[Benjamin]

Shorter school summer holidays may sound like a child's nightmare – but they could be a relief for parents who are trying to juggle childcare with their jobs.

Some schools now have five-week breaks in the summer, but a two-week October half term. But is there an argument for shorter summers at all schools?

Could a shorter break help with learning? Or do pupils - and teachers - need the time to recharge? Would spreading out school holidays across the year help reduce the cost of family holidays, or would smaller windows create a rush to book time off?

Let's take a look at some of the issues.

Six weeks is a long time away from learning, especially for children whose parents are working or who can't afford lots of costly day trips, activities or a long family holiday.

So while all children may forget a little of what they have learnt, families with more money can enrich their understanding by giving them other experiences, and this widens the learning gap.

For many families with children, food is one of the biggest bills. During term time, more than a quarter of children across England are eligible for free school meals, and in some schools, it is closer to half of all pupils.

As food costs have risen, there has been growing awareness of what is called holiday hunger, with some families struggling to feed children without school support.

There are other factors too. While summer allows for playing outside, footy kickarounds and being in the garden, extending winter holidays may mean families need to heat their homes more in the daytime.

England, Wales and Scotland all have six-week summer breaks, though Scotland's tends to be earlier, finishing in mid-August.

In Northern Ireland, schools are closed for all of July and August.

Most of England's schools are now academies who can set their own holidays, and some have already opted for five weeks in summer and two weeks in October. In Surrey, the county council has decided to follow suit for all the schools it supports from autumn 2026.

In Wales, that model was put out to consultation, attracting more than 16,000 responses from parents and teachers. It was divisive. Only a narrow majority were in favour and in June 2024, the plans were put on hold.

Parentkind, the charity for parent-teacher organisations, has released polling suggesting 53% of parents would like a four-week summer holiday, rising to 60% in families with a child with special educational needs.

The same polling also suggests a four-week break is much less popular with teachers, with only 24% in favour of the idea. This may ultimately be a stumbling block. It is hard to recruit teachers because for the rest of the year, they have little to no flexibility in their working patterns, unusual now for many graduate roles. Summer is when teachers recharge and also pack in their planning and lesson preparation ahead of September.

However, earlier this year, the chief inspector of schools at Ofsted, Sir Martyn Oliver, said he thought shorter breaks could be beneficial. He said after the long summer holiday, some children returned "dysregulated" and struggling to adapt to routine.

The price of going away during the six-week school holidays can be eye-watering.

This is because the high demand from parents and those working in education for those dates means travel firms can hike prices up and still sell out.

So spreading some of these weeks out across the year could provide more opportunities to go away and lessen demand at any one time, thus bringing down prices.

However, if the summer holiday was only four weeks long, it could also have the opposite effect of squashing the demand into a smaller time frame and pushing up prices further.

One way to mitigate this would be for different regions to stagger their school summer holidays, suggests Which? Travel editor, Rory Boland.

Holiday prices would come down "only if travel firms can restrain themselves from massively inflating prices", he says.

Any price drops could also come at the expense of those who currently avoid going away during the school summer holidays, as they might find there are fewer bargains to be had.

There could also be an impact on traffic jams, airport queues and overcrowded trains if everyone isn't making a dash for it at the same time.

If there was a shorter summer break, employers would have to navigate a higher number of holiday requests over a smaller period of time.

For instance, three people wanting to take two weeks off each over summer could be staggered over six weeks, but over four weeks might prove more tricky.

If leave isn't possible, bosses should "carefully consider" flexible working to help balance workload with childcare, says David D'Souza, director of profession at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

Different countries have different holiday setups and it often comes down to weather.

Hot countries like India - which has around two months of summer holiday - tend to have longer breaks, while more temperate countries often go shorter.

In South Korea, the winter break is longer than the summer one, though some parents have suggested this should be evened out.

Germany has a rotation system between the 16 states, though the Guardian recently reported, external there was a dispute due to two southern regions historically claiming what are seen as the prime slots because of their traditional harvests.

The Met Office said this week that extreme weather was the new normal for the UK and with changing weather, do we need to change how we think about the summer break?

According to BBC Weather forecaster Darren Bett, climate change means we are already seeing warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers - a pattern that is expected to continue.

Heatwaves are expected to occur more often (there have already been three this year during exam season), but the hottest weather usually comes between July and August when the air and land has had longer to heat up.

Darren says hay fever could also be an issue for pupils, particularly those sitting exams.

He says a study by the University of Worcester showed oak and grass pollen seasons are starting earlier and birch pollen is becoming more severe.

His conclusion is that the summer holidays should be longer and exams taken in autumn, but we're not sure how that would work.

It's easy for us adults to discuss things like costs and working arrangements. But what do those who are arguably most affected think? We asked pupils at a primary school in Manchester.

Sam, in year six, says he thinks we should have longer holidays "because, in countries like Ireland and Spain, they have 9-11 weeks."

"Lots of people are saying that our generation don't play out," he says, "but I think it's the complete opposite, because if we had longer, we would definitely play out more and we wouldn't be bored because we'd plan more things."

But Betsy, also in year six, says she is concerned about what that might mean for her learning. "I think we should keep the holidays the same because, say, if I was on a holiday for 12 weeks and you go back to school, then it might take a while to get settled into your friend group and remember everything you've learnt for the last year and get used to the whole school vibe."

Grace, in year five, says if holidays were longer she'd get a lot more bored as, "You won't see your friends as much".

"You'll see lots of family but you won't see as much of your friends and you could be asking when are we going back, because I'd be a little bit bored."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp82x4709n0o

[Kate!]

