AN Academic Calendar for 2010-2011 Academic Year

Your mileage may vary, but here's what MY academic calendar looks like:
(And I'll ignore the start of classes because different schools start at different dates; we haven't started classes yet but it seems many/most of you have.)

This month gets wacky. Noles made a post a few months ago about it and I now have our calendar and it matches up against the national calendar posted back then. So here goes

Sept 19th (Sunday) - teach Wednesday classes for the following holiday, which is....
Sept. 22-24 - Mid-Autumn Moon Festival (no classes)
Sept. 25-26 (Sat. and Sun)-Back to work teaching Thurs. classes on Saturday and Friday classes on Sunday), then
Sept. 27-30 (Mon.-Thurs)-teach regular classes
Therefore 6 straight days of teaching (Sept.25-30).
Oct. 1 to 7 - National Day - No classes for 7 days
Oct.8-9 (Fri. and Sat.) - back to work. Teach Friday classes on Saturday. Yes, you read that right, we'll be teaching Friday classes two days in a row. TIC.
Oct. 10 (Sun.) - off. A one day weekend.
October 11-Dec. 31 - everything back to normal.

2011
Jan. 1-Jan 3 (Sat. to Mon.)-New Year's Holiday - no classes. Big whoop-because of the weekend, it's actually just a one day holiday.
Jan. 10 - Last classes before finals. Finals end and school goes on Winter Holiday on January 24. YMMV on this one.
Also, if you are job-searching or coming over on a Z-visa, nothing will get done in the school's offices from this date until the next semester starts up.

Second Semester
Feb. 3-5-Chinese New Year Festival
If you are coming over on a Z-visa, nothing will get done at the local governmental offices (PSB, FEB, Ed. Dept.) for about a week after Feb. 3.
February 21-WE start back to school. YMMV
April 3-5 (Sun. to Tue.) - Qing Ming (Tomb-Sweeping) Festival. What's so festive about sweeping tombs? Never mind. It's a three day holiday but it starts on a Sunday AND you have to work on Saturday April 2 which really takes the "festive" out of this "festival". So
April 2 (Sat.) - Teach Monday classes
April 30-May 2 (Sat.-Mon.) - May Day Festival - Yet again, cheating us by using weekend days as "holidays". Luckily, no classes have to be made up for this.
June 4-June6 (Sat.-Mon.) - Dragon Boat Festival. Yet again, another "weekend holiday" for 2011 and this time it falls two days after a particularly "auspicious" date so I guess it'll be easier to control people if they can start the holiday early and focus them on dragon boat races.
June 15 (Thurs.) - Did you notice that a lot of Monday classes are missed because of these "weekend+Mon. holidays"? Yes, they did, too, so MY school has us teaching Monday classes on Thursday the 15th to catch up the Monday classes. YMMV
June 16th-OUR classes end for finals. YMMV
June 17th-July 1st - Finals and admin work. YMMV
July2-School closes and Summer Holiday begins.
Sept. 5 - Not on the schedule I was given, but my semi-educated guess as to when school start up in the Fall of 2011, based upon...
2012
January 29-31, 2012 Chinese New Year - it'll be somewhat early that year, so counting back by weeks and also looking at 2009 when Chinese New Year was Jan. 29, the above is my best guess.

So there you go, you're whole academic schedule planned out for you from this semester to the start of classes in Sept. 2011.

If you are me.

P.S. old34's  Special Tip: Try to get no classes scheduled on Monday next semester so EVERY weekend is a 3 day holiday, your other classes will stay on track (assuming you teach the same subject and grade), AND you won't have to teach that Saturday April 2 class.

THANKS.  You and Noles make me look good.  My uni can't seem to get their act in gear until about a week or a day before the event - or at least they don't deign to tell the peons - so when I tell the secretary in the office what I think is going to happen (based upon what you guys share) and then it happens, I get told, "You are so clever."

Thanks.

By the way, I saved the graphic from the eCHinacities article that Noles linked to in his other post. It shows the "Work" days and the "Holidays" for the upcoming few weeks (but not what you actually have to "do" on those weekend workdays. Still, it's a good graphic representation of how messed schedules will be starting at the end of next week.

