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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Half term didn't used to exist did it?

238 replies

EthicalNonMahogany · 09/04/2022 09:51

I feel gaslit by the world! The number of people who are saying to me "oh, at school we always used to call the Easter, Christmas and summer break half term". No you didn't! You used to call it the Easter holidays. It was the holiday that happens at the end of term.

"Half term" used to happen three times a year and was the week off, half way through each term.

I know there have been threads on this before - I'm not disputing that many people now call all the holidays half term. It seems to be the thing now. (Stupid and inaccurate as it may be, but I shall endeavour to cope and life will go on Grin)

My AIBU is this - people are saying it was always that way. AIBU to say no it bloody wasn't!!

OP posts:
MiniatureHotdog · 09/04/2022 09:53

Yep. Halfterm is the one week off halfway through each term. At the end of each term is the Easter, Summer or Christmas holidays.

Mind you I only see people using halfterm incorrectly on MN, everyone I know in real life uses the right names.

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 09/04/2022 09:53

I suppose it depends on the age and location of those people. I was born mid eighties in England and we had 1 week half term and two weeks end of term/6 weeks summer. As it is now.

hookiewookie29 · 09/04/2022 09:57

I'm 53. Summer holidays, Easter holidays, Christmas holidays- all end of yerm. Half term is halfway through those terms- February half term is halfway through the spring term,October half term is halfway through the autumn term, Whit week in May is halfway through the summer term.

PlinkPlankPlunk · 09/04/2022 09:59

Yes, I’ve only ever seen it called halfterm here on MN - except when it’s the holiday that is half way through the term… Right now it’s Easter holidays

KitKattaktik · 09/04/2022 10:00

Totally agree. It's the Easter Holiday. After which another term starts.

merryhouse · 09/04/2022 10:00

Where are you hearing this?

I mean, come on, it's literally the name: half-term holiday.

Wasn't invariably a week though - where I grew up we had two or three days for at least one of them (definitely October, quite possibly all three) but we then had eight weeks in the summer.

But yes you're right: the December, March/April and July/August holidays are not half-term.

707smile · 09/04/2022 10:01

I'm in my 30s. At school in the 90s and 00s we had two half terms plus Christmas, Easter and six-weeks off for Summer.

dementedpixie · 09/04/2022 10:02

I'm in Scotland and don't think I've ever called any holidays a half term holiday. Easter holidays Christmas holidays, October week, September weekend, etc. Then various long weekends or random in service days

SoManyTshirts · 09/04/2022 10:03

In my unreliable memory of the 60s and early 70s, half term was only 2 days (later extended with Baker days) and the other holidays were a bit longer.

ExplodingElephants · 09/04/2022 10:03

No idea what you’re talking about but my son left school three years ago. Is this a very new thing?

ExplodingElephants · 09/04/2022 10:04

@SoManyTshirts Baker days 😆 When I used to use that term to my son he was like 🙄 Brings me back.

RussianSpy101 · 09/04/2022 10:05

Totally agree OP.
We’re currently on Easter holidays. Summer holidays and Christmas holidays are the correct terms 😂
The only difference is the May half term has always been known as spring bank round here.

Seeline · 09/04/2022 10:05

I've only ever seen this daft idea that the end of term holidays are half term on MN. Until this holiday. The number of people that have asked whether my DD is on half term astounds me!

I am 54 and I always had week long half term breaks - surprisingly halfway through each term 😆

RussianSpy101 · 09/04/2022 10:06

@ExplodingElephants definitely not. I was at school in the 90s and this is what they were called.

Chasingsquirrels · 09/04/2022 10:06

My kids (16 & 19) call all school holidays "half term holidays".
And yes, it makes me clench (angry, seethe etc are too strong for my reaction).
I have explained the difference to no avail.
I am wondering what the 19yo will call it now he is at uni so doesn't have actual half term.

IVflytrap · 09/04/2022 10:07

You are tight. Half term = the (usually one-week) break half way through the term. It's in the name!

End of term holidays are Christmas/Easter/Summer holidays, as appropriate.

traintraveller · 09/04/2022 10:07

I don't remember any school holidays referred to as half term. It might have been in the letters that were sent home but for pupils it was just school holidays.

ellenpartridge · 09/04/2022 10:07

Yanbu. I've only recently noticed people saying things like the Easter half term, to which I obviously thought eh, it's not half term.

Apileofballyhoo · 09/04/2022 10:07

I saw somebody saying half term on another thread for the Easter holidays and thought that's weird! But I'm in Ireland where it is definitely the Easter holidays. Do people think the school year is one long term broken by breaks called half term? Where do they think the half comes from? Half of what?

We call the little breaks mid term break here. Because they are in the middle of the term.

AlphaJura · 09/04/2022 10:08

I feel like it's the other way round! Half term is the week off in between the terms of the 'main' holidays. So, there used to be 3 terms divided by a half term each. But now, schools seem to say there are 6 terms!

DifficultBloodyWoman · 09/04/2022 10:08

@MiniatureHotdog

Yep. Halfterm is the one week off halfway through each term. At the end of each term is the Easter, Summer or Christmas holidays.

Mind you I only see people using halfterm incorrectly on MN, everyone I know in real life uses the right names.

Yes. Especially about only seeing its MumsNet. We could start a whole thread on that!
Frazzled2207 · 09/04/2022 10:09

Two people asked me yesterday about my plans for “half term” and I had to stop myself from inflicting damage.
It’s Easter holidays.
But i don’t come from round here, perhaps it’s what’s always been said. But half term to me is the 1 week hols in October, feb and Whit

CaptainMerica · 09/04/2022 10:12

@dementedpixie

I'm in Scotland and don't think I've ever called any holidays a half term holiday. Easter holidays Christmas holidays, October week, September weekend, etc. Then various long weekends or random in service days
Also in Scotland, and we seem to call the February long weekend "mid-term", but nothing else.

I've never used "half term", but as above, we don't seem to have the same regularity of week long breaks in the middle of term here. E.g. Long weekend in Feb, nothing between Easter and summer except a random day or two, a fortnight in October (tattie holidays).

I'm a bit jealous of the May holiday down south - that seems the perfect time for a holiday abroad in europe. By the time we are off in July, it is too hot.

Shinyandnew1 · 09/04/2022 10:12

We always had half term holidays, half way through terms.

Some people have inexplicably recently started calling all holidays ‘half term’ though-not sure where it has come from.

ReadyToMoveIt · 09/04/2022 10:13

DH keeps calling the Easter holidays ‘half term’. It’s driving me fucking insane. It’s not half term because it’s the end of a full term.
Apart from him, I only hear it on MN though. Everyone else calls it the Easter holidays.