Are we in a race to save our traditional six week summer holiday?
The UK is changing at a super rate of speed so it’s vital more now than ever that we create some time, spaces and places for everyone to relax, rest and reenergise
As a child, my favourite day of the year was the first day of the six weeks summer holidays.
The sense of freedom and my feelings of being away from the confines of the constraints of formal school was overwhelming and joyous.
Knowing that for six weeks carefree play days lay ahead, was for me and my friends a real buzz.
We’d been planning ahead for weeks, the adventures we were going to embark upon. Being penniless and minus access to transport didn’t quell our enthusiasm, creativity or ingenuity to put into action these plans.
A week before school was to commence after the six weeks holidays ended, my friends and I would go onto a mood slump knowing the holidays were soon to be over and we would have to return to school.
Working with children and young people daily, I see that the enthusiasm for the six weeks holiday has not diminished either.
Many in this current generation envying countries like Italy, Romania, Latvia, Turkey, and Albania who have summer holidays lasting up to 13 weeks. France, has 8 weeks and Ireland’s holidays start from the beginning of July to September too.
However, earlier this year, the chief inspector of schools at Ofsted, Sir Martyn Oliver, said he thought shorter breaks could be beneficial. His rationale for saying this presents to be that after the long summer holiday, some children returned to schools "dysregulated" and struggling to adapt to routine.
Parentkind, the charity for parent-teacher organisations, in their recently released polling highlighted that 53% of parents/carers would like a four-week summer holiday, rising to 60% in families with a ‘ child with special educational needs’.
The same polling highlighted that a four-week break as an idea is not as popular with teachers, with only 24% in favour of the idea.
Teachers using the holidays to recharge and to plan ahead, expressed the necessity of having the six-week break away from work.
Given the suggestion to change the six weeks holidays is about children and affecting them, surely it’s only right that they should be consulted also.