The Six Week Holidays.

I have no axe to grind in the  matter of the six week holidays in our schools as I am right at the very end of my teaching career and only do a handful of lessons weekly, so hope that my overview will come across as having nothing in it but a neutral assessment.

It is completely true that for many pupils the break allows them to turn off school completely and this can take some pulling back in the September.
What needs greater consideration however, I am strongly of the view that teaching is a profession with little to offer to a professional person. To earn a middling salary, the average teacher probably has to win some four promotions or more - each of which will probably add huge amounts to an already daunting workload.

To many - the long, summer break is all that keeps them in the profession. A very high number of young teachers will leave a year or two into a career when they understand what a shocking job it truly is. I shall not list those horrors today - but rest assured that the job is highly destructive in a good school.

In a bad one - well, I do not know where you will find experienced people ever to work in them. (And yes, I have experienced both.)

It is no surprise to me how many people are prepared to work for half basic salaries - or in one case I know, a 20% salary - to work in a Christian School because there is a peace of mind not possible in the state system. Money or sanity can be a real choice!