[HPforGrownups] School Year Length

[Pen Robinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 44151


On Tuesday, September 17, 2002, at 09:10 , Mark D. 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!
>

OK.  My children go to a state school and their holidays are as follows:

Autumn Term:  early September - Friday before Christmas, with a 
half-term break of one week in late October.
Christmas holidays - 2 weeks

Spring Term: early January - mid-April (this will vary as the date of 
Easter varies) with half-term break mid-Feb.
Easter holidays - 2 weeks

Summer Term: end April to twenty-somethingth July, half term break at 
end of May.
Summer holidays: approx six weeks.


Private schools have a slight variation on the above theme, in that the 
main holidays are usually longer (particularly the summer holidays, 
which will be 8 - 9 weeks), and the half-term break is basically a long 
weekend (Fri - Mon/Tues).   Hogwarts does not seem to have half-term 
breaks at all.

Can't help you with September the first, because it is Just Odd.  
Perhaps JKR has adopted the Cantabrigian meaning of 'Term' in this 
instance, and it merely means the day on which you must be present at 
school.

Pen