As winter advances, and night comes for us in the mid-afternoon, we teachers have a tendency to look back wistfully to the summer holidays and lament how it breezed by all too quickly. News, then, this week that Welsh ministers have launched a consultation on changes that could see the summer holiday shortened might sound like bad news for my profession, let alone pupils.
But I agree with the proposals. The Welsh government has said that the overall number of teaching days and holiday days across the year wouldn’t be changed. What would happen is that a week would be taken from summer and added to the October break, with potentially another week moved to Easter in the future. They have cited research suggesting the long autumn term is difficult for teachers and students, and crucially that long summer breaks harm students from poorer backgrounds and with additional learning needs.
