What’s all this talk about a possible change to summer holidays?

February this year has been particularly sunny for many areas and there’s no doubt about that but to alter a whole school year because of the weather in 2013 is surely going a step to far.

We haven’t seen a dry month, such as last month, since the early 1970’s and at a stretch possibly up to more than a century ago.
One great February though doesn’t mean we should uproot the school calendar.

This week on TV3’s Campbell Live Associate Health Minister, Peter Dunne mentioned that he was seriously looking at changing the Xmas/Summer holidays to February as the weather was much more settled.
Bob Jones is also keen and a few on the street interviewed on the tele were open to the idea but have they thought about this for more than a minute?

The problem is that figures don’t lie and February can just be as up and down as any of the other two summer months.

Temperatures are similar if not fractionally higher overall looking at the records of the last 40 years but sunshine and rainfall figures have been all over the show.

We’ve seen floods, high winds, hail and snow to fairly low levels during February in the past so why would it be any different in the future?

Last month was sunny but so was January however if we just turn back the clock one year ago it was a very different story. Cloud, gloom and rainy spells were the main weather feature and many of us felt robbed of a real summer.

Anyway how would it work? Give children from December 22nd- Jan 3rd off and then the entire month of February?

Daylight hours aren’t quite as long either during the final month of summer but i think what could be a problem is how tough it would be to sit in a classroom during a very warm month.
January lends itself to the great outdoors even when at times the weather elements might not always play ball.

My view is to not touch something when it isn’t broken. Don’t you agree?
 

Written by R.Green

WeatherWatch