Should children learn in the holidays?

Should children learn in the holidays? There are both arguments in favour and arguments against learning during the holidays.

In the following article, we have listed the pros and cons and drawn a conclusion as to when children should study during the holidays.

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Table of contents

• Contra arguments for children learning during the holidays
   
• Pro arguments for children learning during the holidays
   
• Conclusion: Children should learn during the holidays, but only at home

Contra arguments for children learning during the holidays

Firstly, we present the arguments against children learning during the holidays.

Loss of inner drive to learn

If children are told by their parents to study during the holidays, this can lead to them losing their own drive to learn, i.e. their intrinsic motivation. Holidays are free time and are actually for recreation. If children are told by their parents to learn during their free time, this can quickly be perceived by the children as a punishment.

However, maintaining the inner drive to learn is enormously important so that children can persevere in the long term, especially at grammar school and university, when it comes to mastering the subject matter to be learnt.

Holiday course for lack of other children's holiday ideas

Some parents send their children to tuition courses during the holidays because the parents are working and cannot look after their children for the entire holiday, especially during the long summer holidays. This is because working parents generally do not get as much holiday time over the year as their children have school holidays.

Sending children to a holiday course for private tuition because you don't have time for them should not be the only reason to keep children busy learning during the holidays. In particular, the entire summer holidays should never be planned in this way. Other ideas can be used to organise children's holidays.

If parents do not have time to look after their children themselves during the holidays, they can send their children to a holiday camp lasting several weeks, for example. This is also part of the learning process in children's development, when they have to prove themselves in a new social environment such as a holiday camp and have to find their role in a new group.

Some municipalities, clubs or other providers also offer special holiday programmes for children, some of which include discounted prices for swimming pools, museums or other leisure facilities, or a leisure course offer with climbing courses or gold panning courses, for example.

Holidays must apply to everyone in the family

If the whole family goes on holiday, i.e. does not spend the holidays at home, and only the children or certain children have to study on holiday - for example when camping in Italy or France - children can perceive this as a great injustice. While the parents are allowed to leave their duties and everyday life at home, the children have to take their duties and everyday life with them on holiday.

To prevent discrimination and frustration for children on holiday, the following should apply: All family members are allowed to leave everyday life and duties at home and can instead enjoy their free time relaxing with the family.

Please also read our article ‘Educational holidays with the family’.

Pro arguments for children learning during the holidays

However, there are also arguments in favour of children learning during the holidays. We present these pro-arguments in the following sections.

Supporting weaker pupils

Research has shown that low-achieving pupils in particular forget some of what they have learnt at school during the long summer holidays. Intensive holiday courses, such as those offered by the Lern-Forum tutoring institute, are suitable for these pupils.

The Lern-Forum's compact holiday courses include excellent course material, which contains theory as well as many helpful exercises. The school material is repeated in these courses and explained by experienced teachers. Thanks to the small group sizes, individualised support is possible and questions from individual students can be addressed. Both grammar school preparation courses and supplementary courses are offered as holiday courses.

This means that in the grammar school preparation courses pupils can also study for the central entrance exam for the Gymnasium in the holidays. And in the supplementary courses, pupils can learn essay writing in particular, but also English and/or French.

Continuity is important for all pupils

But basically, it is advisable for all children to learn during the holidays by attending holiday courses, as this ensures continuity in learning. This has enormous advantages, as the repetition of the subject matter leads to the consolidation of knowledge, greater confidence in dealing with what has been learnt and greater self-confidence. All of these are the best prerequisites for a good start after the holidays.

Conclusion: Children should learn during the holidays, but only at home

There are very good reasons why children should learn during the holidays, but only during the part of the holidays that the children spend at home. On holiday - away from home - children should be freed from the duties of everyday life like all other family members and should not have to study.

The advantage of learning at home during the holidays, apart from the continuity of learning, the repetition of material and the strengthening of self-confidence, is that it is easier to concentrate on the subject in question during the holidays, as there is no need to prepare for upcoming exams and there is no homework to do.

It is best for students to take an intensive holiday course at a professional tutoring institute such as Lern-Forum. The intensive holiday courses offered there only last a few hours a day on a few consecutive days. The courses are therefore very compact. This means that only a small part of the holidays need to be spent attending the course, even if it is not the long summer holidays, but the sports holidays, spring holidays, autumn holidays or Christmas holidays.

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The Lern-Forum-Institut also offers intensive holiday courses in Wohlen (Canton Aargau)

Sources:

https://www.lern-forum.ch/en/gymnasium-preparation-zurich/holiday-course/registration

https://www.lern-forum.ch/blog/bildungsreise-mit-der-familie

https://www.margritstamm.ch/blog/blog-uebersicht-bildung-und-erziehung/entry/bueffeln-in-den-sommerferien.html

https://www.lern-forum.ch/en/courses-aargau/holiday-courses#tab-13484#tab-13484