It can be hard to keep track of everything as a parent whilst trying to plan activities with the kids so here is a roundup of the big recent stories.
Lincolnshire breaks the mould
Two schools in Lincolnshire have become the first to change from the traditional summer term. White’s Wood and Mercer’s Wood Primary Academies in Gainsborough have confirmed that when the school term ended last week, their children would have a four-week holiday instead of the normal six weeks. Their opinion is that this will both help with learning and allow parents to take their kids on holidays during off-peak times.
The government welcomes the change and said it was aiming for all schools to be able to set their own term dates in the near future. This is also a move to help combat the fining of parents for removing children during term time. The kids will return to class on 19th August and will have two extra weeks added to terms in September and November as well as in May.
Easter holiday clash
Parents in Dacorum, Hertfordshire, are facing a complex Easter holiday schedule after many of the secondary schools elected to split up the traditional Easter holidays. Their plan would involve a long weekend for Easter then returning to school for four days before then having two weeks off. But it seems that the primary schools in the area, despite being in favour of the change, didn’t put it into place.
What this means for parents is that if they have a child in both primary and secondary schools, they will be facing a different holiday period for each with only a week overlapping. The schools normally get together each year to organise holidays under the new county council model but somewhere the communications broke down and now parents will find themselves in a potentially awkward position over time off at Easter.
No fines for Carmarthenshire parents
Good news for parents of kids in Carmarthenshire schools after the council announced that next year there would be no fines for taking kids out on pre-booked holidays. The move comes after the announcement of new school holidays and terms times from the Welsh Government that were in conflict for those already published by the schools in the area. The mix up included October half term being a week earlier and the return from the Christmas break also being a week earlier. Even the January 2017 term will be slightly different.
The confusion led to the county council saying that pupils would not be fined for not attending school for holidays booked in those times, when the parents thought the kids were due to be on holiday. However, the move has yet to be signed off by the government in Cardiff so parents are advised to speak to the school directly if holidays are being affected.
Inset days used to save parents money
A school in Newport has come up with a new way to help ease the pain of parents wanting to take their kids on holiday but finding that peak times are too expensive. Eveswell Primary School have said they will use their five teacher training days all together at the end of the Whitsun half term in June 2016 to allow parents to make use of cheaper holidays
