one based on the issues related to the needs of a minority of deprived children.'

It may have escaped your attention, Jabed, but in the last couple of hundered years child labour has become illegal.

Children are no longer used to bring in the harvest.

And I would urge you to read my posts and the research. It is not just deprived children who are adversely affected by the long break. It is ALL children.

Plus, a society which finds it as easy to dismiss the needs and problems of deprived children as easily as you apparently do, is a society with huge problems storing up more for all of us.

fivecandles you are being very naive if you believe that the children of farming families don't help out with the harvest. Children aren't employed but in a family business everyone is involved especially at busy times such as harvest. I certainly helped out at hay making, milking and lambing as did my own children.

I dispute you can say ALL children... there are teachers here telling you not in their experience

My main argument is about the disadvantages to children academically of the long summer holidays there are also social reasons.

You missed the survey which said that only a quarter of parents disagreed that the summer holidays were too long. And the stats for petty crime and vandalism increasing over the holidays. And there's lots more research which is not all neatly linkable to. Some of it's in books!!

You also missed the school, Greensward, where this model has already been adopted and results have gone up by 20%. Now, yes, of course, there may be other factors involved. But the marked increase in results is hardly a sign that changing the holidays has failed is it??

Here:

'A comprehensive school claims that doing away with the long six-week summer holiday has improved its exam results.

Greensward College, a 1,530-pupil school for 11 to 18-year-olds, has introduced a radical new five-term year - with four equal breaks of just two weeks and just four weeks off in the summer.

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Since first planning the new system, its GCSE results have improved from 70 per cent getting five top grade A* to C grade passes, to 88 per cent last year.

That is despite facing competition from four selective grammar schools within 15 miles creaming off some of the brightest pupils in the area.

David Triggs, the school's headteacher, said: "The great thing is you don't have the summer learning loss that you had under the old system.

"Evidence from the United States suggests that once you move beyond a four-week break for pupils, their retention of knowledge just goes down the pan. You have to spend much of the time catching up on what you have already learnt."'

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/short-summer-break-leads-to-higher-grades-451656.html

And partly, of course, I'm influenced by my own common sense experience as a parent and teacher and with a dp who is a teacher in a school for kids with severe EBD where every year some kids fail to return to school at all after the summer break because they've gone to a young offenders' institition or because they've got so out of the habit of learning and routine that they just can't get back in.

Any parent or teacher will tell you that it takes some time to get kids back into the habit of learning and you spend a long time each September reminding kids what they learnt the previous year.

This effect is cumulative such that kids who have particularly chaotic home lives and are struggling to learn anyway take one step forward and two steps back each academic year.

There's lots of research in particular about the way in which children slip back up to a year between yr 6 and yr 7.

My point about holidays was primarly related to one of the reasons why NOTTINGHAM is proposing the changes: that more opportunities for holidays is likely to reduce unauthorised term time absence. But also, because some people said that teachers would object to losing their long summer holiday. I'm a teacher and I wouldn't object because although part of me would miss the long summer break a) I can see the advantages for pupils and their parents and I think that's what teachers should be motivated for but b) I can see the advantages for teachers too.

As I have said, none of this is MY idea so it surprises me that some of you want to make the arguments so personal.

It's not just Nottingham either. Academies can be much more flexible with holidays. It's one of the only proprosals of Mr Gove that I actually agreee with

www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2006111/Michael-Gove-school-summer-holidays-cut.html

To summarise, there are good academic and social reasons for the change. Yes, there needs to be more research. This is partly why Nottingham and other LEAs have launched a consultation. This is why there are schools that are going to pilot the system.

On the other hand, there seem to be no good reasons for keeping the holidays as they are.

One of the only arguments AGAINST change on this thread has been because the weather is bad in Feb and October on which basis we should really be campaigning to ban the holiday in Christmas and places in Scotland and the north west shouldn't even bother having holidays at all.

Why do we have to be in the thrall of an outdated calendar? Why do so many people resist change apparently purely because it is change without completely considering the advantages of change for all of us?

If it's what parents want and it works why on earth not?

You could have a look at these too if you want more evidence:

'Studies have emphasised that children lose English and Maths learning over the summer holidays, up to 2.6 months for the latter and the negative effect of summer on learning is said to increase with each school year.'*

'The learning loss over the summer can also increase during the transition from Primary to Secondary school. It is estimated that 30% of students make no gain in their level score, one year after the change. For maths in particular, there is a 30% dip in learning from Year 6 to Year 7. **'

• Review of Educational Research, 1996. ** Transfer and Transitions in the Middle Years of Schooling, University of Cambridge 2003.

mrz, the possible contribution to brining in the harvest of a very tiny number of children in rural communities is really not a valid reason for changing the school calendar.

I do find it extraordinary that good solid arguments for change and that's the best you can come up with for keeping things the same!!