By Graeme Paton, Education Editor Telegraph
10 Apr 2012
A six-week summer holiday for schools is “essential” to give hard-pressed teachers a break from excessive workload and stress, it was claimed today.
The National Union of Teachers said that a lengthy holiday throughout July and August was needed to allow teachers and pupils to get “proper rest and recuperation”.
Any attempt to reduce the traditional summer break to four weeks would represent a “major attack” on the profession, activists said.
Teachers insisted they would resist all moves to impose changes amid claims it would force thousands of staff to leave the classroom and lead to a recruitment crisis.
The union – representing almost 300,000 teachers – has already announced strike action in Nottingham over plans to introduce a radical overhaul of the school year.
Under proposals, the city council wants to introduce a fixed five-term year – instead of the current three – and cut the summer holiday from six weeks to four.
At least three other councils in England are believed to be considering the issue alongside dozens of Government-funded academies and free schools, which are run independently of local authority control.
But addressing the union’s annual conference in Torquay, teachers claimed that the move would lead to the “shortest school summer break in the world”.
Sheena Wheatley, a Nottingham teacher, said: “A five-term year represents a major attack on our conditions of service. I don’t think I need to describe the impact of shortening the summer break, not just for us and our families, but also for the young people that we work with.”
Under the current system, state schools in England usually have three terms, with two week breaks at Christmas and Easter, six weeks off in summer and one week half-term holidays in February and October.
Those in favour of shortening holidays argue that pupils can forget some of what they have learnt during a long break.
But on Tuesday the union passed a motion attacking the proposals, alongside wider problems around rising workload in schools.
The resolution rejected the “unsubstantiated claim that a shorter summer break would reduce ‘learning loss’”, adding that six weeks were needed “to allow teachers and pupils to gain proper rest and recuperation”.
“Demands on teachers are so high during term time that the longer summer break is an essential factor in a teacher’s management of excessive workload and work stress,” the motion said.
John Illingworth, a retired head teacher and former national president of the NUT, told the conference: “If this goes ahead, we in Nottingham will have the shortest school summer break in the world, at just over four weeks.
“It’s true that South Korea have only five weeks, and a much longer working day. They also have the highest child suicide rate in the world.
“We don’t want Nottingham to become a laboratory for testing how far we can drive our young people.”
Tom Unterrainer, president of the NUT’s Nottingham branch, said: “The school holiday pattern in Nottingham is being used as a political tool by the local authority at the behest of this Tory government.
“We’ve looked for rigorous academic research which points to the fact that learning loss takes place. There is none.”
But parents’ groups attacked the comments.
Margaret Morrissey, from the organisation Parents Outloud, said: “It cuts no ice with parents to hear that teachers have stressful jobs and need more time to recharge their batteries.
“Lots of people have stress in their lives and would love four weeks off in the summer. This really makes parents cross.”