As the prospect of another long and gruelling 6 weeks of school get back underway after the February half-term, I ask what is the point of the week-long holiday, and question whether it is necessary.

The winter may be drawing to an end according to the calendar, but the rain is still coming down, and, especially apparent this year, the temperature is still flirting with freezing. Many are still facing financial repercussions from the large Christmas spend just over one-and-a-half months ago, and so a visit to somewhere more tropical is out of the question. However, a week down in Cornwall doesn’t sound particularly attractive either. In other words, your children are stuck at home all week, and you’ve got to do something with them.

Half term is a logistical nightmare for families, especially in households where both parents work. It is understandable that neither Mum nor Dad would want to sacrifice their precious days of holiday (the UK average is 26 days of paid leave) that could go towards their summer break, having to entertain their children during the half term.

Then, of course, there begs the question: What to do with the children? With typical British weather blighting days out to museums, or even just the park, surely it would just be a lot easier to keep them in school.

Whilst, of course, the argument for the half term is that it gives both students and staff the opportunity to have a rest, with the Spring Term being as short as it is, in comparison to its autumn and summer counterparts, what need is there for that rest? In the academic year 2012-13, the early fall of Easter meant that in Richmond-upon-Thames there were just 54 days of school in the Spring Term. In comparison, the arduous autumn Term spanned 74 days – or one-fifth of a year.

This year, the Spring Term has 59 days, as a result of the late Easter this year – 16th April. However, this is still significantly shorter than the length of both the autumn and summer terms which contribute 74 and 67 days respectively to the school year in this borough.

However, the flip side to this argument is: How would it be possible to get rid of the February half-term? This isn’t as easy as it first appears, as there would be little support for getting rid of this extra week of holiday completely, as some workers are only able to take time off during school holidays. The next response would be to add a week to the summer, Christmas or Easter holidays. However, it has been shown that longer holidays – most noticeably the summer holiday, stunts children’s progress as they forget what they have learned during the year. 

Personally, I would argue that the answer to this problem would be to extend the October half term that lies in the middle of the marathon that is the autumn term to two weeks and to not have any break between Christmas and Easter. Whilst that would result in a very long Spring Term, I would argue that there is little appetite anyway for going away due to the poor weather.

I asked a local primary school teacher what she thought about abolishing the February half-term. “As a teacher, I agree that the term lengths are very different. The autumn term is very long and the spring term can be very short, depending on when Easter falls.”

She went on to say, “However, I would be reluctant to get rid of the half term, because the Spring term would then be 12 weeks straight through, which I think is a lot, especially for the younger children in primary schools.”

Overall, although the dismal weather and poor logistics makes the February half term perhaps the least sought after holiday of the year, the challenges associated with change, and the fact that the spring term would be twelve weeks straight means that we are going to have to put up with a damp week of ‘not doing much’ for a little longer.

By Matthew Lambert from Orleans Park School