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August 2025 - Education

More than half of parents want the six-week summer holiday cut shorter as the average childcare bill over the break rises, new research discovers: Just over half (53%) of parents want the six-week summer holiday cut down to 4 weeks due to increasing financial pressure from childcare costs, this is compared to only a third (33%) who opposed the change.

These findings come from a UK poll of 3,000 parents by the charity Parentkind. The organisation provides a trusted voice for parents in education and champions parental participation in the education system. They create surveys which are designed to capture parent views on key educational issues and policy matters which are then shared with the government and other key agencies on a local, regional or national level. The focus of their most recent poll asked for feedback on the length of the summer holidays and how it can affect families financially.

The strength of support for the idea to reduce the length of the school summer break is driven largely by financial reasons, with nearly a third (32%) of parents agreeing it could benefit their finances positively and only one in five (17%) thought it would impact them negatively. The number who agree it would have a positive financial impact jumped to just under half (47%) amongst parents who have a child entitled to free school meals. These figures don’t come as a surprise when the average childcare bill for the summer holidays has risen by 4% year on year to £1,067 per child. This is around £650 more than parents would have to pay for six weeks of wrap around childcare during term time.

According to additional research from survey app Teacher Tapp, teachers would also support cutting the summer holidays shorter, with just over three fifths (62%) of teachers backing the move. Just under two in five (38%) teachers would be in favour of cutting it down to five weeks and a quarter (24%) would be in support of reducing it to 4 weeks. However, for teachers to support this change they would not want to lose out on their annual leave.

Findings from the Parentkind survey have led them to call for a national debate on the distribution of holidays, where they would present the case that a reduction in weeks would have benefits for both family finances and childcare logistics.

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