Public holidays are national days recognized by the government and the country for people to take time off work or school and celebrate a special day or event. Although these can vary from school to school and county to county, many of them are set days that everyone in the country can enjoy, like Christmas, for example.
A lot of the public holidays in the UK primary school system revolve around Christian religious traditions. The term structure in particular revolves around Christmas and Easter as part of their term breaks, where children have two weeks’ break for each.
Other religious holidays includ
e New Year’s Day and Good Friday, the latter of which always falls on a day that is taken off.
In the UK, there are lots of ‘bank holidays’ which originated as days the banks took off and are now public. These fall on a Monday and people can enjoy bank holiday weekends where they often take a trip. There is always one on the first Monday in May and the last in August.
As well as public holidays, primary schools sometimes have teacher training days, where children are not required to attend.