Completed petition Withdraw plans to change the structure of the school year
The Welsh Government’s evidence base is not sufficiently robust to justify the changes, which will cause significant disruption in our schools, and across the agricultural and tourism sectors in Wales.
We believe that now is not the time to change the structure of the school year, and remove time from the summer holidays. The education sector in Wales has seen significant changes, which have caused substantial impacts in terms of workload and wellbeing for our workforce.
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We already have amongst the shortest summer holidays in Europe. Primary and secondary school students in Italy, Portugal, and Spain benefit from lengthy summer holidays of 12 to 13 weeks. In Sweden, it’s 10 weeks, France and Norway 8 weeks, Germany 7 weeks. All these countries performed better than Wales in the latest PISA results.
Further still, the plans do not replace sufficient support for disadvantaged children and their families, such as opportunities to access free school meals during the holidays, and funded sporting and creative activities.
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/9149c2f5-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/9149c2f5-en
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