Should ‘bizarre’ school holidays be changed?

As most parents in England wake up to the first day of the February half-term, they may welcome the head of Ofsted saying it’s time to “have a good old look” at the “bizarre” timing and length of school holidays.

Martyn Oliver, the chief inspector of the school watchdog, told the Financial Times that current arrangements might be worsening the “stubborn” gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children.

Harvesting history

Most state schools in England have a six-week summer holiday, two weeks at Christmas and Easter, plus three one-week half-term holidays.

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Oliver called for a “debate” about shortening the school holidays so children spend more time in class, because pupils are physically in school for a “ridiculously low” proportion of each year: only 190 days in total.

“It’s interesting to think that the holiday period was very much determined around harvesting fields,” he said. “Some things are pretty bizarre.” He also pointed out that it’s “pretty hot usually in May, June and July, just at the point you’re asking children to sit down and take an exam”.

“Six weeks is a long time away from learning,” said the BBC’s education editor, Branwen Jeffreys, particularly for children whose parents are working or who “can’t afford lots of costly day trips, activities or a long family holiday”.

All children “may forget a little of what they have learnt”, but better off families can “enrich their understanding by giving them other experiences”, which “widens the learning gap”.

“Holiday hunger” is another factor, with some families struggling to feed children without the support of free school meals during term time, and extending winter holidays would mean families would need to heat their homes more in the daytime.

Regional variations

The school year schedule in Scotland is causing “fatigue for both children and school staff”, said Gillian Hunt, an education consultant and former teacher, in a report for the Enlighten think tank last year. She called for a four-term year to reflect “modern society”.

Oliver said last year that “shorter breaks could be beneficial”, said Jeffreys. “He said after the long summer holiday, some children returned ‘dysregulated’ and struggling to adapt to routine.”

Like England and Wales, Scotland has a six-week summer break, but it tends to be earlier, finishing in mid-August. In Northern Ireland, schools close for all of July and August.

A report by the Nuffield Foundation in 2024 said that it was “time to consider reforms to a school calendar that has been stuck in place since Victorian times”. It argued that “spreading school holidays more evenly across the year could improve the working lives of teachers”.

Schools in countries such as Ireland, France, Spain and Italy generally have fewer half-term breaks but longer summer holidays. Some regions in Germany are more like the UK model: shorter summer breaks, sometimes only six weeks, with more frequent, shorter breaks during the year.

The summer holiday in the US and Canada lasts around 10 weeks, from mid-June to late August or early September. In India, school holidays typically include a long summer break usually 6–8 weeks, spanning mid-May to early July in the north of the country and mid-April to early June in the south.