Brighton & Hove City Council considering changing school term times - what do you think?

[JaneMumsnet]

Hello,

We've been asked to comment about a news story about changes to school term times, and would love to hear your views.

You may have read that Brighton and Hove City Council is considering changing school term times to make it more affordable for families to go on holiday.

The city council is exploring the possibility of cutting the summer holidays and creating a "standalone" week's holiday when parents could take advantage of cheaper prices without having to take their children out of school.

What do you think about how this will affect parents?

As always, we'd love to hear what you think, and whether or not you think these changes would work.

Many thanks,

MNHQ

NameChanger22

Companies don't increase their prices in school holidays - they reduce the prices of holidays at times when demand is much lower. Like you pay more to go to soft play or indoor skiing or suchlike on a weekend or school holiday than you would on a weekday. Or you pay more to rent a cottage in Cornwall in June than in January. If a company can sell all its holidays for £1k a week in school holidays, what business sense would it make for them to sell them at £600 instead? They are not charities.

stoke used to have potters holiday in june.

dh said he'd go on holiday and bump into people from school as they all went to the same place at the same time.

I think it's a great idea. But, I live in Brighton which is good but teach outside of Brighton so my children's holiday will not tally up with mine!

I think it's sort of a good idea in theory but in practice it has the potential to be a colossal clusterfuck.

As others have pointed out, there will still be families just as disadvantaged by these rules as they are by the old ones. I think that councils should be providing clear, written criteria on what is considered to be exceptional circumstances so that anyone disadvantaged by it has the chance to obtain approved time off. The present situation leaves it to head teacher discretion so you have some schools issues blanket bans, regardless of circumstances, while others will allow it in some situations and not others. Written criteria of what does/doesn't constitute exceptional circumstances (with any 'grey area' issues referred to the individual school governers for consideration) alongside the change in term dates would probably resolve a lot of issues people have with the current system.

I'm dubious. What if you have 1 child at school in B&H, and one elsewhere - that would be a pain.

Many families like to go away for 2 weeks, so the random 1 week wouldn't necessarily help there.

And what about holiday club provision? Many of the holiday camps round here are run by thirs parties at private schools (but anyone can pay and go). So they wouldn't be running in the random week off - would the state schools host them instead? But presumably if they had the appetite or facilities to do that, they'd be doing it already to earn a bit of extra cash!

Far better to just relax the term-time holiday rules again!

Far better to just relax the term-time holiday rules again!

They could publish dates when absolutely no leave will be approved, e.g. exam weeks, but for the rest of the school year have leave requests considered on a case by case basis (using a national, written criteria for what is/isn't exceptional circumstances as I mentioned in my earlier post). Make it a maximum of ten days over two school years. Also, give people leeway when it's the very end/very start of the school term. Missing the final two days of summer term won't result in a lifetime of delinquency, nor will missing the very first day back at school.

A combination of staggering term dates across regions and returning to a more flexible approach to authorising absences would be an ideal combination.

I believe that most parents are responsible and don't wish to take their children out of school unnecessarily. Longer half terms in October or May and staggered terms would alleviate the pressure on holiday dates and prices. More flexibility in authorising absences would address the issues where siblings or parents are in different counties. the suggestion of 10 days every 2 years is a good one.

Whe adults choose a career in education they know they are signing up to fixed holiday dates but this is not the case for pupils, they have no choice. The edict refusing time off for children except in the most exceptional circumstances borders on unwarranted state infringement of our rights to a family life.

FWIW I am very supportive of my DCs education but have not thought twice about taking them out for a few days for holidays when necessary to tie in with my husband's somewhat inflexible job. One is now in at a top 5 Uni and the others doing well in Sixth form and below and have not suffered at all, quite the contrary in fact. I wouldn't go beyond the five days limit for a fine though as it could get quite expensive!

I think people saying that rules over taking holidays should just be relaxed are missing some of the point.

It wouldn't matter to us if we had more flexibility over when we could take DC out of school as DH is a teacher and presumably wouldn't be allowed the same flexibility.

So we'd still be restricted to school holidays only.

When adults choose a career in education they know they are signing up to fixed holiday dates but this is not the case for pupils, they have no choice

Love the idea that parents of school-age children are entitled to holidays whenever they want but not teachers.

Don't you know as parents that you are signing up to fixed holiday dates when you have DC that will eventually be at school? And presumably that comes to an end when the DC leave school so it's not like it's forever.

I have two children, they go to different schools and those schools don't have the same holidays - they are both in the same area but are academies rather than local authority controlled - does this make a difference as to whether the school can set their own holidays?

The holidays are broadly the same however dc1 breaks up a week earlier for the summer and dc2 has 2 weeks in October whereas dc1 only has one. Their inset days are generally different.

It is a MONUMENTAL pain in the arse. DC1 is at secondary but not old enough yet to be left in the house all day on her own. Finding childcare for her is a pita. I'm out of the house 7.45-6 Mon-Friday, DH works from home a couple of days a week but is otherwise out for similar hours. We try and take all our annual leave to cover school holidays, but the dc's having different holidays only extends the number of weeks we need to try and cover or pay for childcare for. Inset days are a particular pain in the arse for the exact same reason, if both schools were the same it would halve the number of days we needed to find cover for.

