YP Letters: Move holiday break to make most of summer

I HOPE I am proved wrong in six weeks’ time but with the first week of the school summer holidays now over and the eastern side of Yorkshire moving permanently, almost overnight, from summer to autumn, the question still needs to be asked why our children and young people cannot enjoy what is so often the best weather in June and up to the middle of July?

I have a vested interest in posing this familiar question as my two grandsons have begun their summer holiday with Mam and Dad on the Northumberland coast, which, just like the Yorkshire coast weather wise, can be just like a grey autumn, if not a cold winter.

Scottish schools, however, appear to have the right idea taking full advantage of the lighter nights in June and early July and so often experience the warmer days. Scottish education appears not to be linked with English academia, when universities and colleges and schools are closed throughout August and the examination schedules give no opportunity for head teachers and governors to act independently, as they so often do on other educational issues. Just like altering the clocks to no one’s real advantage, English summer school terms seem to be written on tablets of stone, if not in concrete.