Are school holidays too long, or do kids really need that much time off?

[warrenettie]

Every summer I tell myself I’ll be more organised — plan activities, sort childcare, make it all run smoothly. And yet by week four I’m counting down the days until school starts again.
I get that kids need a break, but six or seven weeks feels like such a long stretch, especially for working parents. By the end of it, everyone’s tired, routines are gone, and screen time has crept way up.
On the other hand, I know some families love the slower pace and the chance to actually relax and spend proper time together. Maybe it’s just the way our work schedules clash with the school calendar that makes it feel harder.
What do you think — are school holidays too long, or is it adults who need to adjust our expectations?

I think the children are quite happy. But it's hard for working parents to sort and holidys are way too expensive in the school holidays.

I would love schools to run all year and children could book 8-12 weeks of holiday.
Staff of course too the weeks they are entitled to.

Yeah, I get what you mean. The costs during school holidays are ridiculous, and trying to sort childcare feels like a full-time job in itself. I actually love the idea of a more flexible system — it sounds so much more practical. Not sure how schools would manage it, but honestly, something needs to change because the current setup just isn’t working for a lot of families.

Of course schools can manage. Work places do it ll the time.

Of course you would have to in exam years to have periods pupils can't book as holiday so exams cab be sorted - but if you work for NHS december is a no go for holidays. So again it is a thing managed outside schools.

My kids went to school in the US and had almost 3 months off in the summer. It was absolutely magical for them, imo. That said, we completely relied on camp for at least two of those months which took them off our hands 5 days a week and sometimes they even went to sleep-away camp, which happily they loved. August we usually tried to get away somewhere as a family.

I think the problem in the UK is not the amount of time kids have off school in the summer but that there is nothing set up for them to do if the parents work. Camp is available to pretty much all kids in NYC at many different levels with much of it totally free for those who can’t pay. Often it’s nothing fancy- just some activities in the park or a visit to a museum but it is much loved by the kids and parents. I genuinely don’t know how most people in the UK manage. I know they do, what other choice is there, but it does sound difficult for a lot of people.

My guess is that many teachers will oppose reforms because they are used to having all weekends, holidays and school holidays off.
A lot of people work 24/7 and can't pick holidays. More flexibility in childrens' time off would help af lot of parents.

Teachers aren’t paid for all school holidays so the goverment would have to them more. That isn’t going to happen.

“I would love schools to run all year and children could book 8-12 weeks of holiday.
Staff of course too the weeks they are entitled to.”

Realistically how would that work though…. Teachers barely have time to teach the curriculum with increased needs so who is going to catch the children’s learning up from the weeks they missed?

Also who will plan the learning that occurs while the teacher is away - asking a teacher to plan for your holiday they are due will not work and teachers will walk and the teacher shortage will be worse

I think the kids really, really need it. Some kids are just exhausted by the time the holidays roll around.

I thonk we need much more flexibility with work, so it's not so stressful for parents, and better care options.

Kids also need time out of the classroom for non structured play.

I wish we didn’t work weekends and holidays! It depends on the school but I’ve always used some time on the weekends and holidays as work from home days. I think teachers would struggle with all their preparation and admin if they lost this non-contact time to get things done. Also, don’t forget that the days teachers aren’t teaching (with the exception of INSET days) are unpaid so the rise in teacher salaries if holidays were shortened would be fairly significant.
I do think that better and cheaper childcare for the holidays is important though.

We have some of the shortest holidays going. I actually think our children could do with more time off, not less.

You must realize though that whilst the majority of these times are unpaid, teachers do an awful lot of planning during them.

Yeah, I’ve worked for the first two days of half term and still have more to do. Maybe it’s not actually schools fault, but employers. Employers could be much more flexible for working parents.

Most of the teachers I know work late into the evening, over the weekend and during the holidays. Obviously not every single day but it is a myth that they get ‘13 weeks off a year’.

