An End to Long Summer Holidays?

Image from Kreitikar at Pixabay

Remember when you were a kid and those long summer holidays seemed to go on forever? We know summer is a way off yet but consultation is going on now into reducing those holidays in the future to just four weeks.

Members of Pembrokeshire County Council’s schools and learning overview and scrutiny committee are looking at the Welsh Government consultation on potential reform of the school year. If a change goes ahead it will be the first alteration to the school year in more than 150 years

A public consultation launched by the Welsh Government was to look at the shorter holiday, along with other possible changes that may be beneficial, as times have changed from years gone by when, particularly in rural areas, the summer was a time for working on the land for all the family.

The consultation has already determined that no reduction will be made in the number of holidays or any changes to the length of the school day; and two weeks taken from the summer break would be redistributed to other parts of the school year. It is possible that the four school terms would be followed by breaks of equal lengths in the future.

It is also being suggested that there could be a fixed Easter break of two weeks in early April, regardless of when Easter falls, and that all term dates would be aligned across Wales and with parts of the rest of the UK where possible.

A report will be published by the end of this year.