School Year Length

[alhewison]

No: HPFGUIDX 44113

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Mark D." <uncmark at y...> wrote:
 Help me out with a question for my fanfic. Whayt is the school year 
 length at Hogwarts (supposedly based on English school years)?
 
 The timelines at the Harry Lexicon have the Hogwart's Express always 
 leaving on Sept. 1 no matter what day of the week (despite assigning 
> the calendars of 1991 - 95 to the first four books) and ending 
either the last week of June, or in the case of GoF as late as the 
first week in July.

Do English schools stay in session that long? It would mean a summer 
holiday of barely 2 months!

I say:-

The standard length of English school summer holidays is actually 
only 6 weeks. Boarding schools and private schools tend to have 
longer holidays, making Hogwarts in keeping with these. Normal day 
schools would also have 3 half term breaks of a week each, which 
explains why boarding schools often have longer summer holidays (and 
Christmas and Easter breaks, as they do not have these breaks.

The fact that the Hogwarts' year ends at the end of June/ early July 
is actually earlier than most schools break up. In reality English 
schools with holidays of around 8 weeks would begin the Autumn term 
somewhat later in September. Scottish schools on the otherhand tend 
to start their Autumn term slightly earlier.

Ali


Ali