I see no reason why all schools can't have the same holidays tbh. Agree with pp's re. entitlement to holidays - it's supply and demand. If it was the same cost all year round, it wouldn't be the same price as the cheaper weeks anyway.

Probably won't happen for the same reason the Nottingham City, Nottinghamshire out of synch holiday's failed. Teachers usually don't live that close to their schools and have problems if their children's school holidays are not the same as their own.

The edict refusing time off for children except in the most exceptional circumstances borders on unwarranted state infringement of our rights to a family life.

I disagree. It's annoying and expensive, but an infringement of our rights to a family life? Really? Do teachers automatically opt out of the right to a family life by signing their contracts?

The holiday companies will just put their prices up to suit. Where we live the holidays are different times and we used to be able to go away at term time prices but now it's the same price for most places.

I think prices out of Gatwick would just go up those weeks B&H were off very soon.

Overall I think this is probably a good idea. Though I'd like to see the government stop criminalising parents for deciding when to take their children out of school, I also think it would be good if schools made it easier for families to go on holiday in holiday time.

But there are pragmatic considerations that they need to look at carefully. For instance, given the current teacher recruitment issues, this might make it harder for Brighton and Hove to staff their schools, especially around the borders. And if all schools went with extending the summer half term holiday, would there end up being much of a price benefit or would the expensive week just move from the summer holiday to the extended half-term?

Staggered holidays across the whole UK would be great. Why does the whole country need to break for the same 6 weeks, far more sensible to stagger them between June and September. That way there won't be such a surge demand for holidays in a particular time period. In Germany each state has different school holidays and it works very well.

2 weeks in October is pretty rubbish if you can't go away though- often wet and miserable in the UK and all the summer things have closed down!

staggering the holidays between JUne and September would have a massive impact on exams. If the exam season doesn't finish till nearly the end of Juen, you have some areas where the DC have to be in school during their area's June holiday. And then what happens in the September holiday area? The DC are finished exams in June, but what do they do during the last two months of term? They'll have missed out on teaching earlier in the year, due to the previous year's September summer holiday, so they'll be disadvantaged over the June holiday people.

stollenlover - this is a great suggesting until:

1. you end up with your children in different local authority areas and they have different school holidays.

1. you live in one area but teach in another (surprisingly common) so you can then hardly ever be off at the same time as your own kids.

1. you have a small workplace with say 6 staff all of whom want a two week break with their kids over the summer. someone will miss out.

the idea of extending the October or Feb holiday is great if you can afford to go abroad. otherwise its a wet fortnight in filey year after year.

The previous system of school holidays in term time wasn't perfect but at least it got over the problems of the above particularly with regards to number 3. I remember when I was a child my dad worked in a very large distribution depot. they had 4 weeks holiday a year allocated as a 2, 1,1 . they were random, completely random. if you had kids and it wasn't in school holidays you tried to swop. if you couldn't swop you took them out in the term time.

There are lots of people with fixed holidays due to their jobs and the latest policy takes no real account of this.

it also doesn't look at the child and their needs at all. its a massive sledgehammer that has failed to crack the nut of poor attendance. sure the figures have gone up but derrrrrr of course they have. the real underlying issues of educational poverty - kids habitually missing first period or who are off "sick" a couple of times a month - haven't been touched.

its all smoke and mirrors. the govt don't actually care, they just care that their figures on attendance look better which of course they do.

so many of the MP's privately educate their kids anyway and the rules don't apply to these schools so why should they give a toss about the plebs.

Nottingham City has done this - five week summer, two week Oct half term. Is that the model B+H is thinking of following?

Notts County hasn't made the same change. Interesting to read the view above that Nottingham's change has failed. To clarify, it is ongoing - so not failed as in scrapped. There must be a huge number of cross border teachers with children who find it inconvenient, so I sympathise with the opinion from that pov.

Whether it works well for the Nottingham pupils is a different question - I don't know the answer, or whether it's yet been measured in any objective way.

I guess for the moment it probably works well at providing a 'cheap holiday' week, as Oct half term is timed fairly consistently across local areas, so the other week is off peak. That would be less the case at times like Easter when the same hol is at different times across different areas already e.g. Derbyshire hols are usually a week earlier than Notts (so there've always been cross border issues there). Also, it will stop working if lots of other areas do the same thing - the earlier week will no longer be off peak. From that pov a separate, extra mid-term week would work better.

And yes, I'd be interested to see figures for how many Nottingham City families go away in the earlier Oct week, if that is part of the intention. I thought it was driven more by an educational objective of creating more, shorter terms.

We have 2 weeks in October but holidays from local airports are substantially dearer then.

We finish at the end of June/start of July but strangely I have found holidays to be cheaper end of July/start of August

Whatever system is suggested, it there will be advantages and disadvantages for everyone

Really? Changing the school term dates to fit in with holiday companies?
If all the schools do that then won't the prices just be higher on that week off?
The longer the better for summer holidays, I think.