by It’s easy to feel nostalgic about long summer breaks from school. Once it meant riding bikes with friends until the sun went down, or setting up makeshift camps in the garden with a hastily assembled picnic of buttered bread, orange squash and things from the snack drawer.
Times have changed though. These days, the summer holidays can be a stressful mix of paying for expensive childcare, hanging out with employers on leave from work and relying on the grandparents – sometimes with an expensive break squeezed in along the way.
That’s partly why the Welsh government recently considered cutting the summer break from six weeks to five, adding an extra week to the October half term to compensate. The idea was rejected last month. If approved, it would make the country extremely outlandish – indeed, some nations are spoiling their children with a summer break of up to 13 weeks, making our six look stingy.
School out (for some)
Non-Christian countries do not base their shorter school breaks around Christmas and Easter of course, but almost all nations give their children an extended holiday at some point during the year. Even in South Korea, where students spend about 220 days in class according to the US National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) – 30 more than British children – most schools have six-week summer breaks.
And although children cannot take July and August off in some countries, it is because their breaks are linked to the local seasons: Thai children have a long break between March and May, to escape the heat, for example; in Australia, they have their longest holiday at the end of the year.
Meanwhile in the UK, the London Borough of Bromley and many private schools have already quietly adopted two-week October half-terms. They can work well for those planning a holiday abroad, as prices are often much lower. For example, a Jet2 holiday to the HD Parque Cristobal hotel in Gran Canaria costs £3,412 for a family of four in August; £2,268 the same holiday during October half term.
Short and sweet?
The length of the summer holidays is often attributed to school children having to work in the fields during their free time, but the weather was always involved. Summer holidays offered a respite from the heat of the Victorian classroom – and as many schools are still housed in poorly equipped older buildings, they continue to do so. However, critics of the UK have long argued that extended summer holidays are bad for working families and can even affect children’s education and mental health.
Francis Jones, a former teacher who is now CEO of Stem At Home, studied PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) scores to determine that there is a correlation between exam performance and the amount of time spent at school.
“In general, the shorter the school holidays and the more time children spend at school, the higher the quality of education in the country,” he says. “There are outliers such as Estonia and Canada, but in general the top 25 performing countries show a correlation between a child’s education and school holidays”.
Conversely, NCEE found no clear correlation in the 2018 study. “There is no consistent pattern in the number of school days per year, the length of school breaks, or even the length of the school lunch among the education systems most better performance. This suggests that how that time is spent is more important than the amount of time students spend in class,” the organization said in a statement at the time.
In any case, grades are not everything. Education consultant and former deputy head Ruth Lue-Quee believes that the long summer holidays provide valuable time for learning through play and shared family experiences, especially for younger children. “I personally feel that children benefit from being with their parents, they have time to be free, they have time to travel, explore and do things that they can’t do in the four walls of the classroom,” he says. she
She is also a strong advocate for family summer trips. “Whether you’re taking your children to Wales or on a caravan, you need to have that quality time together”.
time of Great Britain
It’s a British holiday that has some local campaigners worried. Before the changes were rejected, an open letter, signed by a number of organizations including the Welsh Association of Visitor Attractions (WAVA), highlighted the effect the government’s plan could have on visitor numbers.
“Many attractions take in over 45 percent of their total annual revenue during the summer school holidays, and the loss of summer revenue would result in job closures and job losses. If a prime summer week were added to an extra week in the autumn half term many attractions in Wales would lose thousands of pounds. In addition, the last two halves of the autumn term have seen massive storms which force some attractions to close,” he noted.
Lue-Quee suggests that one possible solution is to allow parents to take their children out of school to go on holiday during the term, perhaps using a 14-day allocation that could they take whenever they want. A similar system was in place for students with good attendance until 2013, but councils now award fines for such trips and these can be heavily enforced.
work woes
Although other countries also charge fines for non-attendance, they may be able to deal with a longer summer break. In Italy, for example, only half of Italian women are employed (2022 figure) compared to 72 per cent in the UK, meaning their extended 13-week summer break is likely to create fewer childcare difficulties.
Meanwhile in Sweden, which has a similar employment rate to the UK, Stockholm runs income-linked kale (camp) with a formal application process in February for children in grades 1-9. At their residential farm camps, which cost between £0 and £28 a day depending on family income, children can try out fishing, drama and sports as well as helping with tasks including cooking and cleaning.
In contrast, UK families face high summer childcare costs. A 2023 study by the Coram Family and Childcare charity found that it cost an average of £943 per child to pay for provision over the holidays. “What we need in the UK is a national provision that can support parents for the length of the summer holidays and then flexibility to take holidays at different times as well,” says Lue-Quee.
This article was first published in February 2024 and has been revised and updated.
