Nationalise School Holiday Dates

For anyone who has family living interstate, you'll be familiar with the issue of planning family holidays around school holidays when each state has a varying school calendar.

Surely the federal government could see the social and economic merit in standardising school holidays nationally and should act.

the airlines price gauge over holiday period cant see them agreeing .... plus GC infrastructure wouldn't cope ...on the plus side a beautiful run of winter sunshine here .

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FormulaNova said..

Adriano said..
For anyone who has family living interstate, you'll be familiar with the issue of planning family holidays around school holidays when each state has a varying school calendar.

Surely the federal government could see the social and economic merit in standardising school holidays nationally and should act.

I think you are thinking about this the wrong way. By offsetting school holidays, holiday locations can get more revenue across more weeks.

How many people actually have the problem of wanting to synchronise school holidays across different states?

On the other hand, just coming back from a week at the snow, it seems sensible to have ACT on a different break to NSW, on a different break to Qld, so that they can not have one huge peak week or two. (I think they do overlap, but I am too lazy to look it up)

So, Adriano, I think the benefits to having them different are more than having them the same.

That's an interesting take that appears to make sense on the surface.

Is this in fact why state governments staggered the dates in the first place, or are you just guessing?

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Cambodge said..You think State governments coordinate with each other? Like they do "planning" or something?

Adriano said..

FormulaNova said..

Adriano said..
For anyone who has family living interstate, you'll be familiar with the issue of planning family holidays around school holidays when each state has a varying school calendar.

Surely the federal government could see the social and economic merit in standardising school holidays nationally and should act.

I think you are thinking about this the wrong way. By offsetting school holidays, holiday locations can get more revenue across more weeks.

How many people actually have the problem of wanting to synchronise school holidays across different states?

On the other hand, just coming back from a week at the snow, it seems sensible to have ACT on a different break to NSW, on a different break to Qld, so that they can not have one huge peak week or two. (I think they do overlap, but I am too lazy to look it up)

So, Adriano, I think the benefits to having them different are more than having them the same.

That's an interesting take that appears to make sense without any verification.

Is this in fact why state governments staggered the dates in the first place, or are you just guessing?

Ha ha. No that's not driving my question. Formula thinks there's an economic driver to do with tourism. That would indicate there's a coordinated policy at work.

Help me out and find that policy platform.

Do you know why we have such long school holidays? Do a bit of research and you will find the reason they were brought in doesn't really exist anymore. It may be time to question why we have school holidays in the 21st century.

The Nazis liked to nationalise things too!

Stop trying to steal State sovereignty!

Keep your grubby big government facist hands of our States constitutional rights and children

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Adriano said..

FormulaNova said..I can help you out... ring someone up and ask them. Surely someone will know and there are only millions of phone numbers to try...Do you really care though? I suggested a reason why it is better to not have them at the same time, but it doesn't mean that this is why.

So your suggestion is just a plausible-sounding guess. Thanks for clarifying.

I was genuinely interested in how you formulated your opinion.

"Do I really care though"? , you asked.

Do I care about the fact that multiple holiday timetables need consultation every year when planning family holidays? Yes I do.

Do I care about your opinion on why holidays are staggered? Yes, that's why I'm asking you to provide your reasoning, rather than just a guess.

It seems to me that there's actually no interstate policy at all and that holidays are randomly set by states every year and a few years in advance. I could be wrong and that's why I'm asking.

Yes, its just a guess. I have done no research or enquired through freedom of information channels.

I did google something on this a short while ago, and it seems like some states aim for an average of ten week terms. I think based on that, and probably a minimum of 2 weeks between them, and trying to get them to occur on weekend boundaries, really limits the number of choices you have though. So, it sort of makes sense that they naturally align. Over time, how many options could you have?

It is a curious question though. Did someone decide this, or did it just happen?

When I was at school, there were 3 terms, and they are now 4. I wonder if someone saw that and thought that only 3 made for periods that were too long, or if they just said 'another state is doing it, lets just copy them'. Having a perception of how governments work, i think that this is a likely scenario.

When I was down at the snow, I noticed that the NSW private schools started their holidays a week earlier. Do they also generally finish a week earlier, or do they get longer holidays. I can see the annoyance factor if some of these private school kids had to share their snow time with those public school types. It would make sense to me that the parents of these private school kids insisted that the Liberal government make it so that the public schools cannot have their holidays at the same time, or are excluded from the NSW snow fields in winter time. ;-)

Thinking about this further, it would make sense for someone to ensure that there is minimum overlap between school holidays, just so that it does allow people to spread out their holiday destinations.

There must be a bit that goes into it, OR people just work with it, whatever the planning. Someone else down the snow said that they were on TAFE holidays and that they generally started a week before the schools. So, someone must be at least aligning things within the state.

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Mobydisc said..
Do you know why we have such long school holidays? Do a bit of research and you will find the reason they were brought in doesn't really exist anymore. It may be time to question why we have school holidays in the 21st century.

I don't have any kids, but there were longer terms when I was at school. (At least in NSW). I vaguely recall that the holidays were longer too, but that's just the resonance of a memory, rather than a memory. It would make sense that the breaks were longer if there were three terms a year versus four.

So, what was the reason?

Remembering back as a kid, school holidays gave you something to live for. The thought of not having school holidays would seem like inhumane treatment!

