Head teachers debate changes to long summer break...

[HercShipwright]

www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/04/schools-teaching?CMP=twt_fd

I used the article's headline as my thread title, but it doesn't adequately represent the thrust of the article - it seems that they are considering advocating not just shortening the long summer break but also the staggering of holidays around the country. I'm not sure this could ever work, given the rigid nature of public exam dates, but my main concern is what would happen to thinks like national youth music ensembles, national youth drama and dance things, summer schools etc. If holidays were mixed up all over the country, how would they be able to organise and run these so that every kid had the opportunity to audition and attend? It seems to me that all the current ideas we are hearing about shaking things up - longer school days, changed holidays - strike (perhaps not intentionally) at arts ed. And maybe sports development too. Very worrying.

[TheWordFactory]

rollon the evidence seems to suggest (though it's quite old) that the more privileged children are, the more benefit they will gain from the long Summer.

Since the majority of DC at private school are privileged, most will benefit from the long break.

Similarly, priviledged DC at state school should feel the same advantage.

I suppose the question is whether we address that difference in benefit by removing it for all (in state school), so everyone's in the same boat so to speak.

[rabbitstew]

So, it's actually about lowering overall academic achievement, then.

[rabbitstew]

Maybe we should bring back children helping with the harvest. My father told me it used to be great fun coming down from London to help pick hops in Kent.

[rabbitstew]

Still, not everyone is a Londoner close to Kent, though, and it's more soft fruits in straw these days, which some people are allergic too. Obviously not fair to benefit a small minority who could enjoy the Kentish sunshine all summer.

[boys3]

just a minor point, but isn't the hop harvest in September? A rhetorical question as that is indeed when it is.

The presumption that the long summer holiday is founded on children taking in the harvest - a Govism so therefore must be accepted without question - is open to discussion. Here's an article on it from the TES

www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6019148

I'm no agrarian expert, but conventional wisdom is not always necessarily right - flat earth, sun revolves around it, Copernicus and Gallileo bad people for daring to suggest otherwise - we just have a different variant of the Spanish Inquisition today.

my point really is that exploring alternatives is usually a good thing and that should apply to this debate, as opposed to a simple black and white mindset.

That's all a bit serious - time for and a bit of John & Greig :)

[rabbitstew]

Of course the hop harvest is at the beginning of September - people used to get time off school to do it (another reason for it being fun). Term time holidays - another thing we need to reintroduce... Given that not everything can be harvested over the summer holidays, anyway, hence harvest festival not being in August, it's all quite obviously a load of baloney that people got great long holidays in the summer just because of harvesting of crops. It's not as if long summer holidays were invented at the same time as mass education, is it? Prior to then, I don't think the people going to school were the people doing the harvest, anyway. They probably wanted time off to shoot a few grouse, though.

[rabbitstew]

Not to mention lots of time to get to and from the colonies.

[rabbitstew]

I reckon people took time off in the summer because cities used to stink to high heaven in the summer heat. Much better to get away if you were rich enough, to somewhere with fresh air and healthy sunshine.

[Tansie]

"I like having 6 weeks in July and August when the weather is nice" - how, rollon, do you propose that The Authorities guarantee this?

A leetle, can I say- um- fatous. Sorry. Non MN but FGS, what do you want "if the weather is shite"? Hmm?

[Whathaveiforgottentoday]

I worked at a school that reduced the summer to 5 weeks and had 2 weeks in October. Plus all terms were 6 weeks so sometimes Easter hold ended up at a funny time. I loved it as broke up the long autumn term and you could get away at that time.
I think the 6 weeks is lovely for those who can afford to go away, book kids in holiday camps etc but for some kids with working parents who can't afford these luxuries it's a long boring 6 weeks and I think for these families a shorter summer would be beneficial.

[rollonthesummer]

Fatous?

[rabbitstew]

Why boring? What are these kids doing? Are they locked in their bedrooms and not allowed out to meet up with their friends? Are they the only children in a 3-mile radius?

[rabbitstew]

I'll bet, if they have computers, they're choosing to lock themselves in their bedrooms...
Is the argument that some kids find 6 weeks without school boring, or that that they don't know how to use their free time constructively so ought to be kept under control at school, or that so many children are now so poor and in such dangerous surroundings that they can't leave their homes safely anyway, unless it's to go to school?

