Jake Thurgood examines the evidence for reducing the school holidays.
Shorter Holidays
Experts want to shorten the school holidays!
In a new report some experts have said they want to shorten our holidays and instead increase our half terms. They want to make half terms longer because they say it would give students ‘ much - needed time off during the most gruelling parts of the academic year. ” I disagree: I think we should have our 6 - week sum- mer because only 4 weeks would not give us enough time to recover. Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter and one of the re- port's authors, told the Guardian he wanted “ to change the school calendar that has been in place since the Victorian times. ” Major went on to say, “ Spreading school holidays more evenly across the year makes complete educational sense: improving the wellbeing of pupils and the working lives of teachers at no extra cost, balancing out childcare costs for par- ents, and potentially boosting academic results for many children. ” The experts believe that shortening the holidays to 4 weeks still gives teachers time to recuperate and 2 week half terms will further help them recover during the term time. They also state that decreasing the summer holidays can help those who find it hard to go back to school after long breaks. Other countries have even longer summer holidays, but do not base their other holidays around religious festivals – for example in France children enjoy 8 weeks off in the summer, then four blocks of 2 - week breaks in October, Christmas, March and May, regardless of when Easter is. American children also have a very long summer holiday, nearly 12 weeks, but fewer holidays during the rest of the year – just a handful of days at Thanksgiving and Christmas and in May. These are both high - achieving countries. While there are good reasons to say that it is better to have more breaks in the terms than just have a really long summer one, mainly so that you don ’ t forget things, all in all, I think that we should keep the system as it is and then all pupils can be refreshed after a long summer break.
52
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker