If a school is smaller it can choose to offer only one or two of these sessions. A student usually attends only one session per day.
This is also designed to reduce the number of early school leavers. Whereas compulsory education requires school attendance until the age of 14 some students leave school earlier in order to work and support their families. For those children the government has established evening classes and also distance courses.
The regulation for school terms and holidays is run by the local governments. The only requirements set by the Federal Government are that July has to be a holiday month, that there has to be a break at the end of a calendar year and that primary school students obtain at least 200 schooling days per year. It is then up to the municipalities to organise the division of these 200 days. In spite of the individual regulation a common standard regarding the holidays has come into being. A school term runs usually from February to June and from August to December.