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.

Blimey this thread is so Mumsnet. I don’t take any notice. It’s like someone saying hoover instead of vacuum cleaner. We know what they mean! If schools say it, it’s an eye roll at best. If I eye-rolled every time the school got comms wrong I’d need corrective surgery!

And people use different terms depending on where they are from and what they are used to hearing. I’m not going to argue or be passive aggressive because someone uses a different term for a break than I do.

It only takes a few seconds to just say.. “oh, thought you meant.. I’m used to hearing xyz” and continue with whatever is being discussed. Pretty simple.

It is really not that serious. As a pp has said and I agree, that I don’t care what it is called, all I know is regardless what the name is I need to sort out arrangements for it. Simple as that.

People here are talking about the UK.

Holiday can also mean going away for a trip in British English, so it's not true to say that "holiday only refers to national holidays".

My Mum always talks about Whitsun as well (she means the May half term). Not only did she go to a Scottish school, she then became a teacher in a Scottish school. As PP have pointed out in the Scottish education system there are 4 terms with no half terms so why she has this attachment to Whitsun who knows. My kids have been going to school in England for 13 years and every year I tell her Whitsun is not a thing.

My husband does this and either I internally rage or I say something and he just gives me a blank look like I'm being an unbearable snob.

Sounds about right. MN is a completely different place compared to outside of it for most of us.

I was responding to PP who was talking about the US. It’s not true that people refer to “holidays” for when schools are off, it refers only to national holidays e.g. July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving etc. Spring break is not a “holiday” in the US, for example. It’s spring break.

Easter holidays or Easter break, it ain't difficult!

I always call it half term because I don't have kids (currently pregnant with my first) and honestly, I don't know the difference because I am currently not in that world...

It annoys me and I don’t even have children! I am 49 and no one did this when I was a kid. Everyone managed to grasp that there were 3 terms with a major holiday at the end of each - Christmas, Easter and summer holidays. And then a half term break at the mid way point of each. When did that change?

I always say half term unless its summer holidays

Did you go to school in the UK? Did you used to call Christmas holidays half term then? While it doesn’t annoy me as much as it annoys others on the thread, I can’t for the life of me work out what has caused the confusion in recent years.

Dd (at uni) always says this!

I’d probably call it half term even though I know it’s wrong.

I work in a sector that has nothing to do with schools or education, but as parents work here we do see a slow down at the school holidays. Saying Easter/summer/Christmas holidays is confusing as I would default to assuming it meant the bank holidays or when I was actually on holiday, because I don’t have kids.

I suppose I could say school holidays, but I think half term has just become a lazy shorthand. I fully accept I use it incorrectly, but I’ve never had anyone genuinely misunderstand what I mean.

Some schools themselves do it though. So if it's in the school newsletter as "half term" and also on their website - parents will eventually start saying it too!

Our secondary school does it. There are several people working in administration at the school so there could be a whole team involved with the website and newsletter shenanigans. It's even on their Facebook page!

Agreed 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Christmas holidays
Easter holidays
Summer holidays
October holidays (or tattie picking holidays if you are that way inclined)

I don’t count 2 days in February and a bank holiday in May has a half term or holiday

Our school does this, we have autumn term 1 and autumn term 2, spring term 1 and spring term 2 etc, really annoying and a mouthful to say!

Yes!! I mean, it doesn't ruin my life but I have noticed it. I suppose technically it is the end of half a term, as well as the end of the full term.... but yeah, it's christmas holidays, Feb half term, Easter holidays, may half term, summer holidays, October half term. Ideally. In my head, anyway!

I don’t have children and as far as I’m concerned, half term is halfway through the term. We had Easter, summer and Christmas holidays. You can in fact, correctly refer to a half terms as half holidays

Very annoying. My DH does it. Every time I say ‘Do you mean the Easter holidays?’

It’s so weird yes

I find it hugely annoying and I have no skin in the game as I'm childless and retired from teaching 5 years ago. I'm currently weighing up if it's as annoying as a friend of mine who belongs to Slimming World but calls it 'Slimmers World'. Why would she do that?

yanbu. It’s really sloppy - I hate people using the WRONG WORD for something. It’s just lazy and sloppy and shows lack of basic understanding of…of… of EVERYTHING. It’s horrible and I will judge.

It’s definitely a break.

It's from Whit Sunday. When I was teaching in London in the 80s we called it Whitsun.