Can school be used without articles

Question

School always closes for holidays.

I think it should be "schools close for holidays". Why is school used without articles here? Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes, school can be used without any articles. The reason is that it can be used as both a count and an uncount noun; see for example the entry at the Cambridge Dictionary, which clearly specifies whether a given usage is count or uncount.

In particular, that dictionary says that when school is used in the sense of 'a place where children go to be educated', it can be either count or uncount.

Some other examples of uncount usage, from that same dictionary, for that same sense:

She drives the kids to school every morning.
Is Emily in/at school today or is she still ill?
What did you learn at school today?

Here is a sentence from a published book:

School always closes for the holidays. (source)

(Which reminds me: it should be for the holidays, with the definite article in front of holidays.)

Discussion

At this point, you would no doubt like to know if there is some rule that will tell you when native speakers will use school as a count noun, and when as an uncount noun. Unfortunately, when it comes to the articles in general, at best there are only tendencies. Consider this example: in AmE we'd say …once he is taken home from the hospital, while in BrE we'd say from hospital, without the article. However, in both AmE and BrE we'd say in the morning all the peasants went to church, with no article before church.

As far as tendencies, here is how they are usually formulated in this class of cases (from Collins COBUILD English Guides: Articles):

6.5 Institutions in society

There are certain establishments of human society which are referred to without an article when we think of them as institutions in general rather than as specific buildings or individual places.

He was finally admitted to hospital with an ulcerated leg.
...after our first victory in court.

Here is a list of words that can be used like this.

church   court         jail         school
college    hospital    prison    university

Normally, when you are using these words to talk about buildings they are count nouns and article usage with them is straightforward. But when you want to suggest that they are being used for their intended purpose there is no article; that is, worshipping in church, studying in school/college/university, receiving medical care in hospital, being a prisoner in prison or jail, legal action in court. Often there is a different way of expressing the idea: 'She's at university' is similar to saying 'She's a student'.

Here are some more examples.

...once he is taken home from hospital.
In the morning all the peasants went to church.
He left school at seventeen.
...to decide whether to go to court or not.
His parents couldn't afford to send him to university.
After 11 days in prison they were released.

There are some differences between British and American usage here. Firstly, Americans say 'the hospital' instead of 'hospital' for institutional reference. Secondly, the word 'university' is not used in this way; the American equivalent of 'at university' is 'in college'.

'Bed' behaves in a similar way; without an article it means the place where we sleep or rest, not a particular object.

She went to bed and slept lightly.

Answer 2

"Schools always close for holidays" is a sentence about all schools.

"School always closes for holidays" is a statement about a specific (though perhaps theoretical) school. It means "My school always closes for holidays" or "One's school always closes for holidays."

"School" just works this way, where the name of the type of thing can serve as a name for the thing. Other places such as "church" and "work" can work this way, as can some relationship names like "mom" and "dad". "I need to hurry up and get to school, since Mom is already waiting for me there."