School year.... (schools, live, military)

[dinessa99]

Do primary and secondary grade kids got to school year round the way the British do (understanding that Britain still has a summer break), or do they have the 2.5 months off in the summer the way the US does?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by dinessa99

Do primary and secondary grade kids got to school year round the way the British do (understanding that Britain still has a summer break), or do they have the 2.5 months off in the summer the way the US does?

In most places in Canada you would find the school calendar very similar to that in the U.S., with the kids off school from late June until the last week of August or the first few days of September.

A couple of individual schools (but not entire school boards AFAIK) in some areas have experimented with what they call "a balanced calendar with shorter holiday periods spread out more evenly throughout the year. The rationale for this being that the children have less likelihood of forgetting when they have learned if the breaks from school are shorter.

This may be the main "pro" for this scheme, but there are many "cons", including opposition from teachers’ unions and also from many parents.

On a practical level, all schools in Canada without exception are heated whereas a much smaller percentage only would be air conditioned. People outside Canada may have trouble believing this but summers can be quite sweltering in much of the country and having kids sitting in sweatboxes all day is not very conducive to learning either.

Plus, although perhaps the children could benefit from a longer holiday at Christmas, spreading holidays around the calendar might also mean getting two weeks off in April or in November. Think constant greyness, cool temperatures and frequent rain.

I have school-aged children and I’d say that for the benefit of outdoor activities, I want as much holiday time as possible concentrated in the warm, sunny weather months, so the current arrangement suits me just fine.

[dinessa99]

Thanks very much! I'm a military brat and a veteran, and I lived in England for a couple of years as a kid and I remember liking the year-round school system, but I can definitely see the reasons behind leaving it similar to the US.