A very definite yes the summer hols should be shorter from me.

[Ninastar]

6 weeks is a good short summer break imo. Our summer break here is way too long. But it’s also necessary due to some climates here in the states.

I actually like the idea of consistently doing 6 weeks school, 2 weeks off and repeat

[Mystic Mock]

I'm going to think back to when I was a kid.

School was absolute hell, I think that it's good for the kids to get away from that environment every so often.

I get it from the parents perspective, but they aren't in the situation where they've got to deal with Teachers who can't really be arsed (or they were like that at my Schools anyway,) and bullies who scared even the Teachers because they were so unstable.

Plus the prejudice that's running rampant in these places.

People tend to forget what School is like when you haven't been to one for awhile.

[Niamh.]

Primary school kids get 8/9 weeks off here all July & August. Secondary school get 3 months off (except exam years) best memories of my childhood are from summer holidays, leave the kids have them!

[thesheriff443]

I was a kid once so no leave the holidays alone

[LaLaLand]

God no, let the kids be kids and enjoy it.

[Cherie]

Whilst we all have great memories of long long summer holidays, I guess the world has changed significantly in the last 30 years and stay at home Mums are few and far between so unless you work in a school or work freelance and can take unlimited summer holidays it must be pretty hard to juggle work and 6 weeks holidays or more in the case of Ireland

[bots]

there isn't a solution that fits all because so many families have different circumstances. The ideal solution would be a system that was more flexible, but that wont happen

[Crimson Dynamo]

I doubt any teacher will say yes...

[joeysteele]

Absolutely not.

The school holidays should remain as they are, in my view.
Although I've no children obviously, I put this to those in my family who have children at school, and no one supported reducing school summer holidays.

When I was at school I really looked forward to and welcomed the summer holidays.
I wouldn't take those holidays away from other children now, not at all.

[AnnieK]

School holidays were a logistical nightmare when my son was younger and expensive to put his into summer camps. Now he's older its not an issue as I can leave him while I work. The one benefit of Covid was a lot of companies have adopted more of a work from home / hybrid culture so that has made things easier for a lot of parents.

Having said that, kids do benefit from the long break so I think the long holidays should stay but it would be great if the people who run summer camps try and keep the costs down or get some funding from the government for working families who need to use them

[Crimson Dynamo]

Originally Posted by AnnieK

or get some funding from the government for working families who need to use them

Annie we have just spunked £7 billion on an incorrect email about Afghan migrants



we are skint

[Ninastar]

I would also happily have 4 days of school (8-4) 3 days off

But sadly we aren’t that lucky

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by Ninastar

6 weeks is a good short summer break imo. Our summer break here is way too long. But it’s also necessary due to some climates here in the states.

I actually like the idea of consistently doing 6 weeks school, 2 weeks off and repeat

I heard on the radio that some places in the US have like 3 months off and that summer camp can cost $10,000 a month

I think 6 weeks is probably about right but I can see the arguments for shortening it and spreading holidays out a bit with longer half terms or Christmases

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by Crimson Dynamo

Annie we have just spunked £7 billion on an incorrect email about Afghan migrants



we are skint

Until we have spare cash to pay the DUP or Lib Dems to coalition with one of our two pathetic main parties, that also contradict themselves every two seconds.

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Ninastar

6 weeks is a good short summer break imo. Our summer break here is way too long. But it’s also necessary due to some climates here in the states.

I actually like the idea of consistently doing 6 weeks school, 2 weeks off and repeat

…I think that it’s something that gets discussed most years as to whether it would be better to have shorter summer breaks more evenly distributed throughout the year…but the summer allows for more outdoor activities obviously because we don’t have the climate here that some countries have …it’s a lot less consistent but other seasons would be more restrictive in terms of outdoor activities…it wouldn’t be good to have more winter time for instance and then children to stay indoors ….plus, children can often have to split their summer time with parents who may not be together, so the longer time allows for that also and for them to enjoy their families and friends before the beginning of a next school year…so yeah…hey, leave those kids alone…!!!!….

[Vicky.]

Yes but only because by the end I'm usually wanting to murder them I would prefer them to have the same amount of holidays but spread out a bit

[Maru]

Originally Posted by MTVN

I heard on the radio that some places in the US have like 3 months off and that summer camp can cost $10,000 a month

I think 6 weeks is probably about right but I can see the arguments for shortening it and spreading holidays out a bit with longer half terms or Christmases

$10K/mo sounds excessive to me, but I think it really depends on where they live. The US is a big place so the economy around here varies quite a bit. I would expect to see that price tag though for some private schools (especially Catholic or other well-established community schools...)

As for 3 months off, that's correct... when we were kids, we were out at the very tail end of May and latest we went back was beginning of September. Then later years it changed to late August. The schedule is similar now, afaik. There is a small break around Thanksgiving time (of course) in November and then the semester breaks nearer to Christmas in December and resumes in early January.

We're looking at home schooling for a few reasons, but mainly because kids are coming out as not being able to read and write, not able to do math properly and not even able to socialize (which you would think would be the point???). I was in AP/Honors in school where we did things more out of the box, so not having those basic things down would be a deal breaker for me...

I like our long summer vacations though, but we have the weather for it. We do have "summer school" in the US which usually doesn't cost? It's still public school, but if it costs at all, it's not much. I feel like the gap gives enough time to have adventures and explore being a little growing person with your friends, but can understand that parents can't afford it if they have to pay for daycare (something we don't do)... but if we did our own schedule or even private, I'd probably opt to supplement at home during the summer just because the "getting out there" part is not as hard as it was when we were kids. The library also does a summer reading program so we would do this also.