School summer holidays should be cut to four weeks, report recommends

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Schools should prolong half-terms and shorten summer holidays to enhance behaviour and wellbeing, a brand new report recommends.

Educational charity The Nuffield Foundation is ready to publish a examine on overcoming post-pandemic studying disparities, which is able to advocate a rehaul of the present “Victorian” state college calendar.

The suggestions would cut the six-week summer vacation to four weeks and prolong half-term holidays from one to two weeks, in accordance to The Guardian.

According to Lee Elliot Major, one of many report’s writers, the reform would be a cheap manner to fight a rising academic divide.

The professor of social mobility on the University of Exeter instructed the paper: “Spreading school holidays more evenly across the year makes complete educational sense: improving the wellbeing of pupils and the working lives of teachers at no extra cost, balancing out childcare costs for parents, and potentially boosting academic results for many children.

“Reducing the summer holidays from six weeks to four weeks would still provide adequate time for teachers to recuperate, while two-week breaks during the February and October half-terms would give much-needed time off during the most gruelling parts of the academic year.”

The report’s abstract says it’s “time to consider reforms to a school calendar that has been stuck in place since Victorian times”.

Reducing the summer vacation will assist forestall studying loss over the break and alleviate behavioural points upon the beginning of the autumn time period, which the report says disproportionately impacts pupils from much less financially lucky backgrounds and with particular academic wants.

Teachers additionally famous a rise in wellbeing points inside the first time period and a necessity to revise subject material somewhat than studying new issues, the paper added.

The reform would echo the Welsh authorities’s resolution to cut the summer break to 5 weeks and prolong the primary half-term in autumn for the 2025-2026 educational yr.

The coverage change has divided academics, in accordance to a current ballot by the Teacher Tapp app. A 3rd (33%) backed holding the summer vacation at six weeks, 35% most well-liked 5 weeks and 29% most well-liked a four-week break.