School Holidays

[charliesteve]

Hi I wonder if anyone can tell me how many school holidays do kids get nowadays compared to the sixties when I went to school. There seems to be a big difference.

[rockyracoon]

Don't know about the 60's, but it the same as when I went to school in the 70's.

[MallyJ]

About the same .... perhaps seems more because a week was taken from teachers holidays for training days but children still get the same....and some of those days are tacked on to school holidays so children are around on odd days.

[calmck]

Depends where you live(country). Think UK is about the same. One week half term each term though which week is different for different schools. Usually two weeks at Xmas and Easter though as Easter changes some schools have the two weeks and then Good Friday and the Monday. Summer mid July to 2nd week in September.

[diddlydo]

In England and Wales kids have to be at school for 190 school days which is 38 school weeks Mon to Fri.

[Buenchico]

The rules haven't changed. As Diddlydo says, pupils have to attend for 190 days per year, with teachers being required to attend for 195. (The extra 5 days for teachers were added in 1988). However the patterns for holidays have changed a bit in some cases and quite significantly in others.

For example, when I was at school in the sixties the fortnight-long Easter holidays were always placed so that the Easter weekend fell in the middle of them, irrespective of whether Easter was 'early' or 'late' in a particular year. Now a slightly more logical arrangement operates in most areas, whereby if Easter is 'late' (as it is this year) the holiday period is the fortnight leading up to the Easter period or if it's 'early' the holiday fortnight will commence with the Easter weekend.

It's worth remembering too that the majority of schools these days are no longer under local authority control. While local councils can advise upon holiday dates, each school (or the academy which runs it) is free to determine its own term structure. For example the Free School Norwich (which is a state-funded primary school) operates a four-term year, with the pupils having a fortnight's holiday in June (which is convenient for parents seeking family holidays at sensible prices) and then four weeks during August instead of the traditional six-week summer holiday.

[hc4361]

School hours are shorter, though. At primary school in the 60s school started at 08.50 and finished at 16.00 with an hour and 10 minutes for dinner (most of us went home).
At secondary school it was 09.00 to 16.00 with an hour for dinner

[Buenchico]

>>> most of us went home

That's where there's an important change, Hc4361. Over the past decade or so I've worked on loads of travel surveys, often monitoring the movements of pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles close to schools. I've seen countless pupils arriving for school at the start of the day and countless pupils leaving school at the end of the day but, throughout the whole of that period, I've not seen a single child going home for lunch.

Shortening the lunch break is often part of the reason why schools now close earlier at the end of each day. The secondary school I taught at (in the 70s and 80s) originally ended the school day at 3.30pm. By cutting the lunch break from 70 minutes to 50 minutes, and by moving the start of the day from 8.50 to 8.40, we could knock half an hour off the end of the day, so that the school closed at 3.00pm. (A nearby secondary school was even more creative in rearranging their hours, enabling them to end their day at 2.40pm).

I've not noticed so much change in the school day within the primary sector though. The primary school I attended in the early 60s ended its day at 3.30pm. The primary school where I now live ends its day at 3.25pm.

[charliesteve]

Thanks for all the answers but I cannot remember ever having two weeks off at easter. Just Good Friday and Easter Monday.It sure seems to me now at 65 that kids are never at school.

[Mamyalynne]

I'm 65 and had a two week Easter break.

[Prudie]

I always had at least 2 weeks if not more at Easter. I'm wondering if you are getting confused as both when I was at school and then teaching in the 80s the Spring half term was always only a Friday and Monday (unlike Autumn and Summer or Whitsun as we called it then) which were both full weeks.

[bednobs]

are you retired? if so, you probably didnt notice the kids being off when you were at work, but do now perhaps?

[Buenchico]

Even when school holidays were under the control of local authorities there were wide variations in holiday patterns.

For example the grammar school I attended only had 2 days holiday at half term (a Friday and a Monday, to give a long weekend), whereas the secondary modern schools all took a full week off. However they only got 6 weeks off in the summer, whereas we got 8 weeks off.

Northern industrial towns tended to have shorter holidays, either at Easter or in the summer, in order to accommodate the traditional 'wakes week' holidays elsewhere.

So it's quite possible that Charliesteve only got the bank holidays off at Easter but he'd then have had longer holidays elsewhere in the year.

[New Judge]

>>> most of us went home

We were not allowed off the school premises during our 1h 20m lunch break (unless we were heading off to or returning from games). We had to have a "lunch pass" and this would only be granted if a pupil's parents requested it and could convince the school that the pupil had either an occupied home he could get to and from in the break or had some other compelling reason why he should leave the school.

[EDDIE51]

When I was at school in the 1960s we got 7 weeks off for Summer , including the whole of August . ,Two weeks each at Easter and Christmas and 'long weekends' at other times !