Exams in November, summer in May: a new calendar for our modern climate?
Wetter, stormier summers are no time for a two-month break just as marvellous May is entirely wasted on revision. A few calendrical changes would not go amiss.
'Did you see the typhoon?' asked a friend attending a wedding earlier in the month. The marquee had been destroyed, he relayed from the frontline in Wales, and RNLI volunteers forced to pick up the pieces. 'How bleak,' I offered. Parts of Britain, I later found, witnessed more rain in the first week of June than they did in the whole of spring. A silver lining, perhaps, to those now sitting their exams.
If June can be an unpredictable month, British summertime more widely has become a hotbed for rain. Across Western Europe, our spring tends to be far drier, a result of dissipating winter storms and climate change now meaning the period running from June to August witnesses a higher dose of convective precipitation. ‘April showers’ are a misdirective: the 15th of that month is, statistically, the driest day of the year. Is it time, then, for us to rethink when we ‘do’ summer?
I’ve always found it absurd that children are stuck indoors to revise for exams in May — our best month. That should be the first thing to change. Has every parent not fancied, at some point, the idea of their child sitting exams in November? It’s a miserable time, anyway: one might as well lean in. The kids would then come home at Christmas, enjoy a break in learning and return to school in January to receive their marks and commence a new syllabus. New resolutions and all that.
No exams in summer would also beget further amendments. The long break, as it currently stands, is too tiring for the parents of young children and, per Jo Ellison in a recent FT column, too costly for those who are older. So, this too would need to go. People still deserve a long(ish) break, I believe, meaning we could just take the whole of May off, followed by two half-terms in mid July and late August to ensure more continuous learning. On dry summer days, lessons could even be held outside, with lectures given under a tree.
As the conversation gathers pace — a note for the State Secretary for Culture: I am not the only one who thinks this — many believe we are due a wider reassessment of our national events. Could we bump Wimbledon up to May, for instance, in order to insulate it against July’s horrendous heatwaves? (You get these in the spring too, but they are nowhere near as bad.) And could we celebrate New Year’s Day on the summer solstice with massive street parties as they do in Europe? After all, you’d get a better sense that the planet is doing a good job of turning on its axis. Plus, it’s what the druids would have wanted. We don't think about them enough.
A shorter version of this feature originally appeared in the June 17, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.
