Studying During School Holidays: Honestly, How Much and How Should You Do It?
Every holiday, the same ritual. On the Tuesday before break starts, you tell yourself, "This holiday, I’m really going to get ahead." You build an ambitious plan: 4 hours of revision a day, maybe 5 at weekends, and boom, you come back as the absolute master of your schedule. On the first day of the holiday, you sleep until 11 a.m. On the second, you hang out with friends. On the third, you start feeling guilty, and you end the break with neither real rest nor real work. All you’ve gained is shame.
I know this trap well. I played it out for pretty much every school holiday during STI2D and BUT. Except I skipped the "ambitious plan" step entirely: I went on holiday thinking, "I’ll see how it goes," and I never revised. That was fine if I only wanted to pass, not if I wanted top marks.
This article brings together what I wish someone had told me — and what I see working for EduFiche users who are doing well. Not a rigid timetable. More a framework for deciding, by period, what is worth it and what isn’t.
The tradeoff nobody spells out
You have two limited resources: your holiday time, and your mental energy after a term. You can’t maximize everything.
Three classic options:
Option A: do nothing. You rest your brain. You come back fresh. But you build up a debt you’ll pay in November/January/April. (That was my strategy. It cost me points everywhere.)
Option B: do everything. You work 6 hours a day during the holidays. You come back wrecked, you’ve argued with your family, your friends haven’t seen you. You lose the benefit of rest, and you come back already tired for what’s next.
Option C: 70% rest / 30% work. Around 2–3 hours a day, preferably in the morning, with the rest free. You come back rested AND ahead. That’s the Pareto zone.
Everything below starts from option C. If you’re in a track like medicine or a heavy preparatory class, the ratio changes (50/50 max), but the principle stays the same: protect some real rest time, or you’ll burn out before the year ends.
All Saints’ holiday
The first break after an intense start to the year. Too early to revise exams that won’t happen until January, and just late enough to need a proper review.
What I would do:
One 100% off day at the start. Sleep, see people, really switch off. Non-negotiable.
Three or four mornings of 2 hours on what’s urgent: turn the month’s lessons into notes if you haven’t had time to digest them. If you use EduFiche, you can do this in one morning. Otherwise, plan for two or three mornings.
One day to do an honest review: what has worked in my method since the start of term, and what hasn’t? You can adjust your routine for the second month. That review, done at All Saints’, is worth more than 20 hours of revision.
The rest: sport, sleep, going out, reading. For real.
Christmas holiday
This is the trickiest period. You’re coming out of an exhausting term, you’re surrounded by family (and therefore temptations + social obligations), and mock exams or end-of-term exams are only three weeks away.
The classic mistake is telling yourself, "I’ll revise everything during the holidays." You won’t. Not because you’re lazy, but because you’ll want to enjoy the 24th and the 31st, see your cousins, eat Yule logs. That’s legitimate, and it’s necessary for your balance.
My typical Christmas break split:
From December 17 to 23: light routine. 2 hours in the morning on semester content, afternoons free. You decompress without completely disconnecting.
From December 24 to 26: nothing. If you stick to nothing, your brain consolidates everything you’ve learned since September. Three days of complete letting go are scientifically useful, not lazy.
From December 27 to 30: ramp up. 3 hours in the morning on exam subjects, 1 hour late afternoon on a secondary subject. Evenings free.
December 31 - January 1: nothing again. Enjoy it, really.
From January 2 to 4: gradual restart. 3 hours in the morning, mock papers to get the machine going again before school starts back.
If you follow that split, you come back rested and with a clear edge for mock exams. If you leave for the holidays with a 6-hour-a-day plan for 15 days, you’ll keep it up for 4 days, feel guilty for 11, and come back in bad shape.
February holiday
Short break (2 weeks, staggered by region) in the middle of the second term. Mid-term, classic motivation dip. Teachers call it the "February wall" — a lot of students drop off here.
Three priorities in my view:
First, get yourself emotionally back on track. If you’re drained, this break is there to get you back on your feet. Rest comes first, not a kill-yourself schedule.
Next, move forward on the files / projects you keep putting off: Grand Oral if you’re in Terminale, specialization project folder, internship report, Parcoursup cover letter. You don’t revise these things, you move them forward. This is the ideal opportunity.
Finally, review the fuzzy ideas identified in the first semester. Not everything. The 2–3 chapters that block you every time there’s a test. Tackle them calmly, without exam pressure.
Aim for 2 hours a day, in the morning, no more. That’s enough to make progress without ruining the break.
Easter holiday
6–8 weeks before the final exams or the baccalaureate. This is the last real window where you can get a decisive lead — or fall behind for good.
Let’s be clear: this is the period where I’d most strongly recommend working. But not just any old way.
Monday to Friday: 4–5 hours a day, split into two blocks (3 hours in the morning, 1–2 hours early afternoon). No more. Beyond that, you get tired without retaining anything.
Morning = the densest subject, the one where you feel weakest. Not the easy one to make yourself feel better.
Afternoon = mock papers in real conditions. You take a past paper, time yourself, mark it. That kind of practice is worth more than 10 hours of passive rereading.
Weekend: partial rest. Half a day of work on Saturday to stay sharp, the rest off.
If you keep this routine up for 2 weeks, you arrive at the bac with real comfort. That’s the difference between those who sit the exam calmly and those who panic.
Summer holiday
It depends entirely on what you’re preparing for next year.
If you don’t have a competition in September, really take a proper holiday. Five weeks of almost total downtime in July. Your brain needs it. You can read a book here and there, but don’t revise.
In August, start a gradual return. 1 hour a day reading the upcoming syllabus, then 2 hours, then 3 hours in the last two weeks. You come back prepared without wasting the holiday.
If you’re preparing for an exam or entrance test (medicine, agrégation, schools), it’s different. One to two weeks of real downtime is mandatory (non-negotiable, otherwise burnout is guaranteed), then a 4–5 hour-a-day programme with partial weekends. No more than 5 hours, or you won’t absorb it. And keep your sport and social life, otherwise you’ll be useless in September.
The "non-zero day" rule during holidays
One trick that works: even on full rest days, at least 15 minutes on your lessons. No more, just 15 minutes. Read one note sheet, do three flashcards, go through a few past papers. That minimum keeps you in touch with the material and avoids the huge effort of restarting at the end of the holiday.
15 minutes is nothing. But 15 minutes a day for 15 days is almost 4 hours total without feeling like you worked during your holiday. Given how regularity affects memory, that’s more valuable than a 10-hour sprint on the last day.
How EduFiche helps you avoid the classic mistake
The typical holiday mistake: you spend 3 days turning your courses into notes instead of revising. You end up exhausted, without really having revised, and with notes you’re not even sure are good.
That’s exactly what AI revision sheets solve. You upload your course material, get structured notes in a few minutes, and use those 3 days differently: half for active memorization (flashcards, mock papers, the Feynman method), half for actual rest.
It’s not a tool for doing less work. It’s a tool for putting your time where it really earns marks — active recall and practice.
To go further
- How to stay focused while revising — for the quality of your sessions, not their quantity
- The 5 memorization techniques for exams
- How to make a revision plan that actually lasts
Generate your first free AI revision sheet before your next holiday — you leave with your revision support already done, and you really enjoy your break.
One last thing. If you remember one thing from this article, remember this: your holiday productivity is not measured in hours worked. It is measured by the quality of your return. If you come back fresh and a little ahead, you’ve won. If you come back exhausted even after 60 hours of revision, you’ve lost. Choose your side.
