School summer holidays – Is the six-week break worth preserving?
The question of whether to change the six-week summer holiday comes round every year – but post-pandemic, it has a new sense of urgency…
- by Melissa Benn
When I was young I loved those early September days after the school summer holidays. I’d return to school, full of enthusiasm and toting a bag packed with empty lined notebooks and freshly sharpened pencils.
The long school summer holidays made every autumn term feel like a fresh start. It gave me a chance to present myself in a new light. Well, for a few weeks, at least…
That six-week break still feels like a luxury. This is despite the fact that in the UK we have one of the shorter school summer holidays in Europe.
Italian pupils have 13 weeks off. In Estonia – home to one of the world’s most rapidly improving education systems – students have three months off over the summer.
However, the continuing problems presented by the attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students has made some educators look again at the annual school timetable – and at the length of the summer holiday, in particular.
Shorter school summer holidays
In June 2022, the Welsh government announced that it was considering cutting the summer break by up to two weeks. This is in part to boost the achievement of poorer pupils, whose learning often suffers during extended absences from school.
COVID made the slower progress of poorer pupils much worse. The pandemic has led to the widest results gap between better-off and poorer students for over 10 years. This is both at the end of primary school and at KS4.
According to Sir Peter Lampl, the influential founder of the Sutton Trust, the long break of the pandemic “Has reversed a decade of progress” and paints a “worrying picture” (see ).
On the face of it, a shorter summer holiday might be a potential quick fix solution. I can well remember a talented humanities teacher at our local secondary explaining to me one of the key reasons he was quitting state school teaching.
As he wearily told me, “I just can’t go on watching all the progress I’ve made by late July with some of my brilliant, less advantaged students completely evaporate by September.”
Right answers, wrong places
Summer holidays may also be more emotionally challenging for poorer pupils than their affluent peers. This is especially true amid the cost of living crisis.
For many teenagers, there’s little to do but hang about. There’s no money for trips or treats, let alone the chance to go on long foreign holidays full of cultural interest.
How might a shorter summer break serve teachers? Some would argue that a shorter summer break could be used to extend the Easter and winter breaks. This would give teachers more time to plan lessons throughout the year.
Then again, are we looking for the right answers in the wrong places? When the Welsh government first announced its plan to shorten the summer holidays, the director of ASCL Cymru was moved to remark that there were many more pressing issues to deal with, such as ongoing teacher shortages.
In a post-pandemic review of evidence regarding school absences, the Education Endowment Foundation found that the most effective way of boosting student attainment wasn’t through the provision of summer schools, but via small group tuition and high quality feedback.
At the same time, the EEF pointed out that given how hard it is to attract and retain disadvantaged students to summer school programmes, putting on additional lessons over the summer risked provoking teacher burnout.
Endangered species
The Welsh government is still consulting on its school holiday proposals at the time of writing. Any major changes seem likely to be met with stiff resistance.
Looked at from a different angle, however, why should it be up to schools to think of how to engage children and young people with few family resources throughout the long summer holidays?
Whatever happened to youth clubs – those places where teenagers would once gather under the supervision of trained youth workers? Thanks to savage LA budget cuts over a number of years, youth workers have effectively become an endangered species.
If we’re talking about teens spending time in school over summer, it seems more rational to dedicate time and resources to the task of recruiting and retaining high quality teachers and cutting class sizes. Not shrink down the one holiday that gives everyone a genuine break from the year-round pressure.
Rest is essential if humans are to flourish – something that applies equally to both learners and teachers alike. Our education system should ultimately look to other, more genuinely effective ways of supporting those who are struggling academically.
Melissa Benn (@Melissa_Benn) is the author of Life Lessons: The Case for a National Education Service, and is a visiting professor at York St John university
