Shorter summer holidays for kids?

[WilfSell]

IPPR report here

I quite like the idea of five eight-week terms with two week holidays in between, and four weeks holiday in the summer, but not sure what the wider implications are.

The implications are that, with a shorter window for summer holidays, the holiday companies will rack up their prices even more.

I used to lve those long summer holidays

think it is terribel shame if they get rid of them

my kids become kids again

The issue in the report is the impact on kids' learning. I think it does have an impact on my son's reading and maths but not so much I am unduly worried. I suspect I would find more spread out holidays easier to manage with childcare options but I appreciate that won't be the case for everyone.

the teaching week is currenlty 39 weeks, no?

so the kids lose a week off in this scenario.

I think it would be good. With more families having 2 working parents it would help spread the chidcare, & give the kids more contact with their parents rather than formal childcare.

Also the long holidays are a bugger for interrupting the kids learning- teachers say it can take till autumn half -term for them to catch up & get going.

Historically the long summer holidays were because so many families went hop picking or helping with harvests, now we are a less agricultural nation it makes sense to adapt to the current situation.

But Freckle, what if everyone had the 2 week half term in June? Lots of people would go away then? Or even in October half term to catch the last of the sun... I would if I could... But I can't.

I loved those long summer holidays as a child, it was a wonderful feeling of time stretching ahead.

I love it as a parent-all that relaxed time with no timetables for things.

4 weeks is quite long when you're a kid though...

Mine are all climbing the walls by then anyhow (as are we) so I'm still not persuaded away from the idea yet...

Yeah but if you work, it is pretty tough to find suitable cover for such long periods of time. Shorter bits can be broken up more with us on holiday, kids at grandmas, playschemes etc...

This is an old idea that keeps cropping up - remember hearing about it when I was a teenager. And being vehemently opposed! Now I'm not so sure. Is four weeks a long enough holiday? There is something in what Abbey says.

I wonder what other countries do?

It sounds like a good idea but to gauge if I were in favour of it, I'd have to know to which months they were allocating the months. At the moment it sounds as though the summer holiday would be cut short and an extra week tagged onto February and October.

Maybe if they didn't abide by an exact 8 weeks all throughout the year they could maximise the holidays during the warmer months. So manybe the whole of July could be the summer holiday and then the children could have a 2 week holiday 6 weeks before that at the beginning of May and then 6 weeks after - in mid September.

There's no reason why the spacing has to be exactly 8 weeks or that the other holidays have to be 2 weeks long. Christmas and Easter needn't even be part of a 2 week holiday - if the ultimate goal is to shorten the current long summer holiday to aid learning.

I see lots of children as a childminder & I am alwys surprised at how tired they are after a long term (usually due to Easter moving).

I think we underestimate how much these long period of teaching affect them (& probably the teachers)

I heard about 6 six week terms with 2 weeks between each one and a bit longer in the summer - which I like the idea of, because they have less time to get tired & more time to recuperate

Hear hear KatyMac - I think 6 week terms would be great.

I love the way they grow over the summer. I love the way they really are children. I hate the fact that it sometimes seems to stretch so long but I love the pure relaxation in my children. And as to boredom... well that's not a bad thing. Allows them to think. I also love the fact that they (esp the older ones) get to reconnect with friends who are a different schools.

Lovely post, Mars. And good point - they get a decent chunk of time to be them, not merely pupils of X school.

My problem would be that they would have more time off during the winter months when you can't get out and do as much, and then be cooped up at school in the warmer months for longer. I loathe sending the children to school when it gets very hot, as schools don't have very adequate provisions to deal with the heat, a fan in the classroom doesn't really have much impact.

NO we need longer holidays for DC's. They need a good long break in the summer to grow from being a year x into a year x+1. They need to be bored so that they can use their imaginations to find something to do. They need to know that they have the whole summer to do all the things being at school doesnt allow them to do.

I'm all for 2 weeks at the end of each half term but aswell as the long summer not instead of.

We finish 25/7 and go back 1/9 thats just 5 weeks

My DC's need a week to recover from school before they really enjoy the summer and a week at the end to look for all the things they put away in a safe place

i don't want to turn this into a WOHM/SAHM debate but the long break thing only works like that if someone is at home. And not everyone has that luxury. In fact most people with school age children don't.

I love the long summer break. I also note that independent schools have even longer holidays than state ones (typically 8 or 9 weeks in the summer) and generally get better results. While there are other reasons for the improved results, I'm still a bit that a long break is detrimental to education.

I do appreciate that it is more difficult for working parents but it is do-able. It is something thats needs to be address as a whole community it effect everyone in every walk of life.

We had longer holidays we we were children (nearly 8 weeks) and my parents both worked.

I remember going back to school and hearing about everyone adventures and we all felt so much more grown up. We always needed new uniforms as we have physically grown out of everything but my DC rarely grow out of their uniform in the summer holidays.

Yes, Will, that thought occurred to me later. If there are several 2 week slots during the year, people can opt to take their usual 2 week break at different times, so the rush for holidays would be spread over the year rather than crammed into the summer months. Which is fine if you usually go abroad to somewhere hot, but not necessarily so fine if, like us, you tend to stay closer to home with rather dodgy weather prospects.