Kate Emery: Three-week winter break would be a big win for parents

West Australian

26-06-2025

An extra week of winter holidays for WA's public school kids makes sense for a simple two-word reason.
Summer. Holidays.
That's not why WA Secondary School Executives Association president Melissa Gillett has floated the idea of a three week winter term break.
Her rationale for the call — which is not up for any formal consideration — is more about giving 'knackered' students and staff a break. Ms Gillett, clearly, has gazed into the eyes of a teacher this week and, to paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche, seen the abyss staring back at her.
There's also the added bonus that tapping out of school a week earlier might help stop the spread of winter coughs and colds that turns every primary school classroom into a petri dish at this time of year. Keen observers of their local classroom this week will have noticed that plenty of kids have started their winter holidays ahead of schedule and their destination is Snot Mountain.
Some WA private schools already take three weeks off at this time of year. Cynics might suggest it's so Winifred and Wolfgang can winter on the Italian Riviera but the schools say it's more about giving everyone a proper break — and dodging the worst of flu season. It also gives boarders more time with their families.
But none of those perfectly good reasons are why I think a three-week winter break for public schools would be a boon for parents.
My reason is that sending kids back to school at the start of the year a week earlier and letting them take that week in June would make summer holidays shorter.
It's a little known law of physics that, once you have kids, the summer holidays expand to become eleventy billion years along.
No longer do December and January have '31 days' as Big Calendar would have you believe. The summer break now begins just after the big bang and ends as the sun dies.
Summer holidays are a joyous time for kids. Sleep-ins, family outings and a dangerously relaxed bathing schedule all represent much-needed down time.
Summer holidays can also be a joyous time for parents whose work schedules allow them to spend hours assembling LEGO castles, being told how they're playing Barbies wrong or at least catch an occasional glimpse of their progeny's head between Zoom meetings.
But even the most ardent summer holiday enthusiast arrives at the end of January feeling like they've not so much run a marathon as had a marathon run over the top of them.
There simply comes a time when there are no more trips to the museum or Scitech or the park to be taken.
When you've given up trying to tidy and built a nest from discarded clothes instead.
When you've watched every family-friendly film going and the kids are now watching UFC.
Lop a week off the summer holidays, add it to the winter break and everyone — kids, teachers and especially parents — might make it through to February in one piece.