How should school holidays be divided fairly between separated parents?

[FancyGreenPoster]

Hi, having some issues finalising an agreement for school holidays after a lot of back and forth so looking for general opinions/advice before it eventually ends back in court.

After many last minute court hearings and orders for individual holiday periods made at the 11th hour, we are now agreeing to split holidays equally but are yet to agree on how this will be exactly, but are working towards getting something in writing that will be repeatable year on year.

Ordinarily, residency is split approx 65/35 with mum majority of time and dad every 2nd weekend + 1 midweek overnight.

Mum stipulated that the end of every holiday period must be spent with her, to prepare for return to school.

Dad is open to first half of the holidays going to who would ordinarily have the child for that first weekend followed by a handover day at the mid point.
This doesn't work well with the above stipulation of mum's that the end of every holiday is always with her.

Dad is also open to always taking the first half of the holidays and mum always taking the second half.
This would work for the above stipulation of mum's that the end of every holiday is always with her.
However, in this scenario, mum is also saying that if it is due to be her residential weekend that first weekend of the holidays, then that should still go ahead despite it being the 1st half (dad's half of the holidays).
After discussion, mum has said that the last 2 weekends before the start of any holidays could be swapped around but dad sees this as further disruption out with the holidays and giving up a scheduled residential weekend in order to have the first weekend of the holidays that would be in his half of the holidays anyway.

It boils down to dad defining the holidays as starting at end of school on the last day of term and ending when when school restarts on the first day of term.
Mum is only calling the holidays the days highlighted in the school calendar as holidays (ie Monday to Friday).

Can anyone help by shedding outside light on the situation or suggest who might be in the right/wrong or being reasonable/unreasonable or better yet suggest something that may work for all that we have missed.
Thanks

Personally I think mum is being a bit unreasonable from the info written here. She can’t say that he can’t have the first bit of the holiday if it falls on her weekend, but then insist on the last bit of the holiday even if it falls on his weekend. Her saying the school holiday only starts from the Monday would, if correct, also apply at the end and it would finish on the Friday and she could then lose that weekend because it’s not “part of the holiday”.

Yes take the weekends out if it as these are already set,
Use mon-fri for all school holiday weeks returning to the parent they are due to be with that weekend.
Its too complicated otherwise..

No - that’s not a good idea. It can really mess up holidays as many are Saturday to Saturday. If one parent has 2 ( or 3 ) weekends in a row, then it can swap when the other has two in a row.

Then parent 1 needs the mon-fri which rolls into their weekend, and parent 2 likewise.
Our court order was holidays to run mon-mon to only take up 1 weekend

half terms - whoever is due to collect them on the Friday has them until the Wednesday then other parents has them to the following Monday.
Easter - whoever picks them up on the Friday has them the first week until Saturday tea tome
summer - 3 weeks each - taken in individual weeks or as a group - take turns to choose your weeks

Mum seems to be trying to set it up so Dad cant ever have a weeks holiday away with the kids, except maybe in the summer, but when activity camps start happening, that may become impossible.

I also think being away from either parent for 3 weeks solid in the summer holidays will be hard for the kids, and the 6 week summer break shouldn't be a solid first half/ second half arrangement.

It’s usually arranged so parents get a holiday each with dc and weekend arrangements resumed by agreement. This just seems utterly about the parents. Dc being divided like a cake!