Having lived in Sydney for a while I can see that a lot of the population would prefer it if kids stayed in school all the time so that they could save on taking annual leave to look after them in the school breaks.

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FormulaNova said....Yes, its just a guess. I have done no research or enquired through freedom of information channels.

Adriano said..

FormulaNova said..I can help you out... ring someone up and ask them. Surely someone will know and there are only millions of phone numbers to try...Do you really care though? I suggested a reason why it is better to not have them at the same time, but it doesn't mean that this is why.

So your suggestion is just a plausible-sounding guess. Thanks for clarifying.

I was genuinely interested in how you formulated your opinion.

"Do I really care though"? , you asked.

Do I care about the fact that multiple holiday timetables need consultation every year when planning family holidays? Yes I do.

Do I care about your opinion on why holidays are staggered? Yes, that's why I'm asking you to provide your reasoning, rather than just a guess.

It seems to me that there's actually no interstate policy at all and that holidays are randomly set by states every year and a few years in advance. I could be wrong and that's why I'm asking.

Sure thing. Your guess is as good as mine, in the absence of any other obvious reason for the staggering.

I wasn't asking for guesses. I was wondering if it was a coordinated policy or if it's just random.

Private school terms are shorter which means longer holidays.

Three terms per year came from the UK system. But they also have mid-term ("half-term") breaks too.

4 x ~10 week terms probably works pretty well as a balance before the kids turn feral.

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Adriano said..

FormulaNova said..
I was replying to your original suggestion that the government should act in standardising school holidays.

I know. That's what we do here....

FormulaNova said..
I was just pointing out that there are other reasons to stagger them.

Well not really, you put forward an opinion on why - apparently not the real reason why.

FormulaNova said..
You weren't asking for guesses. You weren't asking for anything, and were just suggesting that they would be better off the same.

Well it was implicit in the topic that I was interested in why the staggering exists.

FormulaNova said...
I come from a family of 5 kids, and none of us live interstate, so at least in this sample, aligning the holidays would make no difference to us. I like to think that even if it did, I would put up with the drama of dragging the kids out of school if it meant meeting their cousins.

Perhaps try imagining others who aren't in your position and you may understand why it matters to some people.

Adriano, you seem like a strange person sometimes. You suggested that the government should align the school holidays. I provided a possible reason that they are better not aligned.

This is a forum. People come up with all sorts of opinions. If you wanted the exact reason why something is the case, perhaps you would be better off picking up the phone and asking someone in authority instead of mentioning it on the forum. Alternatively, you could have asked a direct question for only people that actually know to reply. I don't know why you would do that on a forum, but I don't understand your thinking anyway.

I do understand why you would want to have them aligned. Its obvious from your first post. I am now suggesting that the number of people in your position is a minority compared to the number of people that would benefit from them being staggered.

Okay, is there anyone out there that can positively tell Adriano why this is the case, and can they provide proof? Please provide statements and character witnesses. Thank you.

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FormulaNova said..
I do understand why you would want to have them aligned. Its obvious from your first post. I am now suggesting that the number of people in your position is a minority compared to the number of people that would benefit from them being staggered.

Can you imagine if every policy was decided on who benefits the most financially.....rather than the human value to a minority of families?

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Mobydisc said..

Adriano said..

FormulaNova said..
I do understand why you would want to have them aligned. Its obvious from your first post. I am now suggesting that the number of people in your position is a minority compared to the number of people that would benefit from them being staggered.

Can you imagine if every policy was decided on who benefits the most financially.....rather than the human value to a minority of families?

Why do we have school holidays running for the length they do and when they do?

Best to answer this question before thinking it's a good idea to nationalise school holidays.

Find out why school holidays were agreed upon. The answer is surprising.

Well, don't keep us in suspense!

I've looked at that one a number of times and can't find a reason for the staggering other than the random planning of state education departments - which is pretty much what is apparent - it's random and not planned. Skid can you point out anything that looks like a coordinated policy between states please?

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actiomax said..
I always thought that in America they have the summer break so the kids could help with the harvesting.
So could have been the same reasoning except broken up over the year for different agricultural reasons maybe sheep time to shear ,lambing season etc .
Maybe a farmer could tell us what happens at those times when it was the three term & that might be the answer .
Kids needed on the farms

Actionmax is right. The reason why we have school holidays is so children could work on the family farm. When the idea of compulsory school education came about most people earned a living on the farm. Children were needed on farms for their labour. So to make the idea of compulsory education acceptable by the people, especially in rural areas, politicians agreed to the compromise idea of long school holidays.

education.nsw.gov.au/about-us/our-people-and-structure/history-of-government-schools/government-schools/public-instruction-act-1880

Back then kids in NSW were legally required to attend school 140 days a year. Now days its something like 200 or so days so the trend is up but its taken about 140 years.

In the 21st century where even if there are children on farms during school holidays, their labour is not that valuable to keep the family farm running.

It happens all the time, the teacher tells the students to study hard during their school holidays for the upcoming exam. Most students do anything but study for the exams during their break. Teachers know this will happen as they've seen it all before.

So instead of discussing the need to nationalise school holidays, perhaps we should be discussing the need for such long school holidays.

Staggering, although unlikely to be planned, makes sense... sometimes less top-down control is better... errrr... most times

The length of holidays and the growing number of pupil free days needs the be overhauled... 2 working parents, 8 weeks combined annnual leave, total weeks off school, 10? 12? 13 weeks?