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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not understand why everyone is calling every school holiday "half term" all of a sudden?

192 replies

CollieFIower · 04/04/2023 11:44

It's not "half term" now. Half term is literally halfway through a term - summer/Easter/Christmas holidays mark the end of a term.

One half term break is in October, between the summer and Christmas holidays.

One half term break is in February, halfway between the Christmas and Easter holidays.

One half term break is in late may, halfway between the Easter and summer holidays.

Then you have actual holidays that come at the end of a term, and a new term starts when school goes back afterwards.

It seems like over the last couple of years I'm seeing all holidays referred to as "half term" and I know it's hardly a big deal and yes I'm also worried about nuclear war and child poverty but it still annoys me a bit!

OP posts:
Singularity82 · 04/04/2023 15:14

Couldn’t bring myself to give a shit to be honest. Too much time in your hands maybe.

PupInAPram · 04/04/2023 15:16

I work in a school and even school staff do it. I thought I was alone in feeling really irritated by it🤣

GingerAle1 · 04/04/2023 15:17

Constance "I’m a teacher and will often say half term because it is literally half of the term and the topics I teach are half termly."

so you say half term instead of Easter holiday or Christmas holiday?

ConstanceOcean · 04/04/2023 15:21

GingerAle1 · 04/04/2023 15:17

Constance "I’m a teacher and will often say half term because it is literally half of the term and the topics I teach are half termly."

so you say half term instead of Easter holiday or Christmas holiday?

Yes I’ll say both.

Sometimes I’ll say half term and sometimes I’ll say Easter or Christmas.

Its really not a big deal.

mnisannoyingAF · 04/04/2023 15:22

Yeah I always get this wrong. Huge apologies that it infuriates you all so much.

RedDoughnut · 04/04/2023 15:49

Look a business which should know better!

To not understand why everyone is calling every school holiday "half term" all of a sudden?
Original poster
CollieFIower · 04/04/2023 15:52

LeFeu · 04/04/2023 13:17

Good grief. If someone says to you at the start of April “up to much at half term?” You know what they mean! Wtf does it actually matter???

Except no, actually, we don't know what each other mean!! I would take that to mean half term, as in the next half term holiday, which is in late May. And I'd say I have no idea yet what I'm doing because it's fucking ages away 😂

OP posts:
Funkyslippers · 04/04/2023 15:56

GirlOfTudor well you can get worked up about more than 1 thing you know

SpringIntoChaos · 04/04/2023 15:57

gohomeroger1 · 04/04/2023 11:56

Yep grinds on me too. Notice it mostly with celebs on Instagram.

There was the opposite too,when someone posted in the October half term 'So proud of DS finishing his first term'

It's not difficult to understand

To be fair though...many schools (including mine 🤦‍♀️) do now refer to all of the old 'half terms' as 'terms'. We no longer use Autumn 1, Autumn 2, Spring 1, Spring 2 and Summer 1, Summer 2. It's simply a terms 1-6 now 🤷‍♀️

I hate this! As a teacher of nearly 30 years, I will retire refusing to conform to this madness 🤣🤣 I've no idea why things changed (or how in the UK, as I worked overseas until quite recently, and when I came back, the world had gone mad with this Term 1-6 horror! 😲)

All of this, though, still makes a nonsense of anyone saying 'half term' for every holiday period 🤦‍♀️

Original poster
CollieFIower · 04/04/2023 15:58

ShimmeringShirts · 04/04/2023 14:11

YABU - it’s half term where I am. Term one = august to December. Term two = January to June. Half term - Easter and October (not sure why February is brought in to it when there’s no school holidays then?)

In most of England (which is where I live, and in my 40 odd years I've lived in many counties that all seem to be roughly the same) there are the following school holidays

Summer holidays from July-Sept

Half term in late October

Christmas holidays at Christmas

Half term in February

Easter holidays at Easter

Half term in late May

I'm sure there are parts of the UK that do things differently. But the people I'm seeing call the holiday we are having right now "half term" do not live in those places!

OP posts:
SparklyLeprechaun · 04/04/2023 15:59

I couldn't care less. Is there something magic about having 3 terms in a school year, that need to be delimited by strictly named holidays? From where I stand as a parent there are about 6 school sessions with some 1-2 weeks off in between them and then a long holiday at the end of the year.

sanityisamyth · 04/04/2023 16:02

Seems very common in Wales. It's driving me mad!

