Longer school holidays in private system

[winkywinkola]

Why?

We are just coming to the end of 3.5 weeks of Easter holidays. I'm wiped out!

Why do private schools have such long holidays?

I'm bracing myself for the 9 weeks summer holiday!

send them to the local comp then!
or was it some kind of 'stealth boast'?

No idea but it does seem the more you pay the less they're there!
Bloody annoying I agree!

Another mysterious thread. I clearly lead an entirely different life to most MNers as I find the term time exhausting and the school holidays a lovely break!

same here bonsoir, I love the school holidays.

Oh boohoo. Send them to state school then

Your kids are well behaved Bonsoir!

(So are mine, during the holidays.... )

I love the school holidays. My only problem is that my primary child is in the state system, and my secondary child in the private, so older child gets longer holidays and more time in front of the pc (or watching mummy work), and younger boy stomps his feet at the unfairness of life. (To teens amusement)

Saturday school? Longer school days? Boarding school?

I think that school holidays in all schools are a throwback to the past. In the private boarding system,back in the day, many children had long, slow journeys often by ship and rail to return home. So the schools used to have long main holidays and short half terms. But now they seem to have quite long half terms as well.

In both systems though holidays contine to revolve around Christian religious festivals and the summer harvest when young people were needed to help in the fields. No real reason to remain wedded to that rhythm.

Thanks for trying to answer why, Drinkstoomuchcoffee. Thanks also for the snarky comments, Parsnip and Sunny.

No Saturday school. Finish at 4pm so not that different.

It just seems too long for them me to properly get back into the swing of things and then, whoops, here comes the summer holidays. Then after the university length summer holiday, they then get a two week half term in October. It's all stops and starts imo.

sigh. Yes but you knew all that when you signed them up. Not sure why you are moaning about it now.

Well, mine were exhausted and thoroughly needed that break! Term times are very intensive. It may be a headache covering all the extra holiday but it's worth it IMO.

Ds's school week is longer so the longer holidays make up for it.

Expat here who is still amazed by the 18 weeks of holiday that private schools in the UK have. I reckon 12-14 would be perfect for my dc's, we do twiddle our thumbs for a week at Easter and a week or two in the summer.

Less breaks during the day?

I'm in Ireland and the summer break in primary is 9 weeks as standard (fee paying primary is 12). The fee paying primary holidays are longer here because they are in line with the secondary (state) holidays. But I can't tell you why they are in line with secondary!!

Possibly something to do with private boarding schools? Keeping the holidays the same?

Though half term is not longer here though. Maybe yours is the because of the extra bit on the day. It'd add up.

Private boarding schools tend to have longer holidays because (traditionally) lots of the pupils had families overseas (army or whatever) so it gave them the chance to see them properly. I don't think the holidays have changed in some. In the day schools a lot have a longer week. Ds starts at 08:45, finishes at just after 4pm. He doesn't have classes on Saturdays but a lot of schools do.

DD's does 7 extra hours a week compared to states schools (5hrs per day). 10 weeks term, 70 extra hours, equals 12 extra days compared to state sector. 3 terms 36 extra days, 7 extra weeks holiday - 3 in the summer, 0.5 autumn half term, 3.5 spread between Christmas and Easter.

My dd has only done a trial for a few days to give an insight as to what it will be like in september.
From all accounts it was full on from 7am until lights out at 8.45pm.
There was always something for them to do, even their free time was full on with their friends iyswim.
I'm sure that this wasn't fully representative of the true experience as they were just back from holiday.
I can see when they are really working hard that they will need the longer holidays.
Just from my brief experience it seems a world apart from the local primary/secondary state schools.

Long school holidays are a bit of a PITA in that I have to come up with creative childcare solutions (staying at home and watching me work breaks down into all out war after a couple of days) but I still find them less stressful than the relentless demands of term time routine and having to haul tired DC out of bed every morning.

Actually, what I find hardest of all is the transition. I spent yesterday interleaving work and yelling at the DC to collect up all the stuff that they were told at the beginning of the holidays to keep together in one place. What that mostly meant is that they would hover while I was on the phone and write me notes saying "where is my [random piece of school kit]?", and I would try and refrain from writing "how the hell would I know?" in reply. Combined with us all being a bit miserable about end of holidays, it was not pretty. They went back this morning and I still have a list of vital possessions to locate (including a jacket and tie - how the hell can we have lost those ?).

Gosh Sunny. Snippy much? Silly mare.

Yes, I did read about the long school holidays. But I guess the reality versus what you sign up to sometimes can be too much.

Please do forgive me for asking why this is the case and for feeling a bit weary after 3.5 weeks of entertaining the troops.

Oh and FWIW mine (day pupils, boarding school) definitely have a lot more "contact time" (so real lessons, even once you have stripped activities and sport out of the 54 hour core week they do) than in a state school timetable, which I would assume accounts for the longer holidays (well, that combined with the tradition dating from DC travelling from overseas, etc etc which others have mentioned) but it does confuse me why day schools with school days which are not (as far as I can see) much longer than a state school day still have much longer holidays than their state funded counterparts.

Sleuth my calculations are for a day school.

Morethan - I would say that your description fits pretty well with what it is like for my Y8 DC1 - and yes, it does continue that way all term, not just when they first go back. Hence it is pretty hard to get him to want to do anything other than stay at home for the first couple of weeks of any holiday.

Every time I receive the school called at I'm about the next holidays proximity .

But once we get there it is always desperately needed. Term time is just so full on. Long days , lots of clubs and sports, academic work ago-go.

Fair enough, Lonecat. It always surprises me how little actual lesson time there is in any school day when you work it out, so I guess a not huge difference in arrival/departure time does, as you illustrate, mount up pretty quickly to account for those extra weeks.

Dds have registration at 8.25am and finish at 4pm unless they are doing anything extracurricular. This means dd2 starts Thursdays at 7.40am and finishes at 5.05pm. Dd1 will finish at 5.45pm. This is one of the reasons physical proximity is so important. DS starts at 8.20am & finishes at 4.15pm. They were all really tired when the Easter term ended and needed a chance to sleep.

I would certainly think that if you do the maths that the schooling time accounts for the increased holiday times

As I mentioned the school holidays are longer here in Ireland, not only that the school day is shorter. But I compared it to my sisters' DCs' school day (also state school but in England) and the actual lesson time worked out to be the same as my DC have significantly shorter breaks during the day.