Holiday idea could turn into a vacation nightmare for some
COLUMNIST
AH, the long school summer holidays. Everyone, except the kids, hates them. Parents fret about childcare, boredom and the price hike for holidays charged by travel firms.
Teachers, also constrained to higher-price breaks, say that pupils forget valuable work they have learned during the six weeks off.
And not all get the whole summer off, anyway. Some secondary school teachers go into school for exam results days and some primary school teachers even come in for a few days to run a reading club and do other activities or prepare.
Even if they don’t have to go into school, teachers will be planning lessons for the year ahead during some of their summer time off.
Now a group of head teachers and governors has told Cardiff council they think a week should be shaved off the long summer holiday and put somewhere else in the year, as a way to beat the travel firms that up prices during July and August.
Apparently 72% of the 72 head teachers taking part (which seems almost improbably neat, even for head teachers), told a survey carried out by the council that they would like to move one week of the holidays.
There is a flaw, if not several, in the plan.
First up, unless the week is shifted to different dates each year, it won’t take long for travel firms to inflate prices during that week, too – with the unintended consequence of making a week during off-peak season more pricey for everyone, even those who don’t have children at school. Neat eh? I can hear travel companies rattling their brimming tins already.
Move the week to a different date each year and no one will know where they are. It will be hard, if not impossible, for parents to arrange child care for a week on an ad hoc basis, as the school holiday clubs and activities that run through the summer will not be on offer.
For parents and teachers who can go away it may be all well and good.
However, if you can’t get time off, or afford even a slightly cheaper trip, a week at another time of year could be a serious downside.
Who wants a week off in autumn and winter when the weather is guaranteed to be even worse in Wales than a wet week in August and no one, except those at your school, is off? Besides a lack of childcare there will be no holiday blockbuster films to watch at the cinema, no local summer activities and friends may all be away on those lovely (allegedly cheaper holidays), or in schools still abiding by the old timetable of six weeks of summer.
Things could get even more complex if you want to sync holidays with relatives with children at school elsewhere, or if you are a family with children at different schools deciding on different weeks.
The long summer holiday is, indeed, a dated throwback to a bygone age when families needed a long summer to get the harvest in.
Now we harvest at 24-hour supermarkets we don’t need six weeks, but, like many traditions, the summer holiday is so ingrained it will be tricky, if not impossible to reform.
The Cardiff council inquiry to look at whether moving a summer holiday week would work was made in response to a number of high-profile incidents where parents have been fined for taking their children out of school in term time – often to save cash by going on holiday out of peak season.
The council asked all Cardiff head teachers and their school governor body: “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?”
Asked at what point in the year would they like the extra week to be moved to, they voted narrowly in favour of moving the week to autumn half term (36%) with 34% voting for the Christmas holidays.
An extra week at Christmas? Just when Wales is at its most dark and cold and just when the kids are going stir crazy after being inside in the winter months?
Great if you can afford to go skiing, or for a seasonal beach break in the Caribbean, but Christmas is another peak holiday price season.
Besides, boredom is the mother of creativity and six weeks of no school can be good for young people, even if they are not being taken on holiday. Isn’t it good to let them learn how to use their time constructively, unconstrained by the school timetable for six weeks of summer?
Older children may even get jobs or learn new skills during this time.
Cardiff says it will now consider whether to undertake a formal consultation, with a view to seeking Welsh Government approval to change the school term dates for the city’s schools.
I suspect the only winners in this plan, if it goes ahead, will be those who can afford to go away anyway, and holiday firms who will hike prices for an extra week of the year.