Woman's Hour - School holidays

Episode Date: August 12, 2019

Today’s programme is dedicated to the challenges and joys of the long summer weeks out of school. Is boredom good? Will children fall behind on their learning? How can you be sure your teenagers are safe while you’re at work? Jane also hears about the impact of holiday food poverty on children with parents on low incomes. Plus minimalist camping tips to get children off their screens and outside. Jane is joined by: Juliet Benis, Primary Head Teacher Carmel McConnell MBE, Founder of Magic Breakfast Dr Laura Harrison, Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of West England Briony Hartley author of Minimalist Family Camping: Dee Holmes young persons, family and children’s Counsellor for RelatePresenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Caroline Donne

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. It's Monday the 12th of August 2019. And today's edition of Woman's Hour, all about the long summer holiday. They're just about to come to an end in Scotland, but there are at least two weeks, maybe slightly more to fill in the rest of the country. And it can be a real challenge. So we talked about the history of the school holiday, the long summer holiday that is

specifically, whether boredom is any good, how you can best cope with teenagers, some advice on what was described as minimalist camping by our minimalist camping expert, author Bryony Hartley. You also got the view of Juliette Bennis, who's a primary school head teacher. Laura Harrison, Dr. Laura Harrison, a senior lecturer in modern history at the University of the West of England. And she had loads of important and interesting stuff to say about the history of holidays and how they're viewed. And we talked as well to Dee Holmes, who is young person's family and children's counsellor for the organisation Relate.

But we started with Carmel McConnell, MBE, the founder of the Magic Breakfast. I asked Carmel exactly what her organisation does. Well, in term time, we feed 280,000 children on the National School Breakfast Programme, which is a DfE-funded programme that we deliver with Family Action, and it uses the Magic Breakfast approach. And we've also got 40,000 children. so that's a lot of children in term time but sadly we don't have the resources to reach them in the summer holidays so it's a real problem. And you are concerned that some children are going hungry? They're definitely going hungry and this is something that isn't the

most expensive thing to sort out and that's why I think I'm really really pleased that you're covering it this morning. Also in the conversation today, Bryony Hartley. Good morning, Bryony, the author of Minimalist Family Camping. A quick word on Minimalist Family Camping, Bryony. I would just say pack light and grab a family adventure whenever you can. You don't need all the stuff that camping retailers tell you you need. You can pack light and travel much more easily. All right. And Bryony's in our studio in York.

And we've also got Dee Holmes, who's in, I think, Southampton. Good morning to you, Dee. Good morning. Yes, that's right. And Brian is in our studio in York. And we've also got Dee Holmes, who's in, I think, Southampton. Good morning to you, Dee. Good morning. Yes, that's right. Great stuff. And you are you work for Relate and you talk about young people and families and children. So you're our kind of adolescent expert this morning. Sorry to lumber you with that, but that's pretty much you. I'm going to start with Laura Harrison, who's in Salford, senior lecturer in modern history at the University of the West of England. Laura, tell us, where does the school summer holiday come from? Yeah, good morning, Jane. Well, of course, the idea of a holiday has a very long history sort of tied up with traditional and religious celebrations. But it's often suggested that the long summer school holiday is a kind of throwback to a different time.

In 2013, I think it was, Michael Gove said that the summer break was this kind of outdated relic from the 19th century that stemmed from the need for schoolchildren to work in the fields over the harvest. Of course, in some rural areas, it was certainly useful if children were off school to help with the harvest. But that doesn't actually explain the origins of the summer holiday. You know, the summer break is something that we see in the calendar of private schools and grammar schools. So not traditionally places where children would need to be pulled out of school to work in the fields. And actually public schools at the start of the 19th century regularly took sort of four or five weeks holiday over the summer, the midsummer vacation. And the idea of the longer summer recess is, of course, already established in the law courts, in universities and in Parliament.

Parliament's meeting times were part of the structure of the kind of aristocratic London life and the London season, which traditionally finished on sort of the glorious 12th of August when polite society would retire to the countryside to shoot and hunt. So, you know, the break's got quite a long history. And it often crops up the conversation about whether we should change it, whether we should abandon this long period of time off school, out of education. What do you think about all that? Yeah, well, again, there's kind of historical precedent there as well. And the kind of holiday itself, even after the introduction of compulsory elementary schooling in the 1870s, the holiday was fairly flexible.

It could be moved and extra holiday periods were granted at sort of often relatively short notice to accommodate either different harvest times or in urban areas, times when factories were on holiday. So there's kind of a history of moving holidays and adapting them to suit the needs of local communities. Let's bring in the listeners. Elizabeth on Twitter says, please don't take away the summer holiday. Our children face so many pressures at school to achieve. Summer is the time they can really relax. We all loved our long summers.

Helen says, I love this holiday. I've got teenagers. I'm conscious. I don't have long left to enjoy it. And Juliet, as a primary school head, how keen are you on the idea of this long break from school? I think it's great for our teachers. They work like so many hours and so long and they need that kind of structured break, that moment. We kind of work in those terms. We've learned to know that we can get to the end because there will be a little break and then go the extra mile. And we need to have that moment where they can recharge or research or move themselves on so that something extra is brought in in the following term.

We have a lot of teachers who listen to this programme, certainly around this time of year, and we've had some interesting emails from them. This teacher says, I'm a secondary school English teacher. We've got a school of 1,700 pupils. We've had three weeks of the summer holidays so far.

I've spent the majority of that time in my office working on the next school year. So as you say, they are working already again. It's taken me three weeks to prep and organise all the additional activities, gifted and talented work, school trips and bonus slash booster material for my pupils. I haven't even begun to look at writing and engaging schemes of work and lessons. I expect I'll be working for the rest of the summer. Another teacher says, many teachers are also parents

and probably enjoy spending time with their own children. I don't have my own kids, so I do spend six glorious weeks loafing around, drinking my own body weight in tea and reading all the books I'm too knackered to read in term time or I spend time with my elderly mum or doing my garden. Towards the end of August I'll be planning for next year when I go back to school I am energetic and looking forward to the year ahead and that's important. You need teachers to be

buzzing and optimistic come September don't you? And they do work. You know, the myth that people have that kind of slightly scathing attitude to teachers, that they have these short days and long holidays, is a complete nonsense. Some of those people need to have a go at being a teacher. It's certainly not an easy option. And they work in the holidays. Secondary teachers are in at exam time. My teachers are in planning, setting up their classrooms, doing stuff like that teacher said for

boosters the best lessons are the best plan so they do a lot of work on planning which happens in the holidays in their weekends in their evenings you know they're it's a long big job but do children lose out in terms of well frankly do they forget stuff the stuff they were doing in june and july is it now out of their heads? My feeling is the majority of stuff. What we do in our school is we work towards trying to find a way of making learning deeper so that the learning is actually going into their long-term memory. There might be small slippage things that you need to remind them

and get them kind of revived again in September. And we, you know, all teachers know that and they sort of get them back into the kind of world of working again after the six-week break but the big things the the deep learning is about something that's in your long term memory once it's there it's there and it's just about the other bits about reviving the kind of key knowledge they just had or or reminding them of little bits they've just done in the summer what i didn't appreciate is i don't know a lot of teachers get ill at the beginning of the of the summer holiday because they flop and they relax and that's when you get ill but apparently also Carmel children get iller during the summer holidays as well well we've seen an awful lot of children coming back in the new

term who they've not they've really just not been able to get the nutrition that they need and obviously that has a you know there's a price to pay in terms of physical health so teachers are telling us about kids coming back and it taking several weeks to get them back to the standard of health in terms of coughs and colds. And you'll know more about this, Juliet, but the kind of day-to-day sort of, you know, skin diseases. I mean, sort of TED teachers have told us we really do have to work very hard at the start of the term

to get the children back to the state that we left them in at the end of July. Quite simply because they haven't been nourished adequately. Absolutely. I mean, we know there's 1.8 million children back to the state that we left them in at the end of July. Quite simply because they haven't been nourished adequately. Absolutely. I mean, we know there's 1.8 million children, Magic Breakfast, you know, 1.8 million children waking up in food insecure homes.

And the thing is, I would love every child to have the very best summer holiday. That's the goal, you know, kind of, and for every parent and for every teacher, the best. That's what we are striving for. But how can you enjoy your summer holiday where you don't know where your mum and dad are because they're working and you've got very limited access to good food

and where you play is not safe without adult supervision. And this is the reality and this is why you do need a year-round strategy for support for families on low income in the school holidays. Okay, well, again, I'm just going to put a point to you from a teacher who emailed. Schools are educational establishments, not state childminding facilities. I appreciate that some

parents may struggle, but it isn't the job of schools to sort that out. Although I know many try to, I'm sure I'm going to sound hugely unsympathetic. But I feel that if you choose to have children, it shouldn't be too much to ask that you take responsibility for them over the summer holidays. Well, that's a bit harsh. I mean, I think there's an awful lot of parents who love their children dearly and are absolutely without the resources to do the kind of parenting that they'd like to do. And I think that as a mature and caring society, what did, I mean, the schools that we support, and in term time, Magic Breakfast is working with 1,800 schools in the National School Breakfast Programme and being faced and the fact that for many people working in a school they would love to work in the holidays and open up those facilities that are really probably the very best thing in your local area. I think that's a good point they're a

community they have the capacity the potential to be a community hub don't they because everybody knows that we all go to vote there apart from everything else. Let's talk about that juliet i mean i know that the magic breakfast does supply breakfast to some kids in your school doesn't it yeah we so we have our children are very lucky in the term time they have breakfast provided if they haven't had a decent meal at the evening time they have breakfast straight away when they come in my staff know which kids aren't getting breakfast you can see in the line at meet and greet time who looks like they aren't quite happy or isn't haven't had a good start to the day they can scoop them up if they haven't made it in time for the free breakfast they can give them something before they start learning or in the break and then they get a free school meal and then the holidays come and they

get nothing which is obviously a big burden on parents because they were having all of those things provided and now they're having to share every meal amongst all of their children plus themselves and people think that you know just because you're working that you have the money but even some of my support staff don't get paid massive wages they have to do two jobs sometimes more than that and if parents are doing two or three jobs they need to have the childcare because they need the money to come in and then the money is low quite often pay is very low and they're not getting enough to make ends meet so it's not that they're not trying yeah i think i know you're keen to emphasize carmel that the people you are helping overwhelmingly are in work yeah two-thirds of the

kids that we feed who are hungry are in working families and that's correlated by all the data across the place right as our historian laura um when you look back in the past, is this concern about children being, frankly, malnourished during the holidays? It can't be new, can it? No, absolutely. It's something that schools and parents sort of wrestled with across the 20th century, really, and even earlier. There were responses like holiday fund schemes which were set up in various places so often this would be for children in sort of poor urban areas where local communities would fundraise and appeal for donations to try and send some of what they referred to as the sort of most ailing children into the countryside for a couple of weeks of a change of air. And schools in certain areas also did open for a couple of days for the period of the summer holiday. Oh, did they? I didn't know that.

Yeah, so in Leeds there was a programme in the early 20th century where the schools opened for two days a week over the summer vacation. They provided sort of crafts and activities for children, although it didn't necessarily come from the place that we might expect. I mean, the main motivation seems to have been actually they wanted to just stop children running about the streets and causing trouble, perhaps, rather than coming from a sort of place around providing food and that sort of thing. Well, we will talk about adolescence and teenagers, of course, over the summer holidays are a different proposition.

It's also really important to emphasise, of course, that some children with disabilities, it can be particularly challenging for them and for their families over the summer break. This listener says, can I implore you to consider talking about the huge additional difficulties faced by parents of children with disabilities? It is an absolute nightmare for us. I'm the mum of a six-year-old girl with severe learning disabilities and autism. I also have a three-year-old daughter without any additional needs. My six-year-old needs constant one-to-one engagements to do anything. She cannot communicate or feed herself or carry out any independent tasks. Play and enjoyment is just as important to her as it is to any other child,

yet her needs are so great it's a daily or rather hourly battle to care for her and try to meet those needs. Doing this, along with meeting the often conflicting needs of my other daughter, is physically and emotionally exhausting. And from another listener, my youngest has a rare genetic condition and physical and learning difficulties. The holidays are so difficult. At school, she follows a very structured programme,

including standing in a standing frame for 45 minutes a day. We just don't have this equipment at home. She's extremely full on, has no sense of danger and needs constant supervision. As I write, we're two weeks in. We've had a great time, but I am shattered already. Haven't got any of my usual paid work and childcare is very hard to come by. My house looks a bit like an art installation, she says. We can be fed or we can be tidy. Well, I think that's a really important point and again something that we we mustn't forget that everybody faces very many different

challenges over the course of the summer holidays not just a question of filling the holidays i think if that's all you've got to worry about then you should count yourself lucky i guess i'm including myself there um henrietta harrison is our reporter who's been speaking to parents out and about in a park in North London. We spend a lot of time, just the three of us, doing activities at home. We try and meet up with friends, but everyone has different schedules. We are going on holiday for a couple of weeks this weekend, but it's hard to find the right activities if the weather's

not great that don't cost the earth. They need a break definitely, they need a break mentally and physically. I think as long as you get out and about and you have interesting and enriching experiences, they learn so much anyway just by being around us. My eldest is at school, there's a summer club attached to the school. That's reasonable, about 40 quid a day. But that is reasonable in comparison to, say, my daughter's nursery, which is much more, if not double. And you've got family to help, though? My mum lives very close by, so she is about to go in for a hip replacement. So I haven't been as organised as I should have been this

holiday but i've learned that so next summer definitely i'll get weeks booked in to be away especially now they'll be both at school i've just bought our first tent so that might be the way forward from now on you've got six kids seven seven kids i have seven but but two of them are bigger yeah i do i do struggle sometimes because there doesn't seem to be an awful lot to do, particularly when it's wet. But I enjoy the holidays personally. I love it. I love having the children at home. I don't mind not having to get up for the school run.

But actually, I find that the children do need a holiday. Often, I'm thinking that I need to do more, and it's them going, can we just stay at home? Can we just read? Can we just lie in the garden or play at home? You're a single mum, aren't you? I mean, is it tough to get through the summer financially? It is. I definitely notice the difference in terms of food consumption because we don't go away on holiday because I can't afford to do that.

But there are a lot of things to do that are free, but you've got to get there. And that's quite difficult. I don't have a car either, so public transport transport is prohibitive often with a lot of children I want a sabbatical because last summer I spent three thousand pounds in childcare it was 14 pounds an hour so that was really stressful and I work full-time my husband works full-time and I'm loving it this year so what are you doing this year fill in my days with my children and it feels like the right thing to do it feels much better it's made my children and it feels like the right thing to do. It feels much better.

It's made my children change instantly, which is quite incredible. They're much more at ease. They're having the time of their lives and it's not a kind of drop them off at some club today and then the struggle of just juggling. The reporter there, Henrietta Harrison, some challenges rather well expressed there, I thought.

Here's the Irish perspective from Ruth. Six weeks too long. My Irish teens finish school on the 25th of May. They go back on the 28th of August. Irish parents need a medal, says Ruth, with some feeling. The cost there was certainly mentioned by one of the contributors in Henrietta's report. Coram, the Family and Children's Trust, say in a childcare survey this year that the average cost of childcare for children over the summer holidays will be £828 per child for six weeks. Now, that, I suppose, isn't necessarily for childcare, Carmel,

but for treats, days out, and as one woman said there, public transport also required. Absolutely. And we've seen that the costs have gone up. And of course, family access, because wages haven't gone up, you know, the kind of the question is, where does that extra money come from? And if you're a parent and you want to do those things, and it's really interesting listening to that report, because it's, you know, every parent wants to do the very best and get their child out. But if you haven't got the resources, what it often ends up is additional stress for the parent. And, you know, the vibe in many family homes, I mean, sort of, you know, when you're sort of talking to children, they are they're aware that their parents are missing meals in order to feed them or they can't go to the things. And the parents are often being supported by the children in this.

This is the other thing. We often look at this from a society and parent point of view, but I really want to stress from the child's point of view, they're very aware that they're in a place where they haven't got everything they need, but they want to look after everyone else still. And that's the big thing. When we did a cookery programme in schools, the children were making food for everyone in their family, rather than insisting they had theirs first. Well, that's telling big thing. When we did a cookery programme in schools, the children were making food for everyone in their family rather than insisting they had theirs first.

Well, that's telling, isn't it? I did ask for suggestions and we've had some. Brilliant free place to take kids, the Natural History Society in Bournemouth. Wonderful natural history exhibits from Victorian times. You've got fossils and an Egyptian mummy. Manned by academic volunteers, happy to share their interests. Only open Tuesdays and some Saturdays. Well, that's slightly unfortunate. Take your children to St Fagin's Welsh Museum in Cardiff. Only five quid to park, free entry to all museums in Wales.

Take a packed lunch and you can spend all day there. It's for everyone. Right, thank you for that, Michelle. And Jasmine's a teacher. She says shorter terms and more regular holidays would cause less burnout. Scrap the summer holiday.

On the other hand, Alison on Twitter says, don't wish the school holidays away. There are times to do the ordinary stuff and a few fun things as a family. Intergenerational companionship in the family is a good thing. Yes, I haven't heard from any grandparents yet.

If you're a grandparent and you feel that you're being asked to do too much at this time of year, we'd like your input and your involvement as well this morning. Now, Bryony Hartley, author of Minimalist Family Camping. Bryony, tell us a bit about your own family unit to start us off. OK, so I've got two children. I've got a nine-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter. I'm getting divorced. I'm separating at the moment. So I guess I'm technically a single parent. So I'm looking for the things to do sort of on my own with my children. And my kids have

got quite different needs. So my daughter is really into sort of playing outside, fairies, colouring, making things. My son, on the other hand, is really sort of obsessed with technology. He would spend all day staring at TV, you know, playing Minecraft, the gadget in his hand. He just loves being on screens. I'm trying to find something I can do, which will make everybody happy. And that will make me happy as well. It's trying to find something where all three of us can sort of go off and have a good time. There's no doubt that single parenting over the summer break can be, well, more of a challenge than doing it as a twosome. There's also, I think, an immense pressure to be providing the best possible summer for children in these circumstances.

Is this the first summer you've done this, actually, on your own, Brett? This is my second summer. I mean, we're sort of doing quite well. So we're having the kids one week on, one week off. So on my week off, having the kids, I just get all my work done, I do all my chores, and then when I've got my kids for a week, I've been able to plan and do some really nice things for them. So it's actually working out quite well.

And obviously camping is part of what we do. Because for us, camping is a really great way of getting all of us outside. It's a great way of meeting up with friends and family. And I think it's really important in this break that it's lovely for the kids to not have to go to school to get away from the pressures of the playground and the sort of intensity and this and also the confines of having to sort of sit still all day and listen and learn and wear a uniform and sort of behave themselves I love the fact that if you go camping they can

basically it's called rewilding so the kids can just run around like crazy they can get muddy they can roll around they can shout they can scream and i think it's a really positive thing to do and it doesn't have to be expensive so it can be quite a nice solution obviously weather dependent the weather's been pretty awful this weekend but um if you have a small kit like we do um you just wait for a bit of a weather window and it's very quick and easy to just grab your stuff and go off camping um quickly with the minimum stress that's something i've worked really hard to try and do is to minimise the amount of work involved in gathering camping equipment together because having so much stuff to take camping

can be a barrier to leaving the house at all. Well, what are the bare essentials? The bare essentials are basically you need to meet your family's needs. And as human beings, our needs are the same outdoors. We need shelter, we need warmth, we need comfort, we need food need comfort we need food and we need joy and i've just been looking at the sort of minimum things you need to be able to meet these

needs outside um and i've sort of got my kit list and i've been downsizing my stuff so rather than taking piles and piles of duvets and and real bedding and blankets which can fill up a car i've worked out that if we all wear a set of thermals take a sleeping bag and sleep on a self-inflating mattress we're all really warm and it takes up hardly any space at all. And do you ban screens? I don't ban screens at all. I mean, it's my son's happy place is on a screen. So we do have screens at home, obviously,

and I'm just as guilty as anyone else. I work, so I'm on a screen as well. But when we're camping, I try not to use screens at all. Occasionally, if it's raining, everyone's getting stressed and the kids are getting a bit fractious, then I might put a little film on just for like half an hour before bedtime. But I try to reduce that as much as possible because I think it's really important for kids and for adults as well to unplug and go outside and just kind of calm down. Like being out in nature, there's lots of research at the moment that shows that being able to spend time in nature can really make a difference to children's physical

and mental well-being and that screen time can really negative negatively affect their emotional well-being it can reduce confidence and self-esteem it can create anxiety and depression so getting away from it i think it's a welcome break okay d homes who for Relate and looks after young people and adolescents. If your children are older, I guess screen addiction is the thing that most parents are worried about over the summer. What would you say about that? to sort of regroup and have that downtime but you know things are going to carry on in lots of ways as they are so there's positives and negatives you know if things are going well in your family and you're communicating well with your teenagers and you feel their screen time is under control then that will probably continue through the holidays if it's an issue then this is an opportunity where it's going to become a bigger issue so I think a lot of that comes down to expectations and communication about what's expected and what the routine is going to be

and how you're going to manage that holiday period. Just getting back to real basics, the law is actually quite sketchy on when children can be left alone. We looked up this morning and basically the law doesn't give an age when you can leave a child on their own. But it is an offence to leave a child alone if it places them at risk. It says here on the government's website, use your judgment on how mature your child is before you decide to leave them alone, either at home or, for example, in a car. The NSPCC says children under the age of 12 are rarely mature enough to be left

alone for a long period of time. Children under 16 should not be left alone overnight. Children of course do vary immensely so I guess it is up to every carer and parent to do know their own child. That's right and I think that can be a real problem, as we've heard from other people saying, you know, that the holidays can be a great time for having family time and regrouping. But if you're a working parent and you've got some real issues about childcare, and also I think one of those things with teenage children, you know, children around 13, 14, they don't want to go to clubs and be in child care they want to be at home they don't want to be looked after and then that comes into as you say that is it safe to leave them at home you know will they be okay on their own do I have to force them to go and be with granny for the day when they don't want to do that well let me ask Juliet who's our primary school head do children at primary school get I was going to say not abandoned because that's too strong a word, but are they left because parents feel they have no choice?

Yeah, I think that happens a lot because if you're looking for jobs, it might be that your job is quite a late return job. We have quite a lot of children who basically are on their own sort of working at home on a computer. I say working loosely. yeah um and and i think that you know sometimes you ask parents is there somebody with the child at home and they say well the uncle lives upstairs or you know in a flat above or um or i'm not long home or there's a neighbor that's nearby so there are quite a lot of very young children primary age children who are home alone or coming to school on their own and parents are making the judgment they think that's safe because they haven't got another alternative in terms of getting them there. And it happens a lot. Yes.

And often I question it. Do you? Yeah, because if we think the person who's collecting a child is too young to take responsibility for the other child. And it all depends on the child. Each child is very different. As you say, you need to know your child. And the question is, is your judgment being skewed by your own needs as well? You know, is the child really going to feel confident themselves to be at home?

Or is it that you also need them to be at home alone for yourself? Dee, what about adolescent, young teenagers, 12, 13, 14 year olds, looking after, being made to look after their younger siblings over the summer? Yes, and I think, you know, safety and whether they're able to do that or not aside, that's also an issue that can cause sort of resentment in in a family you know children being sort of felt that they have to look after a younger sibling um and they may not want to do they get on with that younger sibling how are they you know does that stop them having the fun they want in the in the summer holidays as well i think for the whole the whole area is is really around trying to manage expectations and communicate about that. So negotiating, it may be, can you look after your brother or sister today for a while? And then that's not going to be something you've got to do all the time. It's about having those conversations and managing expectation really to stop resentments building up and make sure everybody is safe and happy, really.

If you've got the money, maybe you should offer to pay the older kids, should you? I mean, I suppose that comes down to the whole thing about pocket money and how families manage that sort of chores thing, isn't it? And yeah, and it could be seen as a chore that is something you need to pay for to your child. You do get a lot of older people banging on about the glories of boredom and going on about how it's terribly improving to be bored when you're a young person. Any thoughts on that, Dee? That's interesting. I mean, what do we mean by boredom? I mean, I think it's important for people to have time. I mean, we're all guilty of being very busy and not ever really having that time of just being. And in lots of ways, that is what the summer holidays are about, aren't they?

A bit of a time when you haven't got to be at school, getting up, doing things. As with anything, I guess there's a positive and negative. If people are bored and that leads them to do things that perhaps aren't safe or aren't helpful, or they just revert back to as we said earlier the screen time but if that boredom creates a sort of you know impetus to do something better and to think right I'm gonna you know get out there and do this or what can I do to to fill this boredom gap really. I guess historian Laura this is where some of the best bits of youth culture start with

absolute boredom. Yeah absolutely and I mean in my research I look at lots of interviews with older people who are remembering their childhood and youth and it's a theme that comes up quite often is you know oh back in my day there was nothing really for us to do but we created our own entertainment not like the children today who've got all these wonderful things to do. And of course, you know, sort of authority has often been concerned with what children and young people are doing. This idea of them doing nothing, whether it's hanging around on street corners, all that kind of stuff is seen as doing nothing. But actually, it's quite an important moment for youth culture and for sort of forming identities and forming social bonds as well. Yeah, I was does anyone actually genuinely hang out on a street corner? Can any one of us say

we've ever done that? Laura, have you have you ever just stood in a street corner hanging around? Probably not a street corner, although maybe I just stood in a street corner hanging around probably not a street corner although maybe i grew up in a small village and it was the local bus stop that was quite our bus stops totally different um and and eyeing up the eyeshadow in boots was something i used to do for hours on end carmel where did you where did you hang around there was a group of about 10 of us um who were in central park in in Dagenham between about nine and about five most days. And we were roaming around and we were making all sorts. We thought we were kind of designing a new zoo involving our neighbour's dog for quite a lot of the time.

But mostly we were just kind of roaming around and finding whatever we could do. Well, you see that you're harking back to a time that certainly around the time of my adolescence when you could go out and stay out yeah and your family not only did not know where you were they had no way of finding out. No exactly and you know you know things things would happen you kind of think okay well there was the time that you know one cousin decided to do speed bumps on the bike and broke an arm and we weren't quite sure how to deal with that immediately and we decided that we probably should find an adult but I mean most of the time I mean we were lucky because there was one there was always one adult with us and you know we were able to kind of roam around and take this adult you know kind of almost captive and roam around Central Park Dagenham

which is a very very beautiful place I know there's an awful lot of an awful lot of listeners who are very jealous about this but there's there's the the mate you know but it was a safe place you know it was just uh there wasn't there wasn't a threat and i think when we're working with one wonderful organization um looking at healthy cities and the school schools in glasgow and schools in london are getting support it's from an investment bank morgan sander who are trying to figure out how to uh help the communities to integrate better play better nutrition better support from the fire service and the police. And you need something to really integrate those things,

because in so many neighbourhoods, it's like it's a scattergun approach. And you might have a brilliant holiday scheme, like Croydon's got a great one with Family Action right now. But you just might, because of where you live, have nothing at all. So I think it's just about saying, can we just map what's available for kids all over the country and just say, as Bryony says, and I think I love her minimalist camping approach I think that sounds fabulous, but let's just

map across the country are the basics for survival available for children in the holidays? I mean it's not, it is that serious and I'd love us to be able to do that. Lucy on Twitter says, oh, she's got it sorted. I used to pay my older children to look after my younger children and pay my younger children to behave.

It seemed to work OK. Kerry has sent this email and I want to read it out because I think it's probably fairly typical. What has happened to using your imagination? When my children were young, we didn't have much money or a car, so we made camps out of sheets and chairs in the garden or inside. We did artwork using waste washing up liquid bottles, boxes, old envelopes and cheap paints and pencils. We walked and we investigated insects and flowers. We biked to the pick your own place, picked strawberries and came home and made jam. We bussed to the free museums in our local town and spent hours enjoying the dinosaur skeletons. It was fab. Kerry says you do not need lots of money to entertain children. OK, Bryony, what would you say?

I think Kerry's onto something there, definitely. You don't need a lot of money to entertain children. No, but you need to be available, don't you? And not everyone can be. Yes, that's absolutely true. You need to lot of money to entertain children and i think no but you need to be available don't you and not everyone can be yes that's absolutely true you need to be able to give your children time and that's what our kids really want from us i think is it's our time particularly when they're of a certain age you know my kids are fairly young at the moment they just want to hang out with me so my time's really important to them um but i do believe that getting children outside getting them outdoors away from the kind of the obvious distractions that you find around a house can be really positive for them and allowing people, everybody to just kind of

unwind and recharge, having that sort of change of air that you used to get when kids were sent down to the countryside. I think that's a really positive thing to do and even if you can't afford to go camping, I think just taking your children to a park, going to a local woodland, running around under some trees is a really sort of refreshing and healthy way to just spend a bit of quality time together yeah i mean all marvelous but won't be music to the ears of our listeners in the inner city who who just can't do that and you live i think in dorset is that is that right i live i live in bournemouth okay so you've got wonderful places right on your doorstep and you'll appreciate that just isn't possible for everyone i did live in live in London for 10 years

and a lot of my friends still live there and yes, it's a different kettle of fish but there are still parks in London which you can find. Yeah, I think London is rather well served in terms of parks but it doesn't apply across the country. I did ask for grandparents. Here's an email from Carol. I work part-time and for the last

two weeks I've looked after my six-year-old granddaughter two days a week. We belong to the National Trust. We've been to various properties, enjoying the space, walking and playing. And her father's Lego has proved invaluable on rainy days. She's got six weeks holiday. However, my grandson who lives in Spain has got 12 weeks. That's quite a challenge.

And at the end of August, we're heading to Spain to help them out there. I'm not surprised um carol says she's a nurse and i have to try and persuade adults and children to have breakfast um yeah just a quick one on breakfast i love breakfast and can't function without it carmel but some people can't apparently can't eat breakfast never mind aren't able to just can't do it well fair enough you know no i don't think it is fair enough. Well, I mean, you know, given that I'm pretty strongly focused on making sure children start their school day with the right food as fuel for learning

and we have a major problem and I'll be back because we do need to get our National School Breakfast Programme continue beyond March next year. So if the new minister, Kemi Badenoch, is listening, I'd love a little chat about that. But we've got a real interesting thing with some parents saying, look, I try, my child just doesn't want to have food first thing. And, you know, what are you going to do? I've always said the night before, Trey, just get a banana and maybe a wee bit of

yoghurt and a glass of milk, you know, kind of just something is better than nothing. If you've got food and your child won't eat, then there's tactics. And also helping the child to make their own breakfast. There's not a child I have found in 20 years of talking about it that doesn't like making a pancake. Well, that's interesting. I just had an email here from a grandparent who says, I've got my grandchildren one day a week on the holidays, sometimes more. I always ask them what they'd like to do.

It's always unanimous baking. We've made bread cakes. We prepare meals for mummy and daddy coming home. Last week we made slushies out of fresh fruit. If you've got the skills yourself, you can pass them on. You mentioned briefly, you mentioned Kemi Badenoch. Has there been much interest or engagement with the

relatively, sort of, is a new government? I mean, it's still a conservative government. There are many new faces. Well, I'm very optimistic because you've got Gavin Williamson who's got a teaching background. He's the new Education Secretary. Exactly, Secretary of State. And you've also got Kemi there. And

I think you just have to say if we're into this kind of strange era of deal, no deal Brexit, then one thing this country can do is say, well, actually our values are about education, about supporting everyone in this country can do is say, well, actually, our values are about education, about supporting everyone in this country. And we are going to make sure that, first of all, children are fed so they can learn. And secondly, they're fed so they can access,

as Brian says, the joy in a holiday. I mean, it's just it just really breaks my heart when you've got kids who are upset at the end of the term, because they're going into a school summer holiday that they know is going to be less fun than their term time. Now, schools are oases of learning, and they are, I admire Juliet and every teacher that I've come across, how on earth do we set up an equal provision? You can't. But what you can do is make sure that there is a plan and a programme that makes sure we're supporting the children

who are most vulnerable in this country. And it's not expensive. It's not expensive. £7 a day would give a child a healthy breakfast, a programme of exercise and a cookery programme where they'd make their tea for the evening. So, you know, and most parents are having to spend £30 extra a week on the food, you know, families that are eligible for free school meals, I'm talking about, on the extra food, just know, families that are eligible for free school meals,

I'm talking about, on the extra food just because they can't access the breakfast and the lunch at school. So let's just sort that one out. Yeah, but it is interesting. The teachers who say, I've got one here, actually, I understand the difficulties the five week in the summer or six weeks presents for working parents. However, if we use this as a reason to reduce the summer holidays, then we get into a new area of schools being used as childcare establishments,

which was something that another teacher mentioned yeah um i know that you're passionate about all this and i can i can absolutely sense it i see the glimmer the gleam in your eyes when you talk about it but it will be juliet making schools into something other than they are won't it except to a degree they already are i mean we have a children's center on our site and so we have breastfeeding clinics antenatal clinics we have debt advice and dv counseling on the same site which gets people onto the site and it doesn't have to be teachers i think it's the the notion that it isn't that school has to continue it's that there has to be a provision and that's just about a strategy that's about deciding that we do need to provide something in a kind of measured way so that it is everywhere for everybody who needs it

and it wants as a strategy it can be used the schools can be used as a hub and when we run two play schemes in tandem not by me but people renting our space so we have a deaf play scheme and a kind of multi-sports play scheme in our school. It could be that that was part of the strategy. It could be that that is subsidised. It could be that breakfast were then brought in or lunches are brought in as part of that for those people who need it. And it's about making it local because people can't always travel. We talked about the cost of travel. So it has to be local enough that you're not moving because people don't move

as far as you think they do you know people in my area stay in my area they're not the summer yeah i mean they often don't use facilities that are even in the city they'll stay in their own local area because it's either easier or or less um cost you know less expensive i think the thing for parents as you said earlier is that that we're talking about people who can go camping or who are free yeah but i remember as a single parent myself you wake up in the morning you decide where to put your guilt you know you've got to work that was how the live program ended this morning juliet still with me so is carmel from the magic breakfast and i'm just going to read some of the emails um a lot of people actually taking us up on the point of class i do think class is significant no getting away from that

tamar i hope i've got that name right says on twitter if you're middle class and you can afford a holiday it's fabulous for anybody with a minimum wage job and no family support the summer holiday is a nightmare people also pointing out actually camping, which obviously we talked about in the company of Bryony, is a singularly middle-class activity. I mean, I'm not denying that. I think that's, Carmel, that's fair, isn't it? It is on the whole. Yeah, it is.

I mean, unless you count Greenham Common. I mean, it's like, yeah, absolutely. It doesn't occur to the majority of the families that I support. That said, it would be nice if it spread around because what Bryony was saying was spot on, wasn't it? It's a fantastic thing to do, but it's just not there as an idea to do. OK, one of my colleagues is vehemently disagreeing with the idea,

I can see her next door, that middle-class people camp and other people don't. But, Juliet, what's your experience? You do need the kit. No, I think you do need the kit, but I know in my school that I have a couple of year groups where they all go camping together on a weekend. And that's not that's across class. That's just a class of children and their families. So I don't think that was exclusively.

It is equipment. Equipment may be a barrier and also travelling there might be a barrier. But it's not expensive and it isn't necessarily excluding people. I think people do go camping. OK, some more emails. Rosemary says, I still remember a six-year-old in my class who turned up very early on the first day of the autumn term.

I greeted her and said, Hello, are you pleased to be back at school? Yes, she said, it's dead crap up our house. And I think that actually, I'm glad Rosemary emailed that, it's not funny, really, is it? Because, Juliette, there are some kids for whom their primary school is just the best thing about their life. It just is. And I want it to be.

You know, I want my parents and my children to wake up in the morning going, great, it's another school day. Because I want my teachers to make everything they do that sort of thing where you wake up and think anything could happen today. And that learning is fun. But that doesn't mean that the holidays shouldn't be fun too and I think that it's true there are children who come back who are very pleased I mean lots of children love that structure they love knowing exactly where they are and having that kind of routine for themselves and sometimes there is no extra input in the holidays for some kids so coming back is something that's great. But we are there and they come back and we carry on doing the best we can during the term times.

As well as education, says Mark via email, the holidays are a hangover from the past that are still implemented with no real evidence that it's best for children or teachers. My own thoughts are that the holidays should be in June or July when it's actually hottest. Well, that is true. And they should be four weeks long with an extra week added to the current one week half terms that aren't long enough. However, they need to be planned based on empirical evidence. I think children forget a lot over six weeks and for many, not only get better fed at school

and it's the only structure they have in what can be a chaotic life. I think you'd take issue with some of that, wouldn't you, Juliet? Yeah, some of it. I mean, I think that there is something about the structure that we can provide in schools, and sometimes where there is a chaotic life for some children, and some kids have had a very difficult time before they even arrive in the morning,

the structure we provide can be very good. But we're not just an education service we do provide those kind of social kind of meeting needs in those ways but i mean i think that and i think if you looked at it i don't want my teachers ever to lose the big break they need a break their whole lives are given to what they do and they do need to have a life otherwise they've got nothing to offer it's that whole gas mark thing you know you put the mask on yourself first so that you can help others if they haven't got enough nourishment for themselves they're not going to be able to give anybody anything but um but i don't know whether it could ever be reorganized in a way that made more sense and i often think i'd like to

look out of the box a bit about how we could make holidays fit better for our local community so that we make the benefits out of cheaper holiday times and not at the key times or what do you think about that carmel would it make sense in terms of less well-off families well i'm i'm not an expert at all unlike juliet on this but i think the length of the holidays isn't the question it's the provision within that time you know so you know if you're talking about northern talking about Northern Ireland, you've got a great deal. Nine weeks they have there. Exactly. You've got a huge number of children and nine weeks

and there's 100,000 children in income poverty in Northern Ireland. And so what are you going to do to make sure that those children are well and that the families are supported in those long times? Now, if it's shorter, I tend to agree with what we were saying before about it's getting hotter in spring than it used to be. And if you want to have the kids having the best time, you know, earlier in the year seems to me, I mean, every August for as long as I can remember.

It's terrible. It just becomes this damp squib, doesn't it? And so maybe earlier is a good idea. But as Juliet says, I mean, kind of reorganising it. I wonder what children would say. What do you think children would say if we said what you want to? It's about them. We don't want to include them.

I don't know. What do you think children would say about it, Juliet? I don't know. I think, you know, there was that point, isn't there? Like when I was young, you know, that school's out for summer moment where, you know, it is all at the end. You can see in the last week, everybody's counting down only three weeks until we have the summer holidays. And there is a sense of, you know, here we go now. It's a freedom moment.

I think kids like that, whether it's six weeks or five weeks, I don't know whether we look at changing it around Easter, because that's the difficult time where it messes up the terms and the equality of the amount of time you're in. But I think the key thing is about the strategy if there was a strategy whenever the holidays were if there was a strategy to provide for those who need it something that is affordable and provides food at the same time for those who need it that it doesn't matter when the holidays are exactly um sue says as a single parent and a teacher i used to volunteer warden in youth hostels in coastal areas with my son i would get a week's free holiday and i just had to clean we met some lovely folk and had a great time to boot um when i say just had to clean i'm not

suggesting that wasn't hard work i'm sure it was but it was what she did in order to get the free week it doesn't seem a bad idea um another one from a teacher i am busy whilst listening to your program because i am a teacher and i'm on the summer break teachers need their long break because the job is rewarding but very tough the long break allows us to recharge this is what you've been saying juliet i can spend valuable time with my own kids provides us the time to reorganize our classrooms catch up with neglected DIY and gardening. There you go, there's somebody whose feet do not touch the ground over the

summer holidays. Okay, your favourite summer holiday memory, Carmel? Oh, goodness me, favourite summer holiday memory. It is Northern Ireland farm being brought back as the English cousin and people trying to explain to me looking out of a window

for the first time and seeing no streetlights and just seeing the dark and then seeing a wee puff coming out of the field that I was told was a soul escaping to heaven by my cousin who terrified me every year and was actually just a little bit of methane coming out of the, you know, will-o'-the-wisp. It's a real thing. It's a real thing. Just little puffs of smoke and fire and just thinking how amazing to be somewhere that's no cars and no police sirens and no streetlights and how lovely that must be.

Apart from my cousin Eileen who scared the bejesus out of me. I was going to say thanks for that one, Eileen. What's happened to Eileen? Oh, Eileen's fabulous. She's the best woman I've ever met but she still scares the bejesus out of me any time we meet. Hope you're listening, Eileen.

And Juliet, beat that. Well, I don't think I can beat it. I think as a kid, most of my holidays were caravans, which at the time were quite exciting, sort of little square houses where everything was in one box and you could just be outside all the time. Yeah, we used to go on caravan holidays. I of course see it through my mother's eyes and realize that was not a holiday yeah she was just doing what she did at home in a more confined space i completely agree

because by the time i got to being older myself uh going to a holiday where it's all inclusive and you can just say to the kids yes just take the ice cream it's quite useful oh i had an all inclusive holiday last year can't recommend them highly enough. They're fabulous. Yeah, oh, you just put your hand out and you get a, in my case, a virgin mojito at 10 past 11 in the morning. Nothing to beat it, apart from the real mojito a little bit later in the day.

Anyway, thank you both very much. Thanks, Juliette and Carmel. And thanks to everybody who contributed today and the programme's back tomorrow and the podcast, of course. Amongst other things, we're talking about the rise and fall of the Bonk buster bbc sounds music radio podcasts beyond today is the daily podcast from radio 4

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