11th July 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The Department for Education has announced that all schools are to be given the power to set their own term dates. The changes are part of a broader government deregulation bill which take powers away from local authorities to regulate the schools in their area. Under the proposals, school heads and governors would decide on the dates of school terms. The change is likely to mean the end of long summer holidays, as the six week break is unpopular with many parents who struggle to keep their children supervised over the period. The long summer break also leads to inflated costs for parents during the peak time for holidays abroad and childcare.
Academies and free-schools already have permission to set their own term dates, with many schools extending Christmas and Easter breaks and reducing the summer holiday to four weeks. Schools who advocate the reduction of the length of summer breaks say that the changes will help parents with the cost of child care over the summer. State schools will be able to make similar changes from September 2015, after the Department for Education issued a statement saying “It is heads and teachers who know their pupils and parents best, not local authorities. So it is right that all schools are free to set their own term dates in the interests of parents and pupils”.
However, some state schools are currently opposing the plans, warning that allowing different schools in the same area to set their own term dates could cause problems for parents with children in different schools. The Association of School and College Leaders said that the new timetables were likely to cause problems for parents, pointing out that schools tend to follow the local calendar even if they are not obliged to do so. They warned that giving all schools the power to set their own dates could create a chaotic ‘free-for-all’ where there is no coordination between schools. They said that the changes would require firm leadership at a local level, and consensus between local schools on term dates in order to avoid disruption for parents.