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?

NOT changing that should say!

I'm quite sure that there are more children that help their parents in other aspects of work but children are entitled to the best possible education that we can give them regardless of what their parents do or where they live.

Absolutely extraordinary!

Good God, you'll be saying they should be back in the mills and up chimneys next!

mathanxiety perhaps you should stop making statements of the ALL children variety because no matter how small a number it messes up your "ALL". In the school my children attended ALL children were involved in the harvest ...
I think it's as good an argument as your more cheap holiday abroad premise which equally applies to a small number of families.

Once again fivecandles you are missing the point... I have at no point on this thread said there shouldn't be change. In fact I have said THREE times that I can see the logic of changing but I don't think it helps your case to make definite statements which aren't supported in fact.

my apologies to mathanxiety ... that should be on a completely different thread

Eh?

NOTTINGHAM LEA like many others believes that more flexible holidays will reduce unauthorised termtime absence. I agree with that as a teacher and a parent.

That is one of many reasons for proposing the changes.

That is hardly comparable with children being involved in the harvest. Get a grip!

mrz, there are a number of posters on this thread. You'll forgive me if I can't remember exactly who said what.

And I have said repeatedly that more flexible holidays is not a main reason for the change. It is however a bonus to the changes.

I don't think I have been making definite statements that are not supported in fact.

I have offered countless pieces of evidence.

But there still needs to be more research. And it can't really be judged whether the changes are successful until they've happened.

There is evidence that suggests the changes have already been successful at Greensward school in Essex.

Must go. Am having another day out with my kids.

Enjoy yours.

But you keep saying ALL children ... and that isn't a fact

It's funny though, that you mention holiday "flexibility" as a bonus, it can definitely be too flexible and a PiTA as a result. I lived in N Leics & the variable school holiday dates between the local counties (Derbys/Leics/Notts) played havoc with parents' work and other schedules. Some people ended up with DC in schools in 2-3 different counties with 3 different holiday dates to plan for; it was horrible by all accounts and sometimes hard to avoid if you lived in the general area. Even places like soft play centres, leisure centres and preschools were all variable opening hours in the 3 counties.

The one thing I'll (sort of) concur with is about change in routine being too much for some -- every autumn DS2 has trouble settling back into the institution of school. I fear this is likely with any break longer than 2 weeks, though.

One has to ask though, re supposed summer slide: is a revised schedule for everyone the most cost effective solution? Friend with underachieving children, they have been offered a week or two of free remedial tuition at the local high school each year; they get a bonus leisure event for free (like bowling) if they come along to all 5 days. At the remedial days they get a tuition ratio of 1 teacher:2/3 pupils, and because they are very nice kids who got overlooked in primary school rather than having learning difficulties, they've improved well for the experience. They would still be overlooked in their ordinary class of 1:30, it's the special 1:3 ratio that is bringing them on. So I wonder if that approach is a more cost-effective way to help the underachievers, but wouldn't be so practical with shorter summer holiday.

How I feel about some of the points made in 5candles post.

"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."

Hopefully once people have left school all the knowledge they acquired at school isn't likely to go 'down the pan' after 4 weeks? If so, what is the point of school?

"Any parent or teacher will tell you that it takes some time to get kids back into the habit of learning"

I think children are learning all the time (maybe/ maybe not school subjects). It isn't a habit, it's life. So I think you mean it takes time for some children to get back into the habit of being schooled.

"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."

I have heard it put forward that this slip is due to: cramming in y6 which is retained long enough for sats, the fact that the y7 curriculum goes over y6 stuff to align pupils from different intake schools, the fact that y7 children have a whole lot of new social stuff to learn and deal with because of transition to a new (usually larger) school.

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

Apart from a lot of children and families who enjoy the long break. Lots of families that I know breathe a sigh of relief at the end of the summer term.

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

It's not what I would want but I'm willing to go with the majority vote.

Also you find that children from other cultures like to go to say India for the long Summer break otherwise their parents may take them out of school in term time which I have observed before.

I still see alot of children hanging around in the evenings in gangs regardless of whether there is school or not.

I think it should be left as it is. Knowing the way things work you will probably end up with less holiday somehow so I would think 'if it ain't broke it doesn't need fixing' on this subject.

Saw a group of ex colleagues yesterday and they were all so relieved that at long last they could enjoy the break. They work with many different students and some of them do come from difficult backgrounds. The school tries to help them but there is the cliche you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.

From a purely practical view a lot of schools need the 6 week break to get building works, decorating and maintenance completed. My local school has regularly needed this time to replace toilets, rerun drains & resurface playground etc. At Christmas contractors usually shut down and at Easter the bank holidays reduce the working days available to them. Four weeks is not a lot of time to complete much work, especially if staff including the caretaker want to actually get a holiday.

jabed

take a look at this then where it clearly shows GDP is 0.9%

you are welcome to prove to me this is incorrect as you state it is

Ivkkaty not wishing to have an argument, I couldn't find the current figures but your article is quoting 2009 figures, it may have gone up I am not sure. jabed may have more up to date figures guess it is all probably a miss understanding as we are all friends here :)

2011 figures It is way off 20% scroll down further and labour accounts for under 2% and total industry is only 22%

As one who's been through all this, I think it's a BAD idea to reduce the Summer holiday.

So, a few children suffer a, 'learning loss.' Must the majority be penalised for the few?

When my sons were young enough to be affected by school holidays, I WELCOMED the six-week Summer break. It gave me time out from rigid school timetables; chance to rest from the constant grind of having to wash uniforms over a weekend, of having to structure my working week around school days.

