Ministers should consider shortening school holidays and letting teachers work from home, union chief says

14 February 2025, 17:45 | Updated: 14 February 2025, 18:57

The leader of head teachers' union has said that the government should consider shortening school holidays and letting staff work more flexibly.

Pepe Di'Lasio told LBC's Tom Swarbrick that he agreed with calls from Ofsted to extend term times - but that he was surprised as there were also more pressing issues to look at.

The head of school inspectors Ofsted told Tom earlier in the week that he supports longer term times in order to increase teaching days, and because children forget more of what they learn if they have long breaks.

Di'Lasio, the general secretary of the association of school and college leaders said: "I think there's lots of evidence to suggest... that the six week holidays are longer than we would want in terms of educational retention, but also in terms of those rhythms and routines that young people need and require."

But he also warned that the issue needed to be considered "in the round" so that parents' needs would also be considered.

"And so there are some complexities that would need to be addressed and thought through in the planning for us to take this forward," Mr Di'Lasio said.

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But the union chief said that extending term times would not be among the top priorities for his members - and that school funding and special educational needs provision was more pressing.

He also called for more flexible school days and work patterns for teachers and students.

"We should be looking forward to some evidence-based research that helps us have a day that is better for learning, helps families and contribute towards families, but also works well for teachers and for the profession more widely," Mr Di'Lasio told Tom.

He added: "Certainly post-Covid, gone are the days where we work from 8:30 in the morning till 5:00 at night, Monday to Friday... schools should prepare people to some degree for the working world and make sure that they have the skills and knowledge ready for that.

"And so the world has changed and yet schools to some degree haven't done."

Mr Di'Lasio said that introducing more flexible working patterns would help with the current crisis of teacher recruitment and retention.

Asked what that could entail, he said: "At the moment, we've got a situation where all children are in from 9:00 till 3:00, give or take, every day and therefore the vast majority of teachers need to be all in school at that time.

"And I think we could look at different ways in which we could work and different ways in which we could flex the week.

"So that could allow for the profession to have more flexible hours in their but also work to a time that better suits young people and families too."

His comments come after Ofsted chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver told LBC that it was "time to think about school holidays again" and that he supports an extension to school term times.

Asked by a caller 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."

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."

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."