As the title asks, does your supervision continue all through the summer, or does your supervisor give you certain dates when they won't be reading work and/or meeting you?

In my university, teaching ends in April, exams are corrected by the end of June. I know that supervision for taught M. Phil students ends at the end of June, so the same probably applies to PhDs. Or not?

For those of you in later years, do you find research easier/more difficult/much the same when most students are gone from campus?

PhD supervision should be available all year round (in theory) but it really depends on your supervisor.

It should make no difference to supervision. Your sup may go on holiday I guess but it shouldn't change really.

I prefer it when the students go away. Just makes the place nicer without a load of children milling around (and the first year undergrads do seem like children a lot of the time)

Thanks for your replies; that's good to know.

I agree, the quieter the better.

One thing to be aware of depending on your field, is that if your supervisor(s) do fieldwork / archival work, that may involve lengthy absences over the summer as that's the only time they can do it. But otherwise as everyone else has said they should be around. Sadly, the lengthy summer break is only for undergrads.