School holiday reforms risk childcare squeeze

The charity issued the warning after conducting a survey with parenting website Netmums that found that 77 per cent of parents believed major changes to the timings of holidays would make life difficult for parents with children in more than one school.

Anne Longfield, chief executive of 4Children, said: “Whilst many working parents would breathe a sigh of relief at the demise of the six-week summer break, which creates an immense childcare challenge, things could be set to get more unbearably complicated if different schools were to take different approaches.”

She said parents need to have a say in how school holidays are organised.

“There is also a need to provide more childcare for parents during school holidays with an urgent need for schools to open their doors to local childcare providers to provide the childcare we know parents want,” she added.

“Parents struggle every year during the summer holidays to find affordable childcare and keep their child occupied, instead of having schools closed during the summer months, they can instead be used to provide much-needed childcare during the holidays.”

The charity and Netmums polled 1,190 parents about the government’s proposals to let schools set their own term times.

Thirty-eight per cent said there should be no change while 34 per cent wanted holidays spread more evenly over the course of the year.

Parents were also asked for their views on stopping head teachers from allowing authorized absences unless there are exceptional circumstances, a policy that comes into effect on 1 September.