Is it a weekend or a holiday? Contact time

[TheWizardsWife]

Hello
I hope this is the right section. I just wondered if anyone knows if there is any guidance that exists regarding the following.
Within a court order, are the weekends still counted as weekends or school holidays out of term time?
I.e. does contact time follow what is ordered for a weekend or a school holiday between leaving school on a Friday and returning on a Monday 1 or 2 weeks later?

I know what my opinion is and I'm sure it would be different were I the other parent, keen to see if there is anything to help on this disagreement.

Many thanks
WW

I think that if the contact weekends are to be suspended during holiday times, (which I think is what you're asking?) then it would say so in the court order, unless the holiday contact is half the hols, in which case it is self-evident. If the holiday contact is extra time then the weekends keep going. So DH has holiday contact specified at Christmas, so the contact pattern is suspended for those specific days and starts again where it left off.

Obvs you can change it by agreement. Does that help at all?

Thank you for responding. I think I understand and you mean that weekends would be classed as holiday only if specifically outlined?

Yes there is a 50/50 school holiday ruling, the disagreement lies with whether this should be a split of the 9 days (One week plus a weekend either end of one week half term for example) or just the 5 days(Mon-Fri).

Sadly discussion and agreement is currently problematic so trying to find out what the general consensus/guidelines are.

No - not exactly - what I meant was that if ordinary pattern contact was stopping then it would say so UNLESS the holiday contact was 50/50 (or substantial), in which case it is obvious that ordinary weekend contact is over-ruled by the holiday order. AFAIK, a 50/50 holiday split is usually for the whole holiday, so both weekends and the 5 week days of half-term. This means both parents get a block of time with the DC's.

I know what you mean about difficult discussions - would mediation help? Are the positions of the two people very different?

Thank you for your information, I wonder if anything is advised/accepted to this effect by CAFCASS/ anyone else official as I'm struggling to find anything?

Sadly mediation failed, hence resultant court action. One parent (who has been awarded the majority of weekends) insists that the weekends will always be that, while unsurprisingly the other parent (who has minimal weekend contact) insists that they should be counted as holiday time as they have done previously.

The court wasn't specific with this.