School Term Dates 2024/25

We have set out our proposals for the school term dates for 2024/25 and want to know whether any improvements can be made to these. We have to set the dates around public holidays and we have to make sure that terms are as evenly spaced out as possible, but we would welcome comments to see if any improvements can be made.  

Legal Framework

Legally there must be 195 days in the school year (190 days plus 5 non-educational / in service training days of which the dates are decided by individual schools and used for curriculum planning/training).  The dates set will not necessarily be the same for schools that are academies or are voluntary aided, please check with them for their dates as they are able to set their own dates.

Proposals 

The Calendar for 2024-2025 is based on the principles (wherever possible) of:

• starting the school year early in September.

• equalised teaching and learning weeks where possible fitting around public holidays (i.e., Christmas, Easter and Spring Bank Holiday) .

• identifying and agreeing annual periods of holiday, including the summer holiday, where head teachers are recommended not to arrange teacher training days.

We are looking to provide a school year that:

• allows for individual schools to set their own inset / training days, especially at the beginnings and ends to school terms,

• ensures that, as far as possible, teachers and parents with children at a school in neighbouring local authority area are not inconvenienced by different term and holiday dates,

• balances the needs of primary and secondary schools in terms of teaching weeks.

The public holidays in 2024-2025 have been set in the calendar with the other holidays being distributed to try and achieve similar length teaching and learning weeks.  

If you would like to make any comments on the term dates for 2024/25, please fill in the questionnaire on this page to let us know what you think (or please use this link - https://n-somerset.inconsult.uk/SchoolTermDates2024_25/questionnaire).  If you need the questionnaire in another format, please contact us by email at School.Organisation@n-somerset.gov.uk

We want to hear from everybody: residents, businesses, community groups, schools, North Somerset councillors, Town and Parish Councils, and any other stakeholders in North Somerset.

This consultation opens on Tuesday 10 January 2023 at 10am and closes on Monday 20 February 2023 at 10am. 

Next Steps

Feedback will be reviewed and considered by the CYPS School organisation steering group at a meeting in February 2022, a report will then be submitted to the Director of Children's Services in February/March 2022, following which approved dates will be published.

Once approved, these dates will apply to all Community, Voluntary Controlled, Community Special school or Maintained Nursery school.