Summer vacation

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Summer vacation (also called summer holidays or summer break) is a vacation in the summertime between school years in which students are off for between 6 weeks and 2 months, depending on the country and district.

1 School administration
2 Students
3 Criticisms and support
4 Summer vacation, country-by-country
5 Summer Vacation in Popular Culture
6 See also
7 References

[edit] School administration

During this period, the schools are preparing for the next school year and do cleanup and maintenance that cannot be done during the normal course of a school year.

[edit] Students

In some countries, students participate in programs such as organized sports, summer camps, and attend summer schools.They may also hang out with friends. High school students sometimes visit college and university campuses. It is also typical for teenagers to get a job during the summer vacation in order to raise some money to spend at their leisure. Many parents take time off work, in order to go on a family vacation during the summer. These activities are far less common in the UK, and when present, the clubs are run privately and charge a fee.

[edit] Criticisms and support

The concept of summer vacation has been criticized because students supposedly forget large amounts of information learned in the past year^[1]^[2]. Alternatives to summer vacation, such as year-round school or Winter Vacation are used by some schools.^[1]

[edit] Summer vacation, country-by-country

The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
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In the United States, summer vacation lasts for 3 months. Most schools take summer vacation from June to September or from May to August. These dates vary depending on the location of the school district.

In Australia, the Summer season officially lasts from December to February, and therefore coincides with the Christmas and New Year holidays. The dates of Australian school holidays (the term used, rather than "vacation") are determined by each state's Department of Education, the Summer (also known as Christmas) holidays being the longest in duration. Typically Christmas or Summer holidays in Australia last approximately six weeks, usually from around December 20th (depending on school year, see below) to the last few days of January. While significantly shorter than the North American Summer vacation, Australian schools also break for two weeks at Easter, and in June and September, giving students and teachers a total of twelve weeks of annual holidays .In many public schools, years 10 through 12 will finish before December 20th, allowing time to complete exam marking and results. Year 10 commonly finishes at the end of November, Year 11 at the end of October, and year 12 also at the end of October after 3 weeks of end-of-year exams. This can bring the normal 12 weeks of vacation to 20 weeks of vacation. The intervening periods of school operation are called "School Terms", each term lasting approximately ten weeks. All Australian states have relatively similar holiday periods, but there is the ability for this to change around, such as for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth games, when the first term in Victorian schools was shortened to 6 weeks and the other subsequently extended to 12 weeks each allowing people to attend the events. Most private schools in Australia have up to four weeks additional holidays, due to their longer teaching hours during term.

In New Zealand, the summer holidays for primary school students typically starts around 20 December, and ends around 7 February. For junior secondary school students (Years 9 and 10), school holidays typically start one week before primary school students. Senior secondary school students (Years 11, 12, and 13) officially start their summer holidays at the same time as the junior secondary school students, but the summer holidays for them start in mid-November, in the week before the first NCEA exams.

In the Republic of Ireland, most secondary schools get off for Summer on the last week of May or first week in June and don't return until the first or week in September. They also receive around two weeks for Easter and around another two weeks for Christmas and New Year, as well as another week around Halloween (called "Mid-Term") and another few days (usually 1 or 2) for St. Patrick's Day. Most schools also get every Bank Holiday off. Students doing exams (Junior Cert and Leaving Cert) have to come in some days during June to sit their exams but otherwise have the same break as those not doing exams. Primary schools in the Republic of Ireland follow the same pattern, though only get off for Summer at the end of June. All schools in Northern Ireland also follow the same pattern as primary schools in the Republic of Ireland, except students doing exams (GCSE and A-Levels), who get off at the start of May on "Study-Leave" and do the exams sometime in June, but still have the same Summer as those not doing exams.

In Scotland, school summer holidays start around the end of June and last for about 7 weeks, with most schools returning in the middle of August. In addition to summer holidays, scottish schools have 1 or 2 weeks in October, 2 weeks at Christmas and 2 weeks at Easter. A bank holiday in May, and one in September wraps it up for school holidays. Scottish schools get the fewest days off in the whole of the United Kingdom.

In England, summer holidays start near the end of July, and last until the first week of September (normally 6 weeks). In addition, schools have 3 week long half term breaks (at the end of October, in mid February and in late May), as well as 2 weeks off for Christmas and Easter, bringing the total weeks off per year to 13 weeks.

In Israel,summer vacation for the middle school and high school (7th-12th grade) start at June 20th and end at September 1st. Lower grades are off to vacation on the 30th to June and ends at September 1st.

[edit] Summer Vacation in Popular Culture

Due to it being considered the most fun time of year among youth, summer vacation, and the last day of school, is an often-explored topic of films and television. Some films that include the last day of school, or summer vacation, include: