'Time to think about school holidays': Ofsted's Chief Inspector supports extending term times
12 February 2025, 19:18 | Updated: 13 February 2025, 07:20
Ofsted Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver has told LBC that it's "time to think about school holidays again" and that he supports an extension to school term times.
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Sir Martyn Oliver told Tom Swarbrick he supports longer term times in order to increase teaching days.
When quizzed by a caller on why school holidays in the UK are so short, instead Sir Martyn questioned whether they are long enough.
He said: “In England, there are 195 days that schools have to be open.
“Five of those are for teacher development and 190 days to actually educating children, child facing.
"I think 190 days of children going out of 365. I think the question should be is that long enough?
"Not whether that's not enough."
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Then when probed by Swarbrick on this, Sir Martyn used an example that when he he worked in the toughest schools in the country, the breaks negatively impacted the "most vulnerable disadvantaged children".
He said the breaks led to "dysregulation" due to children not having the routine of coming to school regularly.
"Once you have a big break, it makes it quite difficult. So I think it's a far more equal break."
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He continued: "I think it probably is time to think about school holidays again.
"And some areas of the country have got even slightly shorter summer holidays and equaled out the holidays. You don't go one week, two weeks, six weeks.
"So some areas of the country are trying a slightly different approach."
Sir Martyn also supports plans to install knife arches in schools amid a rise in stabbing attacks - but that schools make decisions that work for them.
He said: "I'm a real big believer in headteachers having the autonomy and the freedom to make the decisions that's right for them.
"And if a headteacher decides that they need to put that in place, then they should work with their community, work with their parents and make sure that they can keep children safe the best way that they think.
When probed on changes to tax Sir Martyn confirmed he has not seen "any difference in pattern of closure of independent schools so far" due to VAT changes.
'Nuanced and complex'
Sir Martyn also responded to criticism from the sister of Ruth Perry who claimed "Satisfactory" is not in the new Ofsted inspection ratings.
Julia Walter's comments made told LBC last month: "Ofsted have clearly just got a thesaurus out and come up with synonyms for the words.
"A senior official at OFED admitted that that's what they'd done. Got a knot to me, got a thesaurus out, they put satisfactory back in and they've come up with synonyms for what was there before."
Speaking today, Sir Martyn said: "Well, 'satisfactory' is not back in, but the difference is that. Let's just be clear.
"I've met with Julia Waters not long ago and had this conversation and took her through the plans that we're making.
"We're serious about making these plans.
"When the government were elected, they were quite clear that they wanted to move away from the single overall effectiveness judgment word. So that's not your single word, that's a single overall effectiveness judgment word, because they said that it's a blunt instrument.
"Now, they were really clear that they said to me, they want a report card which is high-quality information and much fairer, much more proportionate stakes.
So we're looking now to produce a report which is absolute clarity to parents because that's who we work for.
"And just recently, we heard in the poll that parents really like the look of this.
"But we also want to get into the narrative, the detail that gives the richness of a school, because schools are really nuanced and complex places."
