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?

But what that survey shows is that a lot of parents do not feel positively about the length of school holidays. In fact only a quarter disagree with the idea that school holidays are too long. So, in fact, a lot of the views here are unrepresentative of how most parents feel.

And that stands to reason doesn't it? The real worry is the parents who are not able or willing to supervise their children properly during the summer holidays. And they're not likely to be on here are they?

But having said that. Those of you on here are not actually doing a brilliant job of providing educational and socially useful experiences for their children during their holidays either are you???

fivecandles I am sitting here because my children are outside with their adored Grandma and our dogs.

The weather is glorious.

I am not vouching for the long summer because I don't think a month is long enough to fit things in I am vouching for iut for the opposite. It is an extended period of time to mooch, chat, play sport, walk outside. My dc get eight weeks and I think it is highly beneficial. We spend a lot of it doing nothing much. Which is as it should be.

Everything in life can't be about academics...surely?

As I say I can see that reducing state holidays to five weeks with a two week May half term could work.

But increasing October or February would imho simply rob DC of the time to be outside pottering and playing.

I also find it slightly amusing that those of you arguing for the value of spending time with your kids on holiday are all sitting on here

I am with my DS. He is at home, so am I. He is outside doing what little boys should be doing this time of year - playing and enjoying the sunshine.

fivecandles with experience of the US system, it is being argued over there as a cost cutting measure (in California, Nevada and Arizona they already use the system Obama is talking about), with schools merging and children being on a rota system so more pupils can be enrolled in 1 school. Not so good if your children are not in the same stream (holiday rota) friends of ours had 3 DCs and they all had different holidays even though they were at the same school. Don't think that comes into the arguments for here unless we are going to start merging schools and using rota systems.

As for independent schools choosing their holidays yes they can but I do have DCs who are not boarders yet and at state schools so if you mess with their holidays then it will affect us hugely as a family. We regularly move during the August break as well so shortening it will give us less actual holiday time with our DCs spending all of it unpacking boxes

I also find it slightly amusing that those of you arguing for the value of spending time with your kids on holiday are all sitting on here I am in the kitchen doing this whilst watching my 3 DCs who are off school (1 hasn't broken up yet) draw and write at the table, they are writing a cake recipe so that in a little while we can make daddy a birthday cake for tomorrow

What are you doing fivecandles where are your DCS?

'Everything in life can't be about academics...surely?' word factory exactly - and I also used to take a couple of weeks to relax, so does DS1, at Christmas he'd just started to slow down and it was time to go back.

brettberk.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/april07asrfeature.pdf

'Prior research has demonstrated that summer learning rooted in family and community
influences widens the achievement gap across social lines, while schooling offsets those
family and community influences. In this article, we examine the long-term educational
consequences of summer learning differences by family socioeconomic level. Using data
from the Baltimore Beginning School Study youth panel, we decompose achievement
scores at the start of high school into their developmental precursors, back to the time of
school entry in 1st grade. We find that cumulative achievement gains over the first nine
years of children?s schooling mainly reflect school-year learning, whereas the high
SES?low SES achievement gap at 9th grade mainly traces to differential summer
learning over the elementary years. These early out-of-school summer learning
differences, in turn, substantially account for achievement-related differences by family
SES in high school track placements (college preparatory or not), high school
noncompletion, and four-year college attendance.'

fivecandles I think it si extraordinarily narrow minded of you to assume that dc must be supervised by either school or parents tpo be learning anything or doing anything of value.

They have siblings, you know. And grandparents. And friends. And neighbours. And sometimes they play alone .

Yesterday we had two other DC here and I barely saw any of them. They played a table tennis tournement, then made a film of Harry Potter's Funeral on a phone

It's just a cheap shot to make your point. But I think you know that.

we aren't arguing there aren't issues but maybe it is more to do with parenting (or lack of) than you admit. Putting kids in school won't solve it, unless you want to pick up all the "poor" kids and send them away to school so that they aren't influenced by outside issues such as non interested parents, lack of respect and support for education and ability to not let their kids run riot and vandalize everything they see during the holidays as they are not being supervised (unlike mine)

word yours are loosely supervised I assume (as in you are there when things get out of hand) am on the same page as you really am talking about small children roaming the streets with no boundaries as to where they are or are not allowed

But yes, I do take the point that the attainment gap increases over the summer holiday.
When I read Outliers Malcom Gladwell mnakes this point.

I don't think the answer though is to make all dc have shorter summer holidays, even those who clearly benefit from it.
That must be a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Wouldn't it be better instead to offer summer schemes to disadvantaged children?

I would hate the school holidays to be shortened. I am German and the summer holidays are an opportunity for the children and myself to really connect with my german family and friends, not just a snatched visit but real proper time spent together. I know many families for whom it is the same.

where I was here to extinguish fires or apply field dressing as necessary.

And also to dole out drinks and squares of chocolate to the wounded.

emanka I think that is the case for many, even those of us whose family are in the uk but hundreds of miles away.

Life is not like it was a hundred years ago. We don't all live next door to Nanna and Gramps. Auntie Mable isn't around the corner.

Once again, nobody is planning on getting rid of any holidays.