Original poster
CollieFIower · 04/04/2023 16:04

SparklyLeprechaun · 04/04/2023 15:59

I couldn't care less. Is there something magic about having 3 terms in a school year, that need to be delimited by strictly named holidays? From where I stand as a parent there are about 6 school sessions with some 1-2 weeks off in between them and then a long holiday at the end of the year.

Well no.

But if people use the wrong words for things, then other people genuinely don't always understand what they mean.

Words and phrases have actual meanings and it's a slippery old slope back to grunting and pointing at things with sticks if we are just going to use any old words that mean something a bit like what we actually mean. A slippery slope I tell you!

Anyway I'm off to get some therapy Grin

OP posts:
diflasu · 04/04/2023 16:06

I notice this about 4-5 year ago.

I sadly assumed it was an educational issue due to parents using the phrase for Easter holidays - sadly it was snobbery on my part as later found out schools and local council are doing the same - even to the DC causing them some confusion on occasion about amount of time they get off.

Abra1t · 04/04/2023 16:07

Case in point, our gym used to be used by a holiday camp so some classes were cancelled. When we were told it would be open fully again after half term, just before the Easter holidays, we had to clarify that they meant after the Easter holidays, not May bank holiday.

EllandRd · 04/04/2023 16:08

First world problems 🙄

Oldnproud · 04/04/2023 16:33

As a grandparent, I too have been thrown by the mis-use of half-term since my dgc started school.
There have been quite a few times when I have thought that we were talking about plans for February or May half term, only to discover afterwards that no, those were plans for the upcoming Christmas or Easter holidays!

rainbowstardrops · 04/04/2023 16:37

I must admit, it does annoy me too but I grew up in an era when Oct/Feb/May were half terms in the Autumn/Winter/Summer terms.

It's now just six terms instead of the three from previously, so schools (in England anyway), will be going into term 5 after Easter and then term 6 after the May holiday.

Even though I know this, it still irks me that it's called half term!

bitcharming · 04/04/2023 16:40

language evolves and half term now means to most people 'a week or 2 off school'. Don't you remember 2020? We had half term all year.

teaandtoastwithmarmite · 04/04/2023 16:40

Someone at work said it the other day (childless) and I thought isn't it the end of a term then convinced myself I was wrong lol

bitcharming · 04/04/2023 16:43

I mean why are school cut into terms in the first place? I went to school for 13 years. Nobody ever explained. We just called it the holidays. My nan used to say breaking up for witson? which I didn't get either.
I only know Xmas and summer as different to the other holidays.

luckylavender · 04/04/2023 16:56

CollieFIower · 04/04/2023 11:44

It's not "half term" now. Half term is literally halfway through a term - summer/Easter/Christmas holidays mark the end of a term.

One half term break is in October, between the summer and Christmas holidays.

One half term break is in February, halfway between the Christmas and Easter holidays.

One half term break is in late may, halfway between the Easter and summer holidays.

Then you have actual holidays that come at the end of a term, and a new term starts when school goes back afterwards.

It seems like over the last couple of years I'm seeing all holidays referred to as "half term" and I know it's hardly a big deal and yes I'm also worried about nuclear war and child poverty but it still annoys me a bit!

It's suddenly very common

PrivateSchoolTeacherParent · 04/04/2023 17:01

bitcharming · 04/04/2023 16:43

I mean why are school cut into terms in the first place? I went to school for 13 years. Nobody ever explained. We just called it the holidays. My nan used to say breaking up for witson? which I didn't get either.
I only know Xmas and summer as different to the other holidays.

Three-month(ish) "terms" also exist in the legal system, and in parliament, and (most) universities, all with slightly different names. I wonder which came first?

Jacketspudtunamayo · 04/04/2023 17:13

Truly couldn’t care less if someone said it’s half term to be honest. Got bigger problems going on.

ChocWeb · 04/04/2023 17:15

Really annoys me too! It’s laziness and people being thick imo, I mean ‘half term’ by its very name means halfway through the term, so being the end of a term it can’t be half term!

It’s up there with my annoyance when you see all over social media on someone’s birthday when they turn, say, 35 and it’s all ‘bring on chapter 35’ well no, you’ve just completed chapter 35, the first year wasn’t for free, it’s chapter 36!