Three separate calendars shape a student's year: the school's holiday calendar, the exam and mock exam calendar of MEB, the Ministry of National Education, and the central exam calendar of ÖSYM, the national exam authority. The three are published in different places and drawn up without reference to one another. Here I put every known date of 2026-2027 on the same page and look at which break falls right before which exam. Dates that have not been announced yet are marked separately as "expected", so they do not get mixed up with the rest.
When are the 2026-2027 mid-term breaks and the semester break?
The first term's mid-term break is on 16–20 November 2026. Counting the weekends, students will be off school for nine days, from Saturday 14 November to Sunday 22 November, and lessons start again on Monday 23 November. The first term ends on Friday 22 January 2027; the semester break lasts two weeks, 25 January–5 February 2027, and the second term begins on Monday 8 February 2027. The second term's mid-term break is on 8–12 March 2027; lessons continue on 15 March.
Which exams come before and after the November break?
November is the busiest month of this year. Right before the break, on 11 and 12 November, the nationwide common written exams in sixth grade Mathematics and tenth grade Turkish Language and Literature take place. For eighth graders, the first mock of LGS, the high school entrance exam taken at the end of eighth grade, is open on 2–8 November on MEBİ, the ministry's free online study platform; for twelfth graders and graduates, the third mock of YKS, Turkey's university entrance exam, is open on 9–15 November. The break itself, 16–20 November, is a natural gap for working through the results of these mocks and written exams.
The moment the break ends, the central exams begin: YDS, the foreign language proficiency exam, on Sunday 22 November, and ALES/3, the year's third sitting of the graduate admission exam, on Sunday 29 November. To a high school student these exams may look far away, but if an older brother or sister at home is preparing for ALES, the two become candidates sharing the same desk. A detailed programme for how to use the nine-day break is in our article on planning the November mid-term break.
What happens in December and January?
December has no central exams, but it has results: YDS results come out on 10 December and ALES/3 results on 17 December. Preferences for the KPSS-2026/2 central placement are collected on 17–24 December; KPSS is the civil service exam. For students of AÖF, Anadolu University's open education faculty, the autumn term midterm exams fall on the weekend of 5–6 December. MEBİ's second LGS mock is open on 2–8 December and its YKS mock on 14–20 December.
January opens with common written exams: seventh grade Turkish on 5 January and ninth grade Mathematics on 6 January. The MEBİ LGS mock is on 2–8 January and the YKS mock on 11–17 January. AÖF autumn term finals are on the weekend of 16–17 January. The first term closes on 22 January; the last two weeks before report cards are when schools pile up their second round of written exams, so it is worth clearing the family calendar accordingly.
How should the semester break be used?
The two weeks from 25 January to 5 February are the longest uninterrupted study opportunity of the year, and also the time most easily wasted. For LGS and YKS candidates, a practical split is to give the first week to a full review of the term's topics and the second week to mock exams. MEBİ's fourth LGS mock opens on 2–8 February, which lands in the last days of the break; the timing is good for testing what was studied over the break. In the lower grades of middle school, on the other hand, a break should be a break; a two-week intensive programme is a loss for a sixth grader rather than a gain.
How does the calendar unfold in the second term?
The March mid-term break is on 8–12 March. MEBİ mocks continue through March and April; for LGS, 2–8 March and 2–8 April, then more often with 19–25 April. The common written exams come in the first week of April: seventh grade Mathematics on 6 April and ninth grade Turkish Language and Literature on 7 April. AÖF spring term midterms are on 10–11 April.
May and June are exam months. MEBİ LGS mocks are on 2–8 May, 24–30 May and 2–8 June; YKS mocks run twice in May and twice in June, the last on 7–13 June. The final common written exams are sixth grade Turkish on 8 June and tenth grade Mathematics on 9 June. AÖF spring finals are on 29–30 May.
Which dates have not been announced yet?
The two asked about most: LGS 2027 and YKS 2027. Neither has an official date. The ministry announces LGS during the school year and the exam is held in June; the YKS date will be set by ÖSYM's 2027 calendar, which last year was published on 14 November. In 2026, YKS was on 20–21 June. The schools' closing date also falls within this June window. This page will be updated when the calendar is announced; until then, planning for the second half of June, that is, not leaving the final week of mocks until after 13 June, is precaution enough.
How should parents use this calendar?
Most of the dates on this calendar concern the family's routine more than the child's. Small decisions such as not planning a family visit in the week of a common exam, keeping the weekend free in a mock exam week, or putting travel in the first week of the semester break and spending the second week at home quietly organise a student's year. A method that works as well as pinning the calendar to the fridge is entering these dates in the family's shared phone calendar with a reminder set one week ahead.
How do you build a study plan around this calendar?
Beyond hanging the calendar on the wall, the one method that works is to give the week before each exam to that exam and leave the weeks in between to topic study. The year then splits on its own into four or five study blocks: until mid-November, until the semester break, until the March break, until the end of April, and the exam month. At the start of each block the target topics are written down, and at the end a mock exam is taken. Topic tests exist to measure progress within these blocks; the tests in our Test Çöz section are sorted by grade and subject.