As for flexible leave education it may work for a week or two a year but can you imagine how difficult it would be to teach 30 kids if they all took leave at different times. Those saying workplaces cope ok, do you need to learn something new every single week in your role? Do you return from a weeks leave and find all your colleagues know something you don’t in several different areas relating to your company? Would your boss have to give a catch up session on everything you’ve missed whilst you were away? I think it’s hard enough for schools to differentiate when teaching as it is without the class all being off at different times. It would be impossible to pace any kind of group learning.

DD is in an independent secondary school. They have longer school days ir 8.30am-5pm plus most Saturdays (apart from 1 Exeat per half term) but longer holidays ie 9 weeks in summer, 3 weeks Xmas + Easter.
The 9 week summer is just too long but the others aren't, she's exhausted by the end of each term so needs a good break.
They are children and I think we already have some of the shortest holidays. What we need is better provision during the holidays.

They get 10 weeks in the summer in my country and my children think its too short!
It's fine for under 7s as they can go to nursery all holiday and its very affordable but after that there's no childcare at all in most of the country (but in the big cities where most people live there is often day camps and some places have free supervised playgrounds which provide lunch) so the children have to manage alone for part of the holidays at least (but its usual for parents to take their whole summer holiday at once so that's 4 weeks covered by one parent at least) but still there's not much call to shorten the holidays because its considered so important for children to get a decent break from studying.

Term time holidays are allowed too but its the responsibility of the student to catch up, not the teachers, and its the student that will bear the consequences if they don't (fail and be held back)

There’s a recruitment crisis in teaching. The long holidays are the only thing keeping people in the profession so I don’t think reducing them would help at all. As they are unpaid, pay would have to go up hugely too.

Where would the teachers come from who would cover the teachers who had booked time off for their own holidays? Would they know which children need educational support? Would they know which child had their own holidays last week and therefore has no clue what’s going on in maths? Would they know which children sometimes feel overwhelmed and need to leave the room for a while? Would they know… ?

I'd prefer longer at half term maybe 2 weeks as they do get tired and need a break but I don't think they need the 6 nearly 7 weeks at summer , could knock that down by 1-2 weeks and give them to the half terms I'd say it get a bit of a drag towards the end eve for the kids but can't see it ever changing tbh

The only thing I would consider changing is making summer 4 weeks and adding a week onto October and February half terms. We are currently on week 8 of this half term and it’s safe to say children and adults alike are exhausted!

There are many flaws in the idea above about parents being able to book any random 8-12 weeks off school. The biggest being consistency for teaching, children actually need to be there to learn what is being taught.

Leaving aside the educational impact: if children didn't all have their holidays at once presumably there'd be no holiday activities offered by other organisations - and older ones couldn't hang out with their friends in the school holidays. Isn't that quite miserable? What if some parents never booked holiday for their kids and so they went to school 52 weeks of the year - is that ok?

How on earth can you
compare the workplace to a school environment regarding taking time off?

I think summer is too short. I grew up in the states and had 3 months off which was lovely. The problem is the lack of camps etc. I’ve been lucky that the after school club runs a camp but I’d love if there were the sort of full summer options they had in lots of places where I grew up - I spent a summer at drama camp, science camp, and others.

Who is getting nearly seven weeks at a state school? Most school summer holidays are 5 and a half weeks with them only hitting 6 weeks if they use INSET days to cover the usually added Monday/Tuesday at the end of July.

Most of the points made earlier in this thread are not about what is best or right for the children but rather focused on how things could be better or easier for working parents. As that seems to be the focus, the issue isn't with schools and the length of school holidays, it's with employers and their lack of flexibility for working parents.

The suggestion upthread of year long schooling with bookable holidays is bonkers. We don't currently have enough teachers in the system to cover the existing hours, nevermind more. We don't currently have the money to pay for staffing, building upkeep, curriculum resources, etc. at the current level nevermind more. And it would also create a perpetual cycle of children developing huge gaps in their learning and needing intense 'catch up' every time each of them were away, requiring even more additional staffing.

Not at all, I think we need longer school holidays and it's workplaces that need to be more flexible. I hate how much of our year school controls. Life, for a large majority of people, is about raising children and grandchildren and that should be the priority. I want to be able to spend time playing with my kids they aren't little for that long.