We call them all "half term" here..

[Acc0untant]

And apparently I'm unreasonable. I see comment after comment about "it's not half term, that happens half way through each term" but ever since I was a child I, and everyone I know, calls each holiday a half term other than summer and Christmas. My parents and the parents of my friends (bearing in mind I'm in my 30s) have always done this.

Is it regional? I'm in the midlands. It's not just students/parents here, teachers use it this way, our school communications. Not even just my experience with one school, it was the same at my secondary school, my daughter's primary and secondary, my other child's nursery etc.

For us this is because we have a holiday after every half of a term, not that the holiday is half way within the term.

I appreciate that this wasn't the original intention of the phrase but at what point do we accept it's fine to use? Same as staycation originally meaning to do day trips from home rather than a UK holiday, it's now been used for both for so long that it's colloquially acceptable for both meanings.

Please no bun fights, I can't be bothered. I appreciate the pedantry with things such as this (and I can be that way with other stuff) but I'd really just like a nice, chilled conversation about it.

Do you say half term for almost all holidays? What region are you from? Would enjoy seeing if there's a correlation.

Says the person who's started a whole thread defending some illogical phrase

If you're so triggered by it why are you still here?

Well I’m a teacher from up north but teach in Kent. My colleagues and most people I know (both north and south) used the label ‘half-term’ to refer to the holiday in the middle on a school term. For example there are usually 3 terms per year - spring, summer and autumn, so there is a spring (February) summer (May) and autumn (October) half term. The holidays at the end of a term are known by Easter holidays, Summer holidays and Christmas holidays respectively. Easter is definitely not a half term holiday as it is NOT in the middle of a term but at the end of the spring term. I’ve never heard anyone call Easter a half term so I’m thinking it may be specific to the Midlands area?

On another note you may like to know Whitsun (also known as Pentecost or Whit Sunday) celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus' disciples. It's a Christian festival observed 50 days after Easter, marking the beginning of the Church as an official movement. The Monday was a National bank holiday but It was tradition in the north for all the factories to close down for the week and the majority of workers had an enforced week’s holiday, this of course included schools and it was commonly known as ‘Whitweek’ . It would be on a different date each year depending on Easter which wasn’t that helpful when planning work schedules etc. ahead of time, so In 1971 it was decided to rename the bank holiday Spring Bank Holiday that always falls on the last Monday in May. As a result the holiday lost its centuries-long link to Whitsun and only a few still refer to it as Whit … perhaps mainly northerners as it was quite an event in the calendar as everyone was off work and had a ‘jolly’

Whitsun is definitely only something I've heard northern relatives talk about, and family in Wales, but I do think it's lovely that such things have kept going.

Never lived in the North, but we always referred the May half term week as Whitsun or Whit week, with the bank holiday on that week being known as Whit Monday.

This really irritates me. My brother keeps doing it and I just murmur ‘Easter holidays’ to him every time he says it, like I am correcting the mispronunciation of a toddler.

Was just about to say that. October half term was the tattie-picking holidays!

Easter holidays (not half-term as they mark the end of the spring term).
We are in Scotland and half-term is either Oct or Feb holidays as they are halfway through the term.

So, your school year is divided into 6 x halves. I make that 3 years!🤔

Yes we used it. I was born in the 80s and everyone I knew used it including school and parents / pupils etc. I am from the south/west. Wiltshire.

Did you call them 1/2 terms when you were a child? Do you have children yourself?
I’ve lived in Surrey, Norfolk and Essex (with children in schools in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire) and referring to all holidays (apart from summer) as 1/2 term is something that’s creeping in, in the last few years.

How old are your children?
I think it might something younger people are confused about bringing in. There are many other posters from the Midlands saying they use the correct terminology.

This!!

@rosemarble primary school age. I think it’s probably a ‘me’ thing where it’s all too much to remember and I get confused so just go with half term 😂

A bit like when parents of more than one child can never call their children the right name? or was that just my dad?!----

This argument comes up here every school holidays

it’s the Easter holidays both where I grew up (wales) and where I live now (greater Manchester)

Exactly the same - London area.

When I was a child, my Dad called the May half term Whitsun week.

I’ve seen ‘half term’ used for Easter breaks in marketing/advertising recently - I can’t remember which companies right now though.

NE Scotland -
October (tattie holidays) 2 weeks
Christmas holidays
February long weekend Friday to Monday
Easter holidays
Summer holidays

I’ve lived mostly in London & have always said: Summer holidays, Christmas holidays and Easter holidays for the longer ones, October half term, February half term and Whitsun half term (or Whitsun week) for the short ones.

This is what we say I’m in Kent.

It's not regional, just wrong.

It might be both, but still wrong 😁

I.only use 'half term' for the mid- term breaks only. Otherwise, it's the Christmas/Easter/Summer holidays...

I'm from up North & we say half term for Easter or shorter breaks, we call it 6 weeks holidays for the Summer (even if they're longer some years) & Christmas holidays for Christmas. A lot of the time we just say School holidays when included in conversations.

I'm Scottish too. I think Half term was only used in private schools. Never in my school.