School term dates · 2026/27

UK school term dates by council.

Term dates, half terms and school holidays for 33 UK local authorities, taken from each council's own published calendar and checked against it by hand. We list the first day pupils go back — not the first day staff do.

Find your council.

England 26 councils

Scotland 3 councils

Wales 3 councils

Northern Ireland1 page

The Department of Education sets one set of common dates for the whole nation, so there is a single page rather than one per council.

Why we built these pages.

When you're co-parenting across two homes, term dates aren't trivia — they're the shape of the year. Half terms, bank-holiday weekends and the long summer stretch are exactly where handover plans need agreeