We all know the feeling: It’s the last day of school, desks are cleaned out, last assignments completed, and instead of new tasks, what lies ahead are free days, summer plans and the sweet relief of not having to revise or hand anything in for a while. Yet few would guess that this time off was originally anything but relaxing. We’ll explain how the summer break came to be, along with the quirks that the Austrian school system has in store when it comes to report cards and the start of the holidays.
When do the summer holidays in Austria begin?
The start of the holidays depends on where you live, because Austria sends its schoolchildren off into summer in staggered waves. Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland go first, with the school bell ringing for the last time in late June or early July. The remaining states (Upper Austria, Carinthia, Styria, Salzburg, Tyrol and Vorarlberg) only follow a week later, and there’s a good reason for that. Staggering the start is meant to ease the heavy holiday traffic and prevent the whole country from setting off on holiday on the very same day. It also suits the tourism industry to have visitors spread out over several weeks. For the schoolchildren themselves, it makes no difference in the end: holidays are holidays, no matter which day they start.
How do Austrians celebrate the end of a school year?
The last day before the holidays is rarely as exciting as some films make it look: instead of flying caps and grand ceremonies, the end of the school year is a fairly low-key affair in Austria. Often the last day is just a short morning, which some schools round off with a small celebration.
While primary school pupils stay put in the classroom even with their report cards in hand, many secondary schools deliberately take their time and only hand them out right at the end of the morning. If the precious slip were handed over in the very first lesson, there’d be little left to keep some teenagers in their seats. Because however little it may feel like one, the last day of school is legally just an ordinary school day.
The report card
Unlike the mid-year report handed out in February, the end-of-year report takes stock of the entire school year, and with it decides whether a pupil moves up to the next year.
Marks are awarded according to the Austrian grading system, ranging from “very good” to “not sufficient”. But a single “not sufficient” is by no means the end of the road: in many cases, the fail can be made up with a resit exam at the very start of the next school year. On top of that, certain cases allow for a so-called Aufstiegsklausel (progression clause): here, the teachers’ conference decides whether a pupil can move up despite a negative mark – without a resit.
Either way, for most pupils report card day is dominated by the relief of having made it, and of heading into a carefree summer.
Why were summer holidays introduced in Austria?
The summer holidays are far older than the idea of using them to relax. Back in the day, having time off school didn’t mean resting but working, as children were needed on the farms, especially in rural areas. The first weeks long holidays, introduced in the 18th century, were therefore timed for the busiest period out in the fields. These had nothing to do with a break in the modern sense.
“Proper” summer holidays weren’t introduced until 1875, and even then they varied in length from region to region, and were considerably shorter overall. Why the rural harvest break eventually became a nationwide arrangement for all schoolchildren remains unclear. Some suspect that many children were simply too worn out after the long school year, and that there were concerns about their later fitness for military service, which might sound a little odd today. Then again, the classrooms may have simply been too hot and stuffy for learning during the hottest weeks.
The notion that this time off should actually serve as respite only caught on around 1900, when summer camps and carefree summer weeks gradually became a fixed part of childhood. It wasn’t until between 1950 and 1970 that the summer holidays finally grew to their current nine weeks throughout the whole country.
The school year may be over, but Austria’s quirks reach far beyond the classroom. Take a look at life in the Alpine republic with us: everything from traditional dress and our dialects to customs, regional specialities and more awaits you on our blog. Happy reading!
