It’s easy to feel nostalgic about long summer vacations from school. Once upon a time, that meant getting lost on bike rides with friends until the sun went down, or setting up makeshift camps in the garden with a hastily prepared picnic of buttered bread, orange squash and the fixings from the snack drawer.
But times have changed. Today’s summer holidays can be a stressful mix of paying for expensive childcare, negotiating time off work with employers and relying on grandparents – sometimes with an expensive break squeezed in.
That’s one reason why the Welsh government recently considered cutting the summer holiday from six weeks to five, and adding an extra week to the October half-term to compensate. The idea was rejected last month. Had it been approved, it would have put the country in something of an outlier – indeed, some countries spoil their children with summer holidays of up to 13 weeks, making our six weeks look rather miserly.
School is out (for some)
Non-Christian countries don’t base their shorter school holidays on Christmas and Easter, of course, but almost all countries give their children a long holiday at some point in the year. Even in South Korea, where students spend around 220 days in class – 30 more than British children – most schools have a six-week summer holiday, according to the US National Center for Education and the Economy (NCEE).
In some countries, children don’t have holidays in July and August, but this is because their holidays depend on the local seasons: for example, Thai children take long holidays between March and May to escape the heat, while in Australia their longest holiday is at the end of the year.
Meanwhile, in the UK, two-week October half-term holidays have been quietly adopted by the London Borough of Bromley and many private schools. They can be a good option for those planning a holiday abroad, as prices are often significantly lower. For example, a Jet2 holiday to the HD Parque Cristobal hotel in Gran Canaria in August currently costs £3,412 for a family of four, while the same holiday in October half-term would cost £2,268.
Short and sweet?
The length of the summer holiday is often attributed to the fact that schoolchildren had to work in the fields on their days off, but the weather has always played a role. The summer holidays offered a break from the heat of Victorian classrooms, and many schools are still housed in poorly equipped, old buildings, so they continue to do so. However, critics in the UK have long argued that extended summer holidays are bad for working families and can even affect children’s education and mental health.
Former teacher Francis Jones, now CEO of Stem At Home, studied PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) scores and concluded that there was a correlation between exam performance and time spent at school.
“Generally speaking, the shorter the school holidays and the more time children spend in school, the higher the quality of education in a country,” he says. “There are outliers like Estonia and Canada, but overall the top 25 countries show a correlation between a child’s education and school holidays.”
Conversely, the NCEE found no clear correlation in a 2018 study. “There is no consistent pattern across the top-performing education systems for the number of school days per year, the length of school holidays, or even the length of an average school day. This suggests that when it comes to student performance, what matters more than the time students spend in the classroom is how that time is spent,” the organization said in a statement at the time.
In any case, grades aren’t everything. Ruth Lue-Quee, an education consultant and former vice principal, believes that the long summer vacation offers an invaluable time for learning through play and shared family experiences, especially for young children. “I personally think kids benefit from being with their parents, having time to be free, to travel, to explore, to do things that they can’t really do within the four walls of a classroom,” she says.
She’s also a strong advocate of family summer travel. “Whether you’re taking your kids to Wales or in a caravan, spending quality time together is priceless.”
Welsh weather
It is the Welsh holidays that some local campaigners are concerned about. Before the changes were rejected, an open letter signed by a number of organisations including the Wales Visitor Attractions Association (WAVA) highlighted the potential impact of the government’s plan on visitor numbers.
“Many attractions receive more than 45 per cent of their entire annual income during the school summer holidays and any loss of summer income will lead to closures and job losses. Packing a key summer week into an extra week in the autumn half term will mean a loss of tens of thousands of pounds for many Welsh attractions. Furthermore, the last two autumn terms have seen major storms which have forced some attractions to close,” he said.
Lue-Quee suggests one solution could be to allow parents to pick up their children from school and take them on holiday, with a 14-day allowance they can use whenever they want. A similar system existed for students with good attendance until 2013, but councils now impose fines for such trips and these can be strictly enforced.
Business troubles
Other countries may also be better equipped to cope with a longer summer holiday, while imposing fines for absences. In Italy, for example, only half of Italian women are employed (2022 figures) and in the UK, the figure is 72%, meaning an extended 13-week summer holiday would create fewer childcare challenges.
Meanwhile, in Sweden, which has a similar employment rate to the UK, Stockholm leads an income-linked economy. Collo (camp) scheme, with a formal application process in February for children in years 1-9. At the residential farm camps, which cost from around £0 to £28 per day depending on family income, children can try fishing, drama and sports, and help with tasks such as cooking and cleaning.
In contrast, families in the UK face huge summer childcare costs. A 2023 study by the charity Coram Family and Childcare found that an average of £943 per child is spent covering the cost of care over the holidays. “What we need in the UK is a nationwide care that can support parents with the length of their summer holidays and the flexibility to take holidays at different times after that,” says Lue-Quee.
This article was originally published in February 2024 and has been revised and updated.