Term dates and holidays for schools

Term dates and guidance on holidays during term time can be found on the Gloucestershire County Council website.

The agreed calendar

Each year the calendar is agreed after consultation with interested parties and aims, where possible, to provide consistency between schools within Gloucestershire and neighbouring counties.

Parent/carer feedback during the consultation strongly backed consistency across the county and, as far as possible, between Gloucestershire and neighbouring counties. There was also some acknowledgement from schools that although it can be difficult to identify county-wide inset days this does benefit parents and some school organisations.

The agreed calendar is therefore based on the national model calendar produced by the Local Government Association (LGA), which is followed by the majority of local authorities. It is consistent with all neighbouring South-West authorities and West Midlands authorities, who meet to co-ordinate arrangements across borders.

For consistency, all community and voluntary controlled schools are obliged to use the calendar. Aided and Foundation schools are also asked to do so, although they may determine their own calendars. It is important that:

• parents/carers should be able to rely on a single, county-wide calendar, particularly where children are in different schools
• schools in local areas try as far as possible to co-ordinate INSET arrangements
• schools advise parents/carers of any variations to the proposed Gloucestershire calendar in an appropriate timescale to prevent any attendance problems this may cause
• impact on integrated transport and school meal arrangements is minimised

The authority retains the right to charge schools where extra costs have been incurred as a result of departing from the agreed/recommended calendar.

The agreed calendar specifies 195 days, of which:

• 190 are pupil days
• 5 days are staff development days to be chosen by each school within the 195 day year

Contact us

For questions relating to term dates and holidays please contact:

E-mail: termdates@gloucestershire.gov.uk  

Call: 01452 426116