As we move towards a lovely warm June out come the educational theorists who believe that children should not have a long summer holiday. The Institute for Public Policy Research has just published a report which suggests that pupils’ reading and maths abilities regressed because the summer break was too long.
Instead, the think-tank said the school year could have five eight-week terms, with a month off in the summer and two weeks between the rest of the terms.
Of course this is going to be difficult to implement because our schools are driven by exam timetables, but I could be convinced if children had the whole of July off rather than the present August, when the weather is not so good.
The same arguments were being put forward a year ago, yet we still cannot come to terms with the facts that our European neighbours children do better at school and generally have much longer holidays!