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

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