It's not bloody half term!

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Why / when did every school holiday become half term?

The half term holidays are February, Whitsun and October, not Easter, Christmas and thr summer.

People keep saying "Happy half term" or "Enjoy the half term" etc. Why is this an accepted thing?

Another one annoyed. Half term is February, May and October. The other holidays are Easter, Christmas the 6h3 6 week summer holidays. I am 45 and it has always been known as this. I've lived all over the country. Calling every holiday half term is definitely a weird new thing.

Is it schools that say this? I've no idea🤷‍♀️ we don't believe in schools.. l had my children to look after them .. teach them.. so my children do the same..

How does ‘do the maths’ make less grammatical sense than ‘do the math’? They’re both just abbreviations for mathematics, one used in British English and one in American English. I don’t give a fig which one anyone uses as unlike the half term issue there’s no difference in meaning, but neither is more grammatically logical than the other.

Apart from Christians, there were the three Muslims in the school - no other faiths.
The evidence was his deliberate avoidance.

Does it really matter that much. ?

Oh thank GOD it isn't just me. This irritates me so much!

We are living in a world where words seem increasingly meaningless, and this is yet another example of it. "Half Term" is the break that comes half-way through a term. (Give or take).

What we are about to have is the Easter Holiday, or if you prefer the Spring Holiday, but it is not, NOT, NOT HALF-TERM!

If adults cannot be trusted to express the concept of "half" correctly... then is it any wonder that children cannot get a handle on the concept of basic fractions in maths...

Why should a largely Christian society have to stop using Christian labels? I am not against the celebrations of other religions nor Muslim families saying Spring break if they don't celebrate Easter. That's fine but the fact remains that the UK is largely Christian with many people who do view Easter etc in a religious way.

Honestly, let it go. A headteacher made a choice. It is nothing to do with the Muslims.

YANBU. I know it’s not important in the scheme of things but I find it really irritating. It’s easy enough to understand - it’s not halfway through the term so it’s not half term!

My thoughts exactly @Bbq1

No one 'has to' stop using any Christian labels.

Honestly, it is like an episode of GB News on here today.

@LightSwerve it was perceived by the RE staff and others as a reflection of the denial of Christianity, a denial that this is a largely Christian country.

Never heard this for Easter, summer or Christmas holidays. However our LA has started called the Easter break "Spring holiday" which annoys me.

I've noticed this becoming more common too. I was in town the other day and the shopping center was advertising "half term activities for Easter ". Arrrgggh!

Half term.is the break half way through the term. It makes no sense to say it at the end of term. It's like saying 50% complete and then another 50% complete rather than 100% complete.

My daughter's school doesn't do it (though some of the parents do!) But school does now call the Easter holidays "Spring Break" which seems a bit American. I can see the point if it's making things more secular but they still say "Christmas holidays"!

Posters are telling you that Christian labels are not used as much @LightSwerve

Usually only cared about by snooty tightly-wound types who fail to understand that language evolves, there are words used in different parts of the country and even different pronunciations.

Where I am in Scotland the Easter holidays are now referred to as spring break because the schools are off the first two weeks in April regardless of when Easter falls. The years when Easter has been very late, the schools have been off for two weeks and then back in for four days, before being off Good Friday and Easter Monday.

I'm sure it's a PC thing by misguided liberals who aren't offended, but someone else might be.

Just tell your kids that if they call it half-term, then it's not Easter, so they don't get any Easter eggs.

Yes, my point is they have a skewed perception.

I don't think we are in any danger of denying Christianity what with us having the King as head of state church, CofE Bishops in the HofL, RE on the curriculum, collective worship in schools, a church in almost every neighbourhood, Easter and Christmas still celebrated etc etc.

This is honest such a non issue! I'm one of these annoying people who call every school break 'half term'. My husband is always correcting me, 'it's Easter holiday' etc but who cares, it's not that deep. Everyone knows what I mean.

Same here except we (Fife) only get Easter Monday if it falls during the Spring break. If it doesn't they go to school.

Yes, but you are perceiving it as being an active rejection of Christianity, rather than language evolution.

I've never heard anybody in Scotland mention half term, you should come up here! 😂

We have 4 terms in the school year where I am as we have two weeks off in October (October holidays), two weeks at Christmas (Christmas holidays) and two weeks at Easter (Easter holidays). Then there's obviously the summer holidays. Apart from these, we only get the odd bank holiday or in service day throughout the year.

Because it's inaccurate and confusing. People plan ahead so when someone asked me in early March if we were free at half-term inassumed they mean the end of May given that that's actually half-term. Turns out they meant the Easter holidays.

Never assume.

It’s been explained several times. Because it’s ambiguous and leads to confusion.

I'm 63yrs old. I can honestly say I've never once 'been confused' about school holidays. If I'm not certain about when someone means I simply ask them what date they had in mind. If they just said 'half term' I'd ask which half term they meant given there's more than one anyway.

If someone said to me on Thursday 'let's meet next Saturday' I would ask if they meant the Saturday coming or the one after because people use the term in different contexts.

Seems to me that it's not the words people use for this stuff but about the lack of communication skills in general.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised on this thread of people being the most boring pedantic humans about things that don't matter, you would fight over pedantry that doesn't matter.

But there's nothing American about it, in my head it sounds odd to use a plural 'maths' to talk about a single calculation instead of a singular 'math'.

Is that OK for your perfect world?