To get irritated by people who call every school holiday Half Term?

[sorrynotathome]

How can you not know that the half term holiday is in the middle of the term? After the first half and before the second half. At the end of term is the Easter, Summer or Christmas holidays. Do some people think Half Term is an English word for schools being closed? Now I’ve typed term so much it’s started to look weird.

I heard someone asking when the kids broke up for summer half term the other week. Someone answered her referring to the May/June half term and she said, no, the 6 week half term. Drives me mad too.

🤮 hope not.

Totally agree

Yes it should be called break in term 🙄

I get that and have already said my bit. I also can understand that some people don’t get as annoyed by such things as others. Can you?? It is a natural thing, yea.

I do get annoyed by posters who call others obtuse because others don’t agree about something or posters choose to assume that those that don’t, don’t understand or not trying to when really they may not put their energy in caring over something so minor or find it so irritating.

I just don’t find it so annoying that I feel the need to get upset, be passive aggressive, correct people, etc on what is essentially the kids getting a break from school.

Simple as that.

I don't know when it is or what it is.

And I am not inclined to find out 😁

Well Easter does phaff about and change each year. It's a burden to modern life.

I don't want the US style of "spring break" but the same two weeks off each year sounds quite nice!

This. And surely there are still 3 terms, as assessments/report cards are done termly (ie 3 times a year, at the end of the 3 terms).
And I agree with the OP, it's quite irritating and confusing.

What's more annoying is people with school-age kids who want to make plans with people who don't have school-age kids "at half term" and then, if they don't know when that is, react like they said they've never heard of February or don't know what comes after Wednesday....

No it isn't. Half-terms are the mid-term breaks in October, February and May. The Easter and Christmas Holidays mark the end of one whole term.

I totally agree!
Christmas Holidays
Easter Holidays
Summer Holidays
What’s hard about that?

It just doesn’t matter that much

It does to some people.

What's it half of then?

I agree OP, in my head half-term is Feb, May and October only.

The point being that isn't just in your head, it is just fact. Those are the only only half-term holidays.

I swear Scotland has 4 terms. Autumn term - October hols - winter term - Christmas hols - spring term - Easter hols - summer term - summer hols. All two weeks except obviously summer hols. We have a long weekend in February which is called midterm holiday. Usually tagged onto a couple of in service days to make it nearly a week off.

I find calling secondary school 'high school' americanism more frustrating!

I think this started last year. When some areas, schools had the last week of March, first week of April as school holidays. Then went back to almost 2 weeks to just have Good Friday - Easter Monday off. As it was late - 20th April.

My friend who is a teacher actually took advantage of a cheaper foreign holiday

I remember DGM being very impressed that a friends son was going to *** High school, as a child who went to school in the 1920s/30s High School was a grammar school, not a comp. She passed tge 'scholarship' to go to High school but her parents were poor and couldn't afford the uniform or train to the town to go. She had to leave school at 14 and work in a small factory in the village.

I’m in my 50s, working in a school and have noticed this recently as well. I think it’s a generational thing. Holidays were always Christmas, Easter and summer with a half term week roughly halfway. I can remember being aware of the term structure from about age 9 onwards and always looking forward to the end of term and knowing when it was. My generation also wore a watch from an early age so we were probably more attuned to the concept of time passing and daily routines. I’m not so sure that my teenage DC have that same awareness though. My YA often doesn’t seem to know what season we’re in or which months are usually warm or cold. They seem more removed from the routines and changes associated with different times whether it be seasonal or daily. So calling everything half term probably makes more sense to them as it just means the next break from school which happens roughly after 6 weeks of school. But to me it seems vague and I prefer the traditional names with half terms prefaced by October / February / May to distinguish between them.

it doesn’t annoy me anywhere near as much as the faux naivety of the superior people pretending they don’t know what the person saying “half term” is on about….

”oh you you meant Easter?” *tinkly laugh

Do I fall into that category? How do you know which people genuinely need clarification on which holiday people are referring to, and which people are happy to assume but are pretending not to?

This sounds very close to sneering at ND people because they don't feel confident enough to assume the same things that other people might.

See, there’s the faux naivety.

You know know exactly the type of people I’m referring to.

If you genuinely need clarification (eg because you’re making plans with the person) there are polite ways of doing that without being smug and passive aggressive.

(and if it’s just a passing conversation then you don’t “need clarification” so just smile and let it go)

You know know exactly the type of people I’m referring to.

Yes, I do, some of them are in this thread.
What I want to know is, when you get annoyed by the faux-naive people and not the genuine ones, how do you differentiate between these two groups?

When you do this in your life, what do you see that makes it clear to you that the person is pretending?