Article about the educational problems of the long summer holiday and possible solutions to it

1. The Real Price of a Long Hot Summer
Are you like me? Do you have fond childhood memories of seemingly endless summer holidays with
blissfully long hot days full of time to enjoy and to play? I can even remember one particular game of
Monopoly with my brothers that was on the go for over 3 days! Doesn’t it seem a shame that there
are now so many voices asking for a reduction in the number of school summer holiday weeks?
Educationalists are increasingly arguing for school holidays to be spread out more evenly throughout
the year. In fact, with increased freedom to set their own holidays, many schools are now carefully
considering adopting the 5 term year which creates more frequent and shorter school holidays.
There are two key benefits for families. First, the extra flexibility may make going on holiday a little
more affordable. More importantly, the main benefit will be the positive effect on learning.
There is a real need for rest and recuperation for students and teachers alike. There is also a growing
body of educational research evidence that the long summer holidays hinder progress in reading,
English and mathematics. There is a significant measurable dip in student performance in September
when compared with the levels reached in early July. If no action is taken, the tests used in school to
determine the level a student is achieving at can present a particular problem for any student
changing to a new school which may well result in them being placed in an inappropriate ability
group. Similarly, for a student starting their exam year a ‘holiday dip’ can easily be the forerunner to
a lower exam grade in the following spring.
I am frequently asked how to best support students so that they are ready with confidence for the
start of the school year. So here are my best suggestions.
By all means take a complete break for a couple of weeks, but in the remaining four to six weeks
fund a fun way to practice the skills already understood. They are not learnt until they are
committed to long-term memory for recall at any time. There are a huge number of educational
games available. In fact, at the Community Schools, we have several that we offer free and
recommend our students use. There are many more that are free to download from the Internet or
to use online.
Using your skills little and often is aligned with the way our brains are programmed to learn and the
best way to improve school grades. Practising maths is particularly effective if done for about 15
minutes every day.
If students are facing exams during the forthcoming year I always recommend that they start a
revision journal during the preceding summer break. Revisiting some of the topics learnt in the
previous year by making your own summary of the key points that need to be memorised is another
effective trick to building up long term memory. At the Community Schools we coach study skills and
are keen to recommend some particularly good resources that can be found online and in textbooks.
Follow any suggestions that your school teacher may have made for the summer holidays.
A good fun thing to do in the last couple of weeks of the school holidays is to attend one of our ‘Back
to School – Prepare to Win sessions ’. At the Community Schools we offer free sessions during the

2. last week of the holidays to help students understand there are fun ways of supplementing day
school classroom learning that might suit their personal learning style better. The free sessions are
aimed at sharpening up the mathematical or English skills of our students for the start of the new
school year. We deploy fun but effective learning activities with suggestions of follow up activities
that could be used independently at home.
To claim a FREE place – just ring me, Claire, on 07747037441
Wed 27th
August at the Basepoint Business Centre, Ipswich, IP3 9SJ
Thursday 28th
August at the Bury St Edmunds Farmers Club, IP33 1HQ
Both Maths and English sessions are available for younger and GCSE students.
Claire Meadows-Smith
Head of Mathematics, St Albans RC High School, Ipswich
Principal and Founder of the Community Schools