From September, all schools will be able to set their own terms and holidays. Newspapers have suggested that about 60 per cent of heads will use that power to help parents avoid holiday surcharges. What are you thinking of doing? Are you going to change your current set-up or will things remain the same in your school? Are you working with other schools in your local area to coordinate school holidays? Here, ASCL members share their views…

School holidays

Standard terms work best

I would like to be able to have standard terms so that Easter moving did not change the length of terms. To know that each term would be the same length would help in planning effective teaching and learning. A previous school had standard eight-week terms with two weeks off between each one and five weeks in the summer. Bank holidays would fall within terms. I found that it worked well and holidays for staff and pupils were much more reasonable.

Catrin Taylor- Acting Headteacher, Ysgol Uwchradd Llanidloes High School, Powys, Wales

Have a clear rationale

While there is significant media flurry around this issue of late, we must remember that this is not a totally new concept. Converter academies, providing that they wrote this into their funding agreement when they converted, have been able to change the timing of school holidays ever since conversion. However, that aside, while the prospect of change may seem appealing to staff and parents alike, as a profession we have a responsibility to ensure that changes made are done so in the best interests of our own students, paying heed to relevant research in relation to the effects of gaps in learning. A clear rationale for any potential change will make for a more receptive audience among the many groups of stakeholders that will need to be convinced. 

Gareth Burton - Associate Headteacher, Cheltenham Bournside School & Sixth Form Centre, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Joined up thinking

I was tasked by the secondary heads association for Cheshire West and Chester to liaise with primary colleagues and the local authority to provide suggested holiday dates for 2016-2019. Two meetings were held between myself and two primary heads looking at applying consistent (although sometimes contradictory!) criteria to the holiday schedule. We agreed a draft, took it back to our associations, made amendments and put it jointly to the local authority. We have now agreed a document that we hope all schools in the authority will adhere to, although we realise it cannot be compulsory.

At no time did we discuss setting holiday dates to aid parents getting cheaper holidays – that is surely the role of government in its dealings with ‘the market’; we discussed what was best for the education of our young people and acted accordingly.

Mike Holland - Headteacher, Hartford Church of England High School, Northwich, Cheshire

Collaboration is key

As a converter academy, at Wellacre we already have the freedom to set our own terms and holiday periods. We try, where possible, to set our term dates in collaboration with other local schools, particularly our feeder primary schools.

The local authority still publishes a calendar for schools to choose to adopt. In doing so, they consult with neighbouring authorities two years in advance.

We use this calendar as our template and consult with others to establish agreed dates as far as possible. We feel that in doing so we are assisting – often working – families to ensure that their children’s holidays fall at broadly the same times.

We know that if we don’t, there are likely be attendance issues, as families try to book holidays together. We also know that older siblings are sometimes ‘carers’ for younger siblings and their role in this respect may mean that they do not attend school themselves when their younger siblings are on holiday.

Our biggest issue is the Whitsun half-term break where our local primary schools generally have two weeks while secondary schools can take only one due to the timing of the examinations. In the interests of pupils’ attendance and learning, we wouldn’t want to use our freedom to set our own holidays to move away from collaborative arrangements.

Christine Ellis - Business and Finance Director, Wellacre Academy, Manchester

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