I hadn't the luxury of parents with who I could lodge my children, or of any extended family at all.

I don't believe in latchkey children. Nor were there such luxuries as the Internet to occupy my boys when they arrived home form school. Nor would I have allowed them unlimited access had such been available then......

I made sure that I never worked but during school hours. During holidays, I just didn't work - even though that meant being desperately short of money.

If a child has such a frittering mind as to forget for six weeks all they've learned during the previous terms in school, then I have to ask whether they will be capable at ALL of focus......

Erm, you would still get a month off. That's four whole weeks in summer.

That's plenty of time to do all the things you would normally do (unless you travel for 6 weeks every summer every single year)

BUT

You would also get 2 weeks off in October and February.

Schools also need maintaining then, diy needs doing then, holidays can be taken then and so on and so on much more easily then if it were one week.

'"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."

Hopefully once people have left school all the knowledge they acquired at school isn't likely to go 'down the pan' after 4 weeks? If so, what is the point of school?

"Any parent or teacher will tell you that it takes some time to get kids back into the habit of learning"

I think children are learning all the time (maybe/ maybe not school subjects). It isn't a habit, it's life. So I think you mean it takes time for some children to get back into the habit of being schooled.'

The thing is there are particular types of skills and knowledge that are needed at school that you may never need much more admittedly but which does require regular practise.

The research indicates that it's particularly maths that's affected so whereas children might well practise their reading, they don't generally practise maths.

Now, the sort of things or nothing that you and I value can STILL take place during the 4 weeks summer holiday (and proper downtime during the autumn and spring terms too which is currently quite difficult in only one week) but you wouldn't get quite so long off to forget stuff.

Now, I have very particular experience of this as a teacher and with myself and my own kids.

I forget stuff over the 6 week break. I may leave before summer knowing exactly what I want to achieve and of course I do some work over the holiday but it takes a long time back in September just to get back to teh place I was at in July before I can actually move forward.

I KNOW that my dcs' timetables which were pretty good at the end of the year end up going to pot as with other examples of their progress.

DC1 is really sporty and gets nowhere near the sort of training she needs to make proper progress. Likewise with music.

Now if this happens with me and dp (grown-ups, well sort of) and the children of teachers who are both off for 6 weeks with our kids. I reckon they take a good month to get back into the routine and start making progress again, then what is it like for those kids who are less fortunate?

Well, I'll tell you, because I teach a lot of them. It's rubbish. And some NEVER get back what they lose. Some of dps' pupils never come back after the summer holidays quite literally.

There are some things in life that have to practised little and often and this is MATHS, MATHS, MATHS.

In order to prove a point you may wish to argue but I think you know in your hearts that this is the same with your own kids.

Try it. Wait until the end of the holidays and then ask them to do something they had just got the hang of at the end of the year.

Of course, they may not be willing to even try, which is another thing about long holidays. You get very good at doing nothing and even getting up in the morning can become a challenge!

ragged, I think most people agree, that in order for this system to be truly effective, it would need to be adopted nationally. Agree, that it would be a nightmare to have some kids in one system and others in another. I would argue that that's a major reason why it hasn't already happened.

TBH, I think summer schools and other intervention programmes are a good idea anyway. It's one reason why America gets away with the even longer holidays than we have. But you would still have a whole month in summer.

I also think some of you are arguing from a very narrow perspective. Whereas I have been required to come up with copious reasons and provide lots of evidence for changing the holidays, those people who have argued from the other view have come up with not very much at all other than I like it the way it is because it suits my family (regardless of the fact that it may not be the best way for your kids to learn).

The number of families that 6 weeks holiday suits is actually quite limited because it requires at least one parent not to be working during that time.

6 weeks is very clearly not going to be good for those kids who are left unsupervised or badly supervised or those working parents who have to fork out for childcare (of varying quality) for that lenght of time.

Yes, of course, they'd still have to make arrangements for half-terms (which they would anyway) but the fact remains that as a parent 6 weeks is a much more worrying amount of time for your children to be looked after than 4. In holiday clubs, they'd get bored. Grandparents would be driven mad. The kids would get into more trouble. And it's a big financial outlay in one go.

Right, I'm off on my hols for a while. Hope you all enjoy yours.

Ok, just managed to read the whole thread and the think part of the problem on here is that fivecandles is arguing from the pov of a secondary teacher against a bunch of posters thinking about their primary aged children.

You see, as the mother of 3 primary aged children, I don't give a fig about any small regression they may make academically over the long summer break. This is because the summer hold gives me the opportunity as their parent to concentrate on the broader aspects of their education. It that means that their maths and English take a step back then that's fine by me. And fivecandles, before you say this is me looking at my own personal circumstances, I want to say that I think this thread has shown pretty consistently that that's how a lot of parents feel so I would expect that means there are thousands of parents who feel the same.

Though as I said, perhaps we're. Looking at it froma different angle. I know you say 4wks is still a long break but if you take a 2 wk family hol that only leaves 2 more weeks for r&r. I like to arrange lots to do but I also like to split that up with lots of days doing nothing but letting them mooch around the garden, climbing the trees and building dens. But of course, they won't wNt to do that at 14yrs so maybe it's something to look at in the secondary sector.

I also have to add that whilst I appreciate you are concerned about the effects on disadvantaged children, I don't believe you should set education policy based on the social needs of disadvantaged children. Im not suggesting these should be ignored or left unaddressed but they are a separate issue and the government need to address ways of helping those kids which are not detrimental to the enjoyment of lazy summers for a great number of families up and down the country.