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Long Weekends For Kids: What Leave Days Can Parents Take To Maximise Their Holidays?

Angela Koo
·3-min read

2023 brings a bumper crop of 7 long weekends. This is great news for those who want to maximise their annual leave and even better news for travel bugs who are finally free to globetrot after 2 years of travel restrictions.

However, long weekends aren’t just for adults, but also for children too. Children actually enjoy more holidays (and long weekends) than adults. If you are a parent, consider planning your annual leave to coincide with these children-only long weekends (and avoid the crowded public holiday long weekends).

The 2023 public holiday long weekends are:

  • New Year’s Day (1 Jan, Sunday),

  • Chinese New Year (22 and 23 Jan, Sunday and Monday),

  • Good Friday (7 Apr, Friday),

  • Labour Day (1 May, Monday),

  • Vesak Day (2 Jun, Friday),

  • Deepavali (12 Nov, Sunday),

  • Christmas (25 Dec, Monday)

Children’s Long Weekends – Youth Day, Teachers’ Day, Children’s Day

Children in MOE schools enjoy scheduled school holidays on top of public holidays and term holidays.

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Youth Day is on 2 July 2023, Sunday and the following Monday will be a scheduled school holiday.

Teachers’ Day is on 1 September 2023, Friday and heralds the start of the September school holidays. Depending on your child’s school, the celebrations for Teachers’ Day tend to be on 30 September and some schools may implement a half day instead of a full day of school.

Children’s Day is only for primary school children (so don’t expect your older children to ditch school on this day). This will be on 6 October 2023, Friday.

Additionally, children also enjoy an extra school holiday on the Day After National Day, 10 August 2023, Thursday. While this isn’t on the weekend, it may still be possible to plan a short getaway if your child isn’t involved in the National Day Parade. However, do note that 11 August 2023, Friday, is still a school day.

Marking Days Are Another Period When Children Don’t Need To Report To School

Most schools will have designated days after examinations (especially the year-end exams) for teachers to mark the examination papers. This will vary from school to school.

However, all primary schools will have the same PSLE Marking Exercise when students don’t need to report to school.

For 2022, this was designated as 17 October to 20 October, Monday to Thursday. While the 2023 dates have not be released, parents can plan ahead for this period when the children do not need to attend school. Do check MOE’s academic calendar closer to date.

Additionally, primary school children don’t have to report to school on PSLE Oral and Listening Comprehension examination days. This is to ensure that Primary 6 students have a conducive environment to take their PSLEs.

For 2022, PSLE Orals was designated on 15 and 16 August (Monday and Tuesday) and Listening was on 16 September (Friday). This could potentially mean another 2 more long weekends for your children.

Optimise Your Annual Leave To Take Advantage Of The School Holidays

Most parents already take their annual family vacation during the term school holidays.

Term School Holidays:

  • Term 1: 11 March 2023 (Saturday) to 19 March 2023 (Sunday)

  • Term 2: 27 May 2023 (Saturday) to 25 June 2023 (Sunday)

  • Term 3: 01 September 2023 (Friday, Teachers’ Day) to 10 September 2023 (Sunday)

  • Term 4: 18 November 2023 (Saturday) for Primary and Secondary or 25 November 2023 (Saturday) for Post-Secondary to 31 December 2023

Aside from term holidays, parents can plan their annual leave to spend at least 2 more long weekends with the kids. Parents of primary school children have even more options due to PSLE days.

Choosing to take your annual leave on these school holidays could potentially mean better flexibility and cheaper air tickets as most working adults would not be planning for these same long weekends as they are not public holidays.

The post Long Weekends For Kids: What Leave Days Can Parents Take To Maximise Their Holidays? appeared first on DollarsAndSense.sg.