[michèle 2]

How many school holidays are there in the country where you teach?
In France there are about 120 days.
for 2006/2007
October ( 25 October to 5 November )
Christmas ( 23 December to 7 January )
Winter ( ( 17 February to 4 March )
Spring ( 7 April to 22 april )
Summer ( 4 July to 4 September )
What about you ?

[simplyesl]

Because i didn't teach at a 'normal' school (we had lessons all throughout the year. The students had summer off, some time in winter and three week long national holidays. The national holidays are a strange one... the students have to go to school on the weekends before and after to make up for the time during the week that they have for holidays. Btw i taught in Shanghai, China.

[susan53]

In Italy, it differs a bit from school to school, but in general in Lombardy this year, school started on Sept 11 and goes on to June 9 - that means about 12 weeks off in the summer. That may sound a lot, but by mid June it is so hot here that it's impossible to work properly (schools are not air-conditioned!).
However Christmas and Easter are shorter than in many other countries - this year it was two weeks at Christmas but Easter is only from 4-11 April - and there are no mid term breaks other than public holidays. All in all it's 200-209 (the region establishes a minimum and maximum) days at school, so that's 156-165 off including Sundays. Take away 52 Sundays and that's 104-113 days holiday, minus any public holidays like May 1st etc which fall on Sundays (in Italy you lose them if they fall on a day that would normally be a working day). So potentially considerably less holidays than France. Don't tell my son, or he'll want to move ... But perhaps in France the schools do more hours each day? Again it differs from school to school - some do longer hours but don't work on Saturdays for example -but in general school will start between 8 and 8.30 and finish about 1.30.

[michèle 2]

[ Don't tell my son, or he'll want to move ... But perhaps in France the schools do more hours each day?

Yes, they probably do.
for example in primary school pulpils have about 30 hours per week
in secondary school about the same ( 30 hours ) and in high school from 32 to 35 hours per week. I was talking to a friend of mine this morning and she said that some students have more than 35 hours per week when they choose optional subjects.
They deserve holidays, don't they?