Man.... newbies have it so easy these days. They're supposed have the China experience.

That means going to class when everybody has already left for holiday, getting called at 8:00 on a Sunday morning asking them why they aren't in class yet, having it explained to them in broken chinglish that on Monday they teach Wednesday classes and then Friday and Saturday they teach Tuesday and Thursday classes, so of course they'll have to make up the Friday class on Sunday but because the students have "something to do" it will be night classes.

Cut it out old34, I want to read their complaints. Helping out here and there is great but the whole school year!? What are doing man?

Next you will telling them about the day-light savings date in winter.

Just let show up to class on that one Ok?

Well, at least I didn't tell them about lao dong or Teacher's Day or Children's Day or Women's Day or Norman Bethune Day Da Shan Day.

yep, this is identical to my teaching year too.

I actually totally scored this year because I have wednesday and friday off. So many holidays are on friday this year, like the double friday thing so I actually have a 10 day national holiday week. I'm crossing my fingers that I get mondays off next semester.

Well, at least I didn't tell them about lao dong or Teacher's Day or Children's Day or Women's Day or Norman Bethune Day Da Shan Day.

Don't forget the sports days, which are great for messing with newbies because they're not on any calendar and nobody can predict them!

Quote from: old34 on September 04, 2010, 12:19:08 AM

Well, at least I didn't tell them about lao dong or Teacher's Day or Children's Day or Women's Day or Norman Bethune Day Da Shan Day.

Don't forget the sports days, which are great for messing with newbies because they're not on any calendar and nobody can predict them!

Actually, I omitted that day, too, because YMMV. Ours is scheduled for October 22 and 23 (Fri and Sat.) No classes on Oct. 22 (Fri.) because of Sports Day. This one is iffy. It was interesting my first few years in China, No classes but you can attend and participate. They encourage FT participation UNLESS you are real good. Then, they don't like it so much because you might win.

Anyway, these days I just consider it n extra day off. (Doesn't have to be made up.) If you are young and think it might be an enjoyable thing to participate in the school-wide sports meet (Track, field, athletics and ball sports) go ahead and give it a try.

Nice!  I have Fridays off this semester, and will see if I can change that to having Mondays off next semester.

Thanks for posting 

Be careful with Sports Day.

My first year here, I played in a one-on-one hoops tourney and some of the students cried and whined to their teachers when they lost or caught an elbow or knee.

It was pathetic.

I was dominant!

These days I'm teaching at a college. Oh, how I miss that primary school.

Stil,    (That's me shaking my head at you. Funny post about the newbies getting too much info, though.)

On the school calendar I've been given, the two sports days are the only indicated days off.  For holidays we are kept in the dark until the last possible moment to prevent anyone making advance travel arrangements or other plans.

This is such a hilarious thread because it's all so true.  It amazes me how schools in other countries can send home the school calendar for the year with every day off clearly marked yet here in China we are lucky to know whether or not we have class that day by going to the class and either finding students there or not.  LOL!  Go with the flow...that's my motto now.  Thanks for the year's calendar old34...I now know what day I will be teaching on October 9...had all but that one.

Speaking of holidays ...

I'm one of the lucky teachers who teaches year 12 students, which means I get a much shorter holiday than everyone else. As if year 12 students weren't under enough stress as it is, the school is not giving them the full holiday but is instead making them come to classes for a good portion of the days we're supposed to have off for both Mid Autumn and October holiday. The students are, as you all can probably imagine, absolutely thrilled with this arrangement. 

I teach branch hours i.e. our private school stuff that wraps around gov't schedules. So when a gov't school has a holiday and switches a class to the weekend, we work on the holiday istead of on the weekend.

I also work at a business that has nothing to do with schools and they set their own schedule.

And then I found out I'm covering for a vacationing teacher for 3 weeks at a gov't school.

So, in a nutshell, I'm either working everyday until mid October or I'm off for a month. I hope they give me at least 24 hours notice