Jayne Dowle: Why we all need a break from the six-week school summer holidays

IT’S happened again. I’m finding myself agreeing with Michael Gove, the Education Secretary.

Perhaps it’s because, exactly half-way through the school summer holidays, my brain has gone completely addled.

He proposes to get rid of the statutory six-week break and give schools just one month off over the summer, flexibly staggered from the beginning of July until the end of September.

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This would allow the new academies and free schools total independence to set their own terms, and – although I don’t think this bit will make it into official government policy – stop the holiday companies from ramping up their prices as soon as school’s out and making a mint out of parents. So I have to concede, he has got a point.

Please don’t think I am being a selfish parent. I like the school holidays. I love being liberated from the school run. My happiest days as a kid were spent lying in the garden in the sunshine, with no timetable, no rules.

I want my kids to also experience that delicious sense of freedom. And don’t forget, I teach part-time at university, so I get long holidays too.

Why would I want to swap languorous August for horrible January, with its 6am starts, dragging the protesting kids out of bed to breakfast club at granny’s, driving in the dark from Barnsley to Huddersfield? But six weeks all at once? It’s just too long.

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Yes, I know that they get something like six months off in America (I may be exaggerating here). And Italy and France close down for the summer. But for once, can’t we just be brave and make a policy decision which suits us, here and now, with our education system, our families, our economy, and our weather?

And the children agree. I have questioned the steady stream of under-12s who have passed through my house these past three weeks and pretty much all of them admit to missing school.

Most agree that a month off would be just about long enough. I don’t remember feeling like this when I was a primary-age kid, but these days, school is so much more intense than it was.

We turned up, did sums and writing, played with our friends, and went home again. Now, school is responsible for everything from telling children what to eat to instructing them in a full set of human rights.

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At primary level at least, it is bizarre that while the authority of teachers to mete out discipline has declined, their moral authority has never been higher.

Watching my two marauding around the garden with about seven other kids, I think sometimes they wish that someone would step in and give them a bit of structure. But I haven’t got a whistle.

I haven’t actually heard those dreaded words “I’m bored” too often. But then again, I have tried to establish a mixture of a week’s holiday, organised activities, visits to other families – otherwise known as “kid-swap”, trips to the park, swimming and just general time pleasing themselves. But they must be a bit bored.

And I do worry, especially with Jack, who turned nine this week, about “summer learning loss”. After a long struggle, we had just about got him engaged with his school-work at the end of last term. But over the summer the most he has done is read the Argos catalogue on the hunt for birthday presents and tot up his pocket money. If I was a diligent parent I would have enrolled him in extra holiday tuition. But I can’t bring myself to be so cruel.

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Obviously, the summer holidays are a time when children come first. And if you’re a parent, you have to accept that. But it’s not just about the children. How many working parents have a horrendously-expensive challenge trying to find childcare for a full six weeks?

It’s a massive juggling act of annual leave, favours, eking out the money when you have to, and taking those (inevitably) exorbitant family holidays.

It would be much saner all round if we didn’t have such huge blocks of time to fill. And the last time I looked, not many kids were being called upon to help with the harvest, although if Jack keeps eating me out of house and home I might have to send him out to the nearest farm to do some labouring.

Of course if Gove’s plans ever do happen, there is the nightmare scenario of having children at different ages and at different schools, all having different holidays. But I think it is safe to say that most parents, being resourceful creatures, would find a way of tackling it.

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Some teachers probably won’t be happy. Some will be doing cartwheels, especially those absolved from having to entertain their own little darlings single-handed for six weeks at a time, and possibly fit in some prep for September at the same time.

As the Education Secretary will know by now, you can’t please all the parents (and teachers) all of the time. But when it comes to the long summer holiday, the only way to keep sane is to compromise.