Schools back plan to slash summer break
MOVE COULD CREATE A WEEK’S HOLIDAY IN ANOTHER PART OF YEAR
A PLAN to take a week off the school summer holiday in Cardiff and move it to another time of year is set to make a major step forward after it was backed by school leaders.
The move, supported by more than seven in 10 head teaches and governing bodies, could make holidays cheaper for families forced to pay peak high season prices.
A massive 73% of school leaders said the supported the move suggested in a consultation carried out by Cardiff Council’s Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee last year.
A report from the committee going to the council cabinet this Thursday recommends members consider seeking Welsh Government’s approval to change term dates for Cardiff’s schools.
It also recommends they inform school governing bodies that they may want to amend inset days so pupils don’t have to attend school on the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha or the Hindu festival of Diwali.
In a consultation last year school leaders were asked: “Do you wish for the Council’s Cabinet to seek Welsh Government approval to change the School Term time dates to shorten the summer break in order to create an additional week’s holiday elsewhere during the school calendar?”
In the report going to cabinet on Thursday Coun Richard Cook, chairman of the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee chair admits: “It’s fair to say that the 73% response in favour of this question was a surprise to the Task and Finish Group.”
Some local education authorities in England have already agreed to take a week’s holiday off the long summer break and move it to another time of year but the National Union of Teachers told the consultation there is no evidence that having a long summer affects learning.
Coun Cook’s report to cabinet adds: “The new administration cabinet are invited to consider this report, but whatever the decision, it does seem that there is a clear majority view among Cardiff schools that a reduction of the school summer holidays by one week, and adding that week to another holiday is something that schools wish to be considered.”
Some schools in Wales have already made the decision to have inset days in one week-long block rather than spread throughout the year.
Governors at Newport’s Eveswell Primary are among those who have agreed to co-ordinate all five inset days into one week in June to lengthen the Whitsun half term.
“This allows parents to book cheaper holidays and therefore holidays will not affect attendance at other times in the year,” the report says.
The National Union of Teachers told the task force the six-week summer break was a chance for children to “recharge their batteries” and for essential maintenance to be carried out.
“Children need time to re-charge their batteries, play and spend time with their families,” the NUT says in the report.
“The summer break is also essential for the completion of larger building and maintenance projects, including removal of asbestos, which for health and safety reasons cannot take place during term time.
“Schools in Britain have shorter summer holidays than many other countries.
“The summer breaks are eight weeks long in Belgium, France and Norway; nine weeks in Canada; 10 weeks in Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Poland and Sweden; 11 weeks in Iceland and 12 weeks in the USA.
“The summer break in Finland is four weeks’ longer than that in England and Wales, yet the country’s education system is considered to be among the best in the world. Behind Mexico the UK has the least number of public holidays of any nation in the world.”
“Compressing the summer break into four weeks, as some have suggested, would cause problems for millions of families scrambling to book holidays.
“There would be even higher prices at peak periods and a greater likelihood that parents would simply take their children out of school during term time.”
Responsibility for setting school holidays is a devolved matter and the Welsh Education Secretary has stated that there are no plans to change the existing structure, the response from the NUT adds.