Half term didn't used to exist did it?

[EthicalNonMahogany]

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 )

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

Half terms are the (usually) shorter holidays between the longer main ones that are fixed around Christmas, Easter and the summer.

It's only in the last couple of years that I've begun hearing people use Half Term to mistakenly describe any school holiday, and it is confusing. If you asked me this week about my Half Term plans, I'd start talking about Whitsun camps and the Jubilee. One person I've heard using it works in a school and the school uses the usual terminology, she's just being wrong.

Admittedly there is a school in our area that distributes its holidays more evenly across 5 terms and there is actually an Easter Half Term of one week. Otherwise living around the edge of 3 counties with differing holidays Half Term would still indicate holiday time in February, May and October.

Annoyingly it's one of those things like "myself" that seems to spread and become a normal and slightly bewildering usage to those who can remember the proper terminology.

I heard "Easter half term" for the first time a few days ago and was confused, couldn't tell if they meant Feb half term, May/June half term, or Easter holidays. I didn't realise it was a thing.

What? That is stupid! Half term happens half way through a term, then the Christmas, Easter and Summer holidays happen at the end of term.

This has been the case going back certainly to the early 80s and it wasn't new or modern then.

The Easter holidays aren't half term because they aren't halfway through a term.

Half term is normally a week long, the other holidays are normally longer.

No, he doesn't. Old Nick pisses on them at Michaelmas, because it's the Anniversary of the Archangel Michael kicking him out of Heaven, where he landed on his arse in a big clump of Brambles.

Old Michaelmas is 11th October, from when they changed the calendar.

I know autoincorrect is out to sabotage and change every other word, I must proofread more carefully before pressing post...

@dementedpixie

When I was in Scotland they seemed to ignore Easter as a holiday all together, I think they add the 2 weeks on to the summer holiday?

I'm sure we get a set 2 weeks at Easter and depending where Easter falls it would be within the 2 weeks or may be just after e.g. this year my ds has just finished week 1 of the Easter break and then he has another week plus Easter Monday off and then returns to school on Tuesday 19th April

Ignore me, I was talking shite, I must have dreamt it. Getting old! It was a few years ago.

Christmas
Feb half term
Easter
May half term
Summer hols
October half term.

In Scotland having lived in two different areas. Half term wasn’t a thing. It was the feb break, easter break, summer holidays, September weekend and the October holidays. In Glasgow October holidays are 1 week. In Dundee are surrounding they are 2 weeks and called the tattie holidays.

@Brownlongearedbat

When I was at school (I left school in 1972 - I am cracking on a bit) we never had the luxury of a weeks half term. It was usually a couple of days tagged on to a weekend, sometimes only one day, so it was, at best, just a long weekend. Families would never have sufficient time to go on holiday, say. (But then, holidays in employment were a lot shorter too, so you were lucky to get a weeks family holiday during the long summer hols). I think children generally spend far less time at school now than they did in the past - even the school day was longer than now.

The holidays are the same. The days finish earlier because lunch breaks have been cut to the minimum possible.

@CaptainMyCaptain now you come to mention it, I do remember freezing to death in the playground for an hour after lunch!

Easter, Christmas and Summer are not half term breaks.
They are the main holidays which separate the three terms.

Half terms are breaks, usually a week long, which occur mid term.

Half terms were part of the academic year when I went to school, from the mid 70s, as were the Christmas, Easter and summer holidays. Summer holidays were often a bit longer before they started inset days, reducing teacher holiday allocation by 5 days and allowing schools to have these days spread throughout the year instead.

I'm in the north east of Scotland, we don't have half terms, maybe a couple of extra days in February but that's it. We do have two weeks at Easter, 6/7 in the summer and 2 weeks in October (tattie holidays as they used to pick potatoes during this break).

It's definitely always been the big summer holidays, Christmas holidays, and Easter holidays.

The only reason I can think of for the change is a lot of schools now call the terms Spring 1, Spring 2, Summer 1, Summer 2 etc. But that doesn't make sense either as there are now 6 terms in a school year. Not 3 terms with a week off half way through.

We always used to finish after lunch for the Christmas, Easter and summer holidays, and not necessarily on a Friday. Half-term holidays were a week off after a normal Friday finish.

It doesn't help that people say "half term" and mean two different things.

