Two-Week October Half Terms?! Parents Have Had Enough Already

Two-week half-terms sound great – until you’re the parent paying for them.

Parents editor at HuffPost UK

It’s come to my attention that schools in England are increasingly opting for two-week half-terms – and there’s even talk of whether more should follow suit.

I would just like to say, as a parent to a school-age child: no thank you.

A Teacher Tapp poll of 8,112 state school teachers in England found 15% said their schools had an October half-term spanning a fortnight this year – up from 12% in 2025, and 7% in 2023.

I get the logic. It’s been suggested you could cut the summer holidays by a week (so it’s five weeks long) and then tag an extra week onto October’s half-term. The key benefit being that it gives teachers and kids more time to rest up and decompress after an intense start to the term.

Per Tes magazine, some school leaders have also suggested that the extended break results in less pupil absence and staff illness.

I do understand that and rest is important. I can see how exhausted kids are at this point in the term.

But what about parents, and........

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