Reform of the School Year – lessons learned and missed

What if I told you that there is an aspect of school life in the UK that is still shaped by farming and faith? Another f-word would probably come to mind, as you told me not to be so ridiculous.

But the pattern of the school year, with it’s long summer break, is “unchanged for over a century, shaped by agriculture and religion” according to Gillian Hunt’s recent excellent paper. And not just in Scotland.

Frustrations in government

As the former specialist adviser for education in the Welsh Government, I worked with ministers to try and reform Wales’s school year (and day). We argued – as a learning from the pandemic – that it was a policy change which could help address educational inequalities, prevent learning loss, and provide teachers and school staff with more consistent term times and holidays.

It ended up being one of my most frustrating times in government. A fear of change, living in the past rather than looking to the future, and teaching unions fired up to oppose any moves to alter their working patterns.

As former First Minister Mark Drakeford said during his recent evidence to the UK covid inquiry: “we have a pattern of the school year that was formed at the end of the19th century for an essentially rural economy, where children needed long periods of time off in the summer to help with the harvest.”

The pandemic experience

During the pandemic, we sought to give pupils more time back in school, at the end of the first lockdown in summer 2020. We managed to provide an opportunity for pupils of all ages to get back into school during an end of term three-week period. But we wanted to extend that time, making use of the better weather and downturn in Covid cases, and then give everyone a week back as part of a longer autumn half-term.

Despite thinking we had secured an agreement with Welsh local authorities and teaching unions to make this change – it fell apart just before the schools fully re-opened. It was the three weeks back in school, and no more. And no alterations to the autumn term.

Pupils ended up spending even more time out of school that winter following another lockdown. We spent weeks negotiating on how and when to re-open in the new year. All this despite a government commitment that schools would be the first to re-open as covid restrictions were loosened.

Reflecting on the pattern of the school year and those difficulties in 2020 – and again during the winter of 2020/21 – Mr Drakeford lamented that we hadn’t tried to reform the school year earlier:

“Had we had a different approach before the pandemic I think some of the difficulties we faced in those contractual issues would have been easier to resolve or we should do them now while we have the chance.”

Despite those frustrations, it’s worth noting that pupils did return to schools in Wales earlier in 2021 than counterparts in Scotland. Comparative policy research and cross-nation policy learning is now the day job for me at PolicyWISE, but I do remember that cross-administration sharing of best practice and challenges was one of the positive experiences of working during the pandemic.

An attempt at reform – policy proposals

Welsh Labour’s winning manifesto for the 2021 Senedd election committed it to “explore” reform of the school year. In government following the election, this was further strengthened in a co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru where they committed to “narrow educational inequalities and support learner and staff wellbeing, we will look to radically reform school term dates to bring them more in line with contemporary patterns of family life and employment.

Despite this, the unions often questioned the legitimacy of the government’s proposals to reform the school year. Whereas Keir Bloomer, chair of Enlighten’s Commission on School Reform says that “getting the school year right is about as basic as it gets” and an example of low cast educational reform, Welsh unions said that such reforms were a “vanity project”. Carly Simon might say that they probably think this blog is about them…

The government looked at international evidence and practice. Initially it was willing to consider radical changes to the school year, including one that started in January, longer Christmas breaks and a four-week summer break. Having consulted with unions, parents, children, local authorities and other stakeholders, and then in a public consultation, it eventually proposed terms of more equal length, a redistribution of holiday times, and a reduction in the summer break.

This meant extending October half-term break to two weeks and shortening the summer break by one week, and de-coupling the spring break from the Easter public holiday to allow for consistent scheduling. The government also sought views on extending the May half-term break, potentially reducing the summer break by the same amount. In all these considerations, the Minister said that overall days and hours in a school year would not change.

Whilst those proposals were relatively conservative, the reforms would “damage learning” according to one of the unions. Parentkind and the Child Poverty Action Group conducted their own survey with thousands of parents and carers across Wales. This found that a majority of parents supported a more evenly spread school year. There was greater support amongst lower income parents, who also reported significant struggles with the additional costs of long summer holidays.

Back to the drawing board

However, changes of First Minister and Education Secretary eventually meant that the policy was paused, becoming one of the flashpoints in a difficult time for Welsh Labour. It’s unlikely that we’ll see the next government – of whatever stripe – return quickly to school year (or day) reforms.

And that would be real shame, particularly as Welsh policymakers must continue to address the conservatism in their education system. A culture that too often can content itself with low expectations and looks for easy excuses on inequalities and attainment.

The relationship between Scottish policymakers and education unions is shaped differently to the Welsh context. The continuing model of ‘England and Wales’ operations for the majority of the unions is a big factor, as is the expectations on what ‘social partnership’ means in the school sector.

Perhaps Scottish and Welsh reformers can make common cause on the issue of school year reform – and make the case that these changes can benefit teachers, staff, parents and most of all children. That would be something worth fighting for.

Dewi Knight is Director of PolicyWISE, the UK and Ireland comparative policy research initiative, and is a former Welsh Government specialist adviser for education reform.