NUT strike warning over plan to slash summer holidays The union also said it would damage staff morale, adding that teachers already worked long hours and "the essential need for a period of genuine rest and recuperation [is] only found by many in the long summer break." "Teaching remains the most stressful occupation," the union claimed. A motion to be debated at the NUT's annual conference in Torquay next month calls on the union to approve industrial action - including strikes - to oppose proposed reforms to the school year "where negotiations to resist imposed changes have failed." Under the current system, state schools in England usually have three terms, with two week breaks at Christmas and Easter, six weeks off in summer and one week half-term holidays in February and October. Those in favour of shortening holidays argue that pupils can forget some of what they have learnt during a long break. It has also been suggested that changing term times could help families to avoid the price hikes on holidays that occur during the summer break. But the conference motion said that many proposals to change the school year were "based on very spurious evidence," adding that staff "refute the misconception that more teaching automatically leads to more learning." "Conference believes that the motivation behind some of the proposed changes is to keep children in school for longer and therefore reduce the need for childcare," the motion said. The motion calls on the NUT to investigate the link between school holiday patterns and the academic, emotional and social development of pupils in other countries. It also says that the union's executive should approve industrial action, including strike action, in places where negotiations to resist imposed changes to term times fail. Speaking on Thursday, Christine Blower, the NUT general secretary, said many children had been left with nothing to do outside school following cuts to youth clubs. "One of the problems that children and young people have got is the massive loss of other kinds of services that fit in and around education," she said. You can't solve the problems of cuts to youth services by simply saying schools have to be open longer. Children and young people have a right to be doing things other than just being in school.