[rabbitstew]

If two parents working full time means children are bored and under-occupied unless they are at school, isn't that admitting that schools are being asked to take over a parenting role, or was it never a parent's role to stimulate their children?

[Bonsoir]

The harvest is not the point.

A chance of sunny days outside to rest and have a change if scene is a much more relevant argument.

[Blu]

Children in poverty will have even more miserable hols if the holiday weeks are moved to cold, wet and windy months of the year. At least parks are free.

All very well if you can go off ski-ing in the Feb half term (that one is the pits for arranging affordable activities, IME) and the Canaries in October.

I'm not in poverty, but I would be very against holiday weeks being shifted to colder parts of the year.

And as for different holidays working in Australia - is that different holidays for different suburbs of Melbourne - or a difference betwen Canberra and Perth?Because if so, no family is likely to have a child or parent in each time period.

The fixed timing of exams will determine it in the end. As soon as someone does a study demonstrating that children who take holidays in one pattern in relation to exams do better, all schools will adopt that pattern.

[Soveryupset]

I was one of those poor children. I lived in a hot country where school holidays were mid June until mid September and I have very miserable memories of our summers.

We lived very close to the beach (10 miles or so) but I never went once during my childhood. Or maybe I did but it was so rare I cannot really remember. We spent all summer with the shutters down in the dark and I remember most of the time my mum in bed or shouting and my dad busy trying to make ends meet. My school friends mainly went away with family all summer and returned happy, recharged and tanned, whilst I remember returning very pale and with dark circles from lack of day light and food. I remember going hungry too.

My mum says we were too poor to afford the petrol or bus journey to the beach but I suspect she had given up and felt depressed. I remember lots of arguments and spending all summer in a room bored out of my skull - there was only so much reading a child could do.

Some children were allowed to play outside on the streets but we weren't as the area wasn't nice and my mum was worried about our safety. We were sometimes farmed out to complete strangers who took us on holiday out of pity and I remember feeling very deeply uncomfortable and rather preferring to be hiding in my room than being taken away and bought things out of charity, especially as I was older and understood my predicament.

I don't know what the answer is, but having lived it as a poor child, I know how deeply miserable long summers were.

[Bonsoir]

Soveryupset - your story is very sad.

Nonetheless, it would appear that poverty was not the only issue preventing you from enjoying your summer holidays.

I very much believe that public authorities have a role to play in occupying children during holidays.

[Soveryupset]

Thanks Bonsoir

The council ran a free holiday scheme where we lived and my brother and I went for 2 weeks - I was 15 and he was 10 - it was the best holiday of our lives. Unfortunately the scheme was closed down for lack of funding...but I think something like that would really work.

I am also not convinced that my situation would have been better if the holiday year was reshuffled....I just think it is a problem that needs addressing for children.

[Nocomet]

blu I agree a 100%. Parks are free, living out here cycling the lanes and playing in the woods is free.

Little girl next doors family haven't the money for day trips (1/2 the time their car is broken), but they have managed a cheap trampoline and big paddling pool.

DD2 and her love having water fights. Even at 13 they did on the one warm day of Easter.

Simply being able to send small DCs out into a tiny back yard and let them make a mess with paint, chalk or just spray bottles of water and brushes makes life massively easier.

Wet Feb 1/2 terms are endless.

[Whathaveiforgottentoday]

I agree with you rabbitstew but years of listening to what kids get up to in the summer holidays suggest that some parents don't do parenting during the holidays and some kids get very bored. The parents maybe largely to blame but I still feel 5 weeks in the summer is sufficient.

Personally, I used to love the long summers as we used to be out and about playing and knew how to occupy ourselves and so do my kids.

[morethanpotatoprints]

Children in poverty or looked after get a really good deal here, and so they should.
There are free events and both indoor and outdoor activities organised throughout the holidays.
They are staffed between a mix of volunteers and salaried play organisers for the LA. Others can attend and parents use as a holiday club, it costs £5 per day but dc have to be in juniors to attend.

[rollonthesummer]

Sovery-that's a really sad tale, but I feel poverty and the long summer holidays really weren't the cause of your unhappiness.

[MumTryingHerBest]

Bonsoir “I very much believe that public authorities have a role to play in occupying children during holidays”. I would love to hear your reasoning behind that comment.

Sovery [big hugs] I know nothing will change what you have gone through and, without a doubt, there are other children, not just those brought up in poverty, who will forever live with the dire life experiences that you were subjected to.