I'm still struggling to see how FOUR WEEKS is not going to be long enough to fit in all that surfing on the net whilst your kids entertain themselves valuable family time.

Right, my kids have been out washing the car with their dad. They're coming in in a sec and I'm going to take them out for the rest of the day.

And remember, I'm the one arguing that holidays are too long. Perhaps the rest of you should go and put your money where your mouth is and do something worthwile with your kids

Yes it would, when we were in the US my eldest 2 DCs went on a special summer camp because DH was deployed over the summer, which apparently made them disadvantaged they did extra lessons, put on a show and did a lot of work about how to cope with separation. The US government paid for it all, even though mine are not American, they had a wail of a time and learnt a lot. This is what we need here. Oh and when we first moved to the US I took my DCs out of school early here so they would get their 6 week break, otherwise they would have moved and gone back to school in 3 weeks, they needed it and so did I

I still don't buy the argument about poor children underachieving because of the long break. Would it make any difference if the holidays were at different times. At least if the weather is good you can go out and you do not have to be cooped up in the house with the children.

In the 40's and 50's no one had any money and there were still long holidays. Working class people were socially mobile. My parents both came from poor backgrounds and have done well in life.

fivecandles cheap shot, mine have written book reports, visited the library, drawn pictures of their dads birthday cake and experimented with how much different things weigh (yes the scales appear to be todays new toy) so we are doing things, maybe I am just a quicker at typing than you

fivecandles I pray you are not a teacher because your regular posting style of belittling those who don't agree and scoring points is both passive aggressive and unimaginative (and as a writer I can give no worse condemnation).

word I think she has run off to spend time with her DCs something we are all apparently neglecting to do by being on here (looks round at birthday cake that DS has just made sitting in oven and thinks gosh how did that happen I wasn't paying any attention to the little cake fairy who put that there)

I'm still struggling to see how FOUR WEEKS is not going to be long enough to fit in all that surfing on the net whilst your kids entertain themselves valuable family time.

Many things. I have already had three weeks holiday. Now on the scheme of things advocated by yourself I would be back at work next week!

So what have I dont so far? The first week I spent winding down and we did very little - a few trips shopping for "pleasure and having time together.

Last week I spent sorting out my deceased aunts estate ( next of kin) . We travelled to her home 200+ miles away . This was a job I have been unable to do earlier because of work committments and because of the very poor weather conditions over the Christmas holiday and February ( just after she died). Her house and effects have had to wait until now.

On my list of things still to be done - the garden tidy and hedge cutting, painting the pantry and new Kitchen flooring for DW ( she asked Easter but I couldnt manage it because of weather and other things).

I then have some DIY to do around the building - again things that I havent had a weekend or decent weather in the last holidays to do.

Then I might snatch another week just having time with my family before going back to work. Education is very intensive ( I appreciate how the children feel and how tired they are) . I worked in industry and found I had less holiday but generally far more time for personal things. Thats why school kids need these holidays ( and so do I). Shorter summer holidays and longer ones at times when you do little other than huddle around the fire are not the way to go. DC's need to get out and en joy what we have of the decent weather in my view. Its all part of their learning and growing up.

More to the point maybe is why fivecandles seems to think four weeks is enough and why she feels that two week half terms in soggy weather is better. What are we all supposed to do ( or not do) in our holidays? How much time in her prescribed life are we supposed to give to our families because obviously she feels family life and time is distracting from the real im portant thing in life - which is???? Passing exams and meeting standards and going to school?

Or am I missing something here?

I'm with you Jabed. I work in education and guess what I only get paid pro rata but I like the long Summer break. I get loads done in the house and it is good to unwind. My DC enjoy it too. Why should it have to change?

On balance I'm in favour of the redistribution of holidays. DS is on last day of KS1 (so I'm not ignoring him!). Yes he's shattered & they are all clearly ready for a long holiday. But a month is a long holiday.

He has though been far more tired & his school work taken a dip as we have approached each Xmas. The autumn term is far too long.

I'd go for moving a week to Whit & another week to Oct. What everyone does in the holidays is up to them. Warm weather admittedly makes it nicer but it's not a prerequisite. You can still get out for bike rides, to kick leaves, walk on a beach even and make Halloween stuff in Oct.

I would hate to lose the long summmer holidays, my kids would hate it even more.

Yes there is some learning loss over the summer in academic terms, most of which can be made up by reading one book per week over the summer break - or just six (Summer Reading Challenge in Libraries anyone?). The research I was reading earlier this year (all of it from the US) made that clear, and also that the learning loss was more for children from deprived backgrounds, so the conclusion was that poverty and other factors were much more important than the length of the summer break.

As others have said, the non-academic learning that children do over the summer is at least as important as the learning they do in school. Especially for my 2 AS DCs.

On a more practical note, we live in Scotland, the weather has been awful this year (and much of last year), except for April. The kids need to get out in the fresh air and what sunshine there is as much as possible - more time in October might be OK, but at Christmas and in February? no thanks. The likelihood of high season holiday prices all year round would make it far more expensive for us to go on holiday as a family with 4DCs, and we would be less likely to get away even every second year.