There are too many school holidays and days off in Scotland

Who can disagree with that? Those of us who were raised in the Scottish system are fortunate not to have been hot-housed to achieve top grades. That might be beneficial for league tables, but not for a child’s wellbeing. Relentless focus on peak performance often comes back to bite in later years, with psychological problems stored up throughout a person’s youth creating a recipe for misery and ill health as an adult.

Seemingly endless days off are a nightmare for parents (Image: free)

Nobody could accuse our education system of putting the thumbscrews on our kids, and for that we should be grateful. In so many ways, modern teaching seems far more enlightened, creative and imaginative than in my long-distant day. I remember spending hours day-dreaming, with few subjects catching my interest. My years “in the jug” as Nigel Molesworth, “the goriller of 3b”, called it, can be summed up in three words: bored, bored, bored.

But if today’s curriculum is designed to ward off tedium and stretch youngsters’ minds, there is nevertheless a real threat of losing their attention in other ways. At the risk of sounding like a Mr Gradgrind, eager to whip children back to their desks, I can’t help thinking there are too many school holidays and days off.

By the end of this year’s Easter break, which for Edinburgh state school pupils lasted two weeks and a day, my primary-age grandchildren were growing weary of so much spare time to fill. Despite a mother with a talent for finding inventive ways of entertaining them, the days began to drag. Then, when much of the country was heading back through the school gates, Edinburgh schools had a further day off, for teachers’ in-service training. Just this past week, they had Monday off, for Victoria Day, and a fortnight earlier they enjoyed a Monday break for May Day, followed by an in-service day. Quite how working parents with young children cope with this hiccupping calendar I do not know.

John Swinney might be irked that the General Election has been called during the first week of the Scottish school summer holidays, but there will be many parents equally disgruntled at having to find childcare cover for such a prolonged stretch. No wonder that some – women in particular – are obliged to find flexible, part-time and generally low-paid jobs that allow them to work around the vagaries of the term.

The disruption for parents and the cost of childcare are just two of the reasons to question our generous school holidays. More important, to my mind, is the impact they might have on children’s education.

When you add up how many days off students are given, it is staggering. Here in the Borders where I live, for instance, where term started in the middle of August last year, there has been an October holiday week plus a day for in-service teacher training, a day off to mark St Andrew’s Day in November, 11 days over Christmas and New Year, a February week-long break, 11 days at Easter, two days in May for May Day and in-service training, and over six weeks (32 days) for summer, starting on June 28. By my calculation, that comes to 70 days, not including weekends or the odd extra allowance for local festivals.

Nor is Scotland alone in this super-abundance. A glance at the academic schedule of European countries such as Spain, France and Germany shows they offer just as much time off. Top of the list for the fewest hours spent in class is Finland, yet its ranking is still good. It seems there is no direct correlation between scholastic attainment and time spent in class, and in some cases quite the reverse. So is there a difference in attitude in some high-performing societies, where perhaps education is given more respect and priority?

If it weren’t for the problems school holidays create for working families, you might think there’s no need to change the system. But there is another factor too. Since 2012, Scotland’s rating in PISA league tables (Programme for International Student Assessment) has steadily declined. Experts believe not all of this can be attributed to Covid school closures, which merely aggravated an existing downward trend.

Most worrying of all is the conclusion that the students worst affected by declining standards are those who are the least academically gifted. In an analysis of PISA results for the Reform think tank, Professor Lindsay Paterson writes that it is the weakest learners who “are most dependent on the formal teaching of schools”.

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There you have it. For some youngsters, there’s no parental help or encouragement with their studies back home. Time spent in the classroom is therefore essential if they are to learn properly. The advent of Curriculum for Excellence, which saw a conceptual shift in the way subjects were taught, is often blamed for the disappointing PISA results. Yet that does not address the fundamental problem caused by youngsters falling behind over the never-ending summer break, or losing momentum, or interest, during other holidays.

This is not to say that teachers and students should not get an appropriate holiday allowance. Most of us, if put in charge of a class, would be on our knees by the end of a week, let alone a term. And children indubitably benefit from regular time away from textbooks and tests.

Yet it feels as if the balance has tilted too much in favour of those kids who can thrive without as many hours in school, compared to those who would benefit from more teaching hours. The attainment gap that underlies so many of this country’s most vexatious problems is all too evident in the classroom, even by Primary One. Could extending the school year be part of the solution?