Spanish summer holidays

Tuesday, September 9. 2008

This is a bit of a gripe I have about living in Spain, when summer comes around the school holidays start, and they last for a full three months in some places. Here in Andalucia the school holidays are just short of three months long. Fortunately they end this weekend.

The issue with such long school holidays for me is that summer really does become a holiday period, and where we live, is an unbearable time of year because it's an excuse for families to party or have loud gatherings every night of the week instead of just weekends, and this goes on for three months.

Call me a party pooper if you like, but when I was a boy growing up our summer school holidays were about 7 or 8 weeks, not 11 or 12. I remember with 20/20 hindsight how difficult it was to get back into the swing of things after that much time away from school, so I can't imagine what it's like for Spanish kids.

The CEAPA (Confederation of Parents Associations) here in Spain has now come out with a policy statement that the summer school holidays are too long and is interfering with the learning rythm of Spanish kids.

For me this is a welcome call by the CEAPA, I plan to stay in Spain a long time, but some of the things that need to be fixed in Spain can be very frustrating to have to deal with, and kids having such long school holidays is one of those things.

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