Cultural: School's OUT! - a post about the Polish school system
Normally Polish elementary- high schools finish the fourth Friday of the month of June.
The children/young people then get all of July and August off.
They go back to school on September 1.
I like this calendar, though, of course, I figured a full three months off would be fine as well.
Why? Around here, even though school is officially is going on in the month of June, not much school is happening, if you get my drift. They take lots of trips, watch a lot of movies, people skip a lot and so on.
At the same time, people feel less stressed with no school. The kids sure enjoy it - at least most of them!
“lato” means summer
What do the kids do during the summer?
A lot of kids have camps - some go to as many as 2 or 3 in the summer - each often lasting 2 weeks long.
The government tends to help the poor afford to go to camp.
This page is taken from a local magazine telling about the activities in our area - at the pool, outside, and in the library as well as cultural things in July. They will take August completely “off” from the musical things.
The towns also have day camps where kids can sign up and participate in activities to keep them busy. They call these programs “Summer in the City”.
It is also very common to send kids off to relatives who live in the villages, mountains, or lake region to get them out of the city. It seems that MOST people actually leave the area to go on vacation. They are taken quite seriously here.
Otherwise, kids are kids. They get bored. They play soccer, they go swimming. They go shopping with their mom or dad. Normal things kids do.
So, this short cultural update is just to let you know that, while in the USA most people have had summer vacation for a month or so - or almost a month - our kids’ summer vacation JUST started. Now it is “summer”. not only on the calendar, but mentally as well!
Have a good one wherever you are reading this!
Hope you get to sew today!
This year, with people just coming out of the COVID isolation, things will be different. We are seeing people here in the states begin to go shopping again, take trips, get together, go to ball games. I’m sure the same is happening in Poland. My husband is there now - and he said that he was allowed to eat inside a restaurant again - something we’d been unable to do for months and months!
So there you go. Sometimes it is easy to think that all cultures get 3 months off for the summer - if you happen to get May - or at least part of it - then June, July and August or part of it. Schools in Europe tend to all get July and August off. We’ll see how this year goes.
Have a great day wherever you are. I hope you get to spend some extra time with love ones.
Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store! Here’s one interesting one!