Are school holidays bad for you?

In July the Reading Agency published a survey of parents which showed that 40% felt stress and anxiety at the thought of holidays,

Travelling stress

long haul flight and aircraft travel is presented as a physical and mental health risk in the WHO international Travel guide 2012

In 2010, the journal of Applied Research in Quality of Life published a study where researchers in the Netherlands found most people were not happier after a vacation. Approximately 1,500 adults were questioned about their happiness before and after travel, and for the average vacation, people reported no change in happiness especially if they had long stressful travel experiences.

Psychologist has an article which summarises psychological research on how to make holidays from the office work

Search for more on psycnet (abstracts and some full text)

and Pubmed for medical articles

Learning loss

there are some studies on the impact of long breaks on childhood learning

NFER has conducted research on possible impact of school calendar changes on children staff and parents.

search for more research papers on education using NFER

and ERIC to find high quality articles and reports.

Financial costs

Coram Family and Childcare annual Holiday Childcare Survey,found that the average price of £138 a week for holiday childcare –would cost parents £800 for the six weeks of summer

for some this is too great and without school meals food banks may be relied on. the Trussell Trust reported. 87,496 food parcels went to children in the UK during the summer holidays in 2018

in 2015 Northumbria University conducted research for a Kelloggs
the report on isolation and hunger revealed the reality of long school holidays for poor families

in 2018 the Childhood Trust summarised the horrors of summer holidays for poor children in London covering hunger, lack of activity and learning loss.
this was echoed also by a CPAG Scotland report on the experiences of low income families
the impact of these poor experiences may also have an impact on long term mental health of adolescents according to a recent survey from a research team in Wales.

Indeed the Work and Pensions Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into holiday poverty

Finally school holidays will be ending soon. whether you are glad or not. see how the Uk compares with other European nations in this report . Figure 3 places UK in the group with less than 7 weeks summer break. there are some with more than 11!