My mistake and you are right (never went to school in the UK). The poor British kids do go to school until the end of July. Quite unbelievable really when you see the rest of Europe are out around the end of June/first week of July. Especially more incredible when you see how many chavs are out on the streets of Britain.
The schools may actually finish the week before (no kids = no idea!), but in England (where I mostly went to school), it's the roughly whole of August plus the last week or so of July and the first week (or partial week) of September to give a total of 6 weeks, plus the odd day or two.
In Scotland, schools finish (& restart) almost exactly one month earlier (in line with the traditionally early and short summer). I was always gutted my parents moved down to England in January rather than August when I was 11
