Hold
your fire and hear me out - what if we had four weeks in the summer and the
other three weeks were added onto the October, February and May half-terms?
Obviously
this would have to be done with the agreement of the teachers and support
staff, but might it be a solution to the expensive summer getaways which nobody
can afford?
Wouldn't
it give more opportunities for families to have affordable breaks together
without taking children out in term time and facing fixed penalty notices and
fines?
Plus,
seven weeks is actually a long time to entertain children, and, particularly if
both parents are working full time, it's also very expensive to pay for clubs
and other childcare.
I
know at this point you're all looking back misty-eyed to the school holidays of
your youth, were you played in the fields, picked blackberries from the
hedgerows, made dens and the time seemed to drift on forever like a scene from
an Enid Blyton book, complete with lashings of ginger beer.
But,
in the same way that dear old Enid didn't actually write about lashings of
ginger beer, was any of that other stuff real either?
Don't
you remember how much it rained - except in 1976 when we had the drought and
the ground cracked so much you could lose your leg down the crevasses created.
We
only had three channels on the TV, and much of that didn't cater for
children. I do remember 'Why Don't
You...?', but that strapline finished with the words 'just switch off your
television set and go out and do something less boring instead' - such helpful
advice!
Perhaps
we should have a national debate to see what teachers, support staff, parents
and children think. We can't just leave
this to MPs to decide - remind me, how many weeks Summer Recess do they get?
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