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?

@Meadowfinch a godsend for everyone concerned. I work in a school with a 2 week October half term and everyone benefits from it. This is a very long term

My daughter is wanting to go back to school by week 4 as she misses everyone and really likes school so we’d rather it was spread out a bit more, maybe 2 weeks at May instead of 1 and do 5 in summer.

Agree. When we lived in Ireland, they were all set up for summer holidays for children as the secondary kids have 12 weeks off.

We never had an issue with finding a good value holiday camp for them.

Schools absolutely couldn't manage this.
30 children in a class, all missing random weeks, so Jonny has lost out on long division, Mabel has missed fractions, Lucy hasn't a clue about fronted adverbials - you'd be in a state of constant catch up. Oh, and Mrs Duckbone has gone for her cheap week on the Algarve in the middle of September so there's actually no one to teach the class anyway.
Unfortunately, schools don't run like businesses.

A friend of mine worked in an experimental school which didn’t have any set holidays as the children were from extremely deprived backgrounds where they wouldn’t eat or be taken care of when off school. Staff had a normal leave allowance and were covered by colleagues as happens in other workplaces, and the families could apply for holidays for the children as and when they needed. It was considered a successful model and worked fine. The children had individualised learning plans.

I think are children have less time off compared to other countries. So happy with the amount of time they have off . Maybe jobs should give more paid annual leave, but parental leave is available.

Not this again…is it just another ‘clickbait’ topic…

However, I prefer the approach in Europe and parts of the US. Shorter terms, shorter days. More quality ‘other provision’ to develop the whole child. Sport, crafts, art, drama, forest school etc etc. Good training programmes in play and broad range of skills for staff. The roles given much more prominence, respect and pay.

Michael Gove in his time as Conservative MP and Ed. Sec.ruined and restricted the curriculum for our ‘whole child’. So limiting.

Other provision would need to be subsidised by the government and by private business. Perhaps access/subsidies offered as a perk of jobs, paid for by companies.

In the part of Spain I lived, children attended school 8.00-13.30 with a 15 minute break to eat a sandwich and another break as downtime (inside/outside).
Returned home for siesta and back to other provision 16.00 till 18.00. Of course this fits with Spanish working life, businesses also closed in the heat of the afternoon.

Much longer holidays during the summer, supported by other provision and the family/community.

In parts of the US, children attend 4 days a week. Friday is homeschooling day, allowing teachers time for planning (at home). Again jobs are planned around this. Businesses accepting the flexibility parents need. Other provision in place.

A bigger change through review, including children’s views, employees and employers would be great.

I think the amount is ok but the 6 wks in the summer as one block is too long. I think a 2 week may half term, 2 week October and 4 weeks August would work better.

I think it should be 4 weeks at summer and add the extra two weeks somewhere like Easter/May, but I think the overall time off is correct and I say that as someone who has two kids aged ten years apart & has been a single
parent working full time. They’re only young once and it does get easier when they hit yr 8/9 and can occupy themselves/spend time with friends. They have many decades to get used to the misery of work & limited time off, especially if they don’t go to uni.

Absolutely. All schools could achieve this if staff just worked a bit harder.

Great idea, but loads of financial and legal implications due to:

• Smaller class sizes ( no way can that level of care and learning be offered by one adult with 30+ children)
• More staff to meet small class sizes and to ensure consistency and stability when staff members take their holidays
• More planning time/support to manage individual plans so that children do not have gaps in their learning.
• A rewrite of the National Curriculum so that this can be delivered at a different place, reflecting individual planning, pupil time off etc.
• Changes to teacher and TA contracts to reflect increased working hours per year, increased salary and to reflect that all staff can take holidays at any time
• Increased safeguarding staff and headteacher/leaders to ensure schools meet legal requirements when staff members are absent through their holidays.

I can never get over how short the English school holidays are. Mine have 9 weeks in primary and my eldest DC finishes the last week in May next summer so off then until September. Also the school day is much shorter. My six year old finishes at 1.10 every day. And we have a presidential election tomorrow so most primary schools are being used as polling stations so most children are finishing today for the mid term break.

I’d like to see half term changed to 2 weeks and Christmas & Easter to 3! Keep summer how it is! School holidays are too short already, I’d hate for them to make them even shorter. I think it would be very bad for young people’s mental health.

Yes this. Children need less school and more experiential learning.
We can see how secondary school is too much for so many kids. Learning only to pass exams, memorising 14 poems, ensure key words are included because understanding something in your own words isn’t enough, doing the same 3 books to death for gcse. This is what it’s like. must be such a struggle for both kids and teachers.
kids need more down time, not less.

We have 2 weeks in October and 5 in the summer and I think it's a much better balance. 5 weeks is still plenty long enough to properly switch off! Plus it's such a long run from September to Christmas so the two weeks in October is excellent!

If there was a way to balance it without making the summer any shorter I'd love all half terms to be 2 weeks so they get a proper break.

I get more annoyed with the obsession of having the summer half term on the second May bank holiday. Last year that meant a 4 week half term and then an 8 week one. The kids were exhausted by the end of the last term.

Individual learning plans? Staff covering each other's classes?

I'm willing to bet they weren't teaching classes of 32.

What was the criteria for success?
I am willing to bet that staff health and wellbeing wasn't part of it.

I think we need to see a right to request (and not unreasonably deny) term time working for parents of children. Children do need the time off and I think as a society we should move toward our work and economy serving the needs of families rather than families always having to adjust to the insatiable appetite of unchecked capitalism.

Yes. I think just the fact that children all taking different holidays has even been suggested just shows that people have no idea how schools have to organise things to mass educate thirty children at a time. What goes on in school is just invisible to them- it's just some building they drop the kids off at, and the less it costs the better.

Ha. Good one.

Of course, any change has financial implications. They could access different budgets because some of the things they were delivering went beyond education. The legal requirements were obviously different from the ones you mention because this was not in the UK. My friend's salary was also significantly higher than a teacher's in the UK and higher than a conventional school in her country. And yes, of course they had more staff.

Mine are at independent school and therefore get even longer holidays (currently on 2 weeks half term) and they need it. They’re so busy in term time with sports clubs/fixtures, homework etc that they’re exhausted by the holidays.

She was very happy in the job and did it for some years. There were more staff and staff absence was covered by a teacher who didn't have their own class, it didn't mean that other teachers had to work more because one was on holiday. She said it compared favourably to her previous job in a conventional school.

The class sizes were 25 but this was the same in conventional schools in her country, not an exception

So sadly, a great idea but not likely to work here.☹️

Innovation and new ideas should be explored though.