"This half term we'll be working on fractions."

"After half term we'll move onto telling the time."

The second should really be "half-term holidays", but it gets shortened.

We had the the Tattie Holidays as well. I'm old enough and grew up rurally enough that some of my pals actually spent that holiday howking up tatties, poor wee souls came back to school for a rest.

I was tattie picking from the age of 10 til I was 14. I loved it, it was great money for a kid. Bought my first ZX spectrum with tattie picking money. Also paid for my first year school trip. £12 quid a day (equivalent to about £30 now) was a decent wage, similar to the cleaning job at a posh hotel I went on to do next.

@Herani

My mum used to call one of the half terms (think it was after the summer hols) ‘blackberry week’. Anyone else heard that term, or did she invent that all by herself?!

October half-term. So called because (in the north, at least) that's when blackberries were ripe enough to pick.

@HunterHearstHelmsley

I just use it as short hand. Not the summer holidays obviously.

The Easter holidays here started yesterday. For most people I work with, it stated last week. It's easier to say "half term" to specify I mean when the kids are off, rather than to say "Easter holiday", then I might mean the Good Friday - Easter Monday period.

But saying "half term" is specifying when the kids are off at another point in the year.

It's not "short hand" when it quite literally and by definition means a different time period - you're also misusing the term "short hand"!

BoredZelda, seriously? I had no idea it was paid and enjoyable. My parents kept me in line with the threat of tattie picking like it was the Galleys - "Be good or its the tatties". If I complained about any mad job they got me to do it was always "At least your not at the tatties"
I'm raging, years of.being well behaved and hard working for no reason at all

Only people with no brain refer to Christmas and Easter as “half term”.

There’s a big gap between their ears.

@BoredZelda

We had the the Tattie Holidays as well. I'm old enough and grew up rurally enough that some of my pals actually spent that holiday howking up tatties, poor wee souls came back to school for a rest.

I was tattie picking from the age of 10 til I was 14. I loved it, it was great money for a kid. Bought my first ZX spectrum with tattie picking money. Also paid for my first year school trip. £12 quid a day (equivalent to about £30 now) was a decent wage, similar to the cleaning job at a posh hotel I went on to do next.

I remember being super jealous when my older siblings were going off tattie picking for the day and coming back with their earnings. By the time I was old enough they mostly used machines.

In Scotland - no half term. Easter Holiday, Summer holiday and October week (or sometimes the Tattie Holidays).

It's only the last couple of years I've heard the Easter holidays referred to as "half term".
What does that make the genuine half term breaks? Quarter terms?

I think it may have corresponded with some councils fixing the Easter holidays. It always used to be the 2 weeks either side of Easter, but now when it's late we have 2 weeks before, and early, we have 2 weeks after. That kind of makes sense though.

But people who call it half term, still refer to "spring term" and "summer term" so calling it "half term" does not make sense.

Easter, Christmas and Summer are not half term breaks.
They are the main holidays which separate the three terms.
Half terms are breaks, usually a week long, which occur mid term.

I completely agree with this - but as a child in the 80s/90s I often confused the Easter break with a half term, as it's didn't have its own holiday identity - the summer was the long break when we went to the beach and at some point went away for a holiday. Christmas/New year was full of seasonal things. But the so called 'Easter' break didn't always contain Easter, and we never anything Easter-y other than a few hours on Easter Sunday, so every other day of the holiday just felt like a half term break.

I don't really get the anger against people saying the wrong name? But then I also sometimes say 'nursery' instead of 'pre-school' and 'book bag' for 'reading folder' etc, unless you are actually a teacher who cares that much about using precise school terminology?

I don’t think it’s a new thing. It was called that when I was at school and I’m 30

It's really nice to hear from everyone about the old seasonal holidays, potatoes and berries and the cadence of the year that was close to the land and to religious holidays and that we have now largely lost. I'm glad to have done this thread just for that!

And don't know why people getting it wrong feels so dumb and annoying. I wouldn't be annoyed with someone saying book bag instead of schoolbag and that too is something that's changed! I guess because it's not so illogical.

The reason it’s annoying is because it makes no sense. Half terms are called half terms because they fall half way through a term.
The Easter holidays don’t fall half way through a term… they are at the end of the spring term. Therefore calling it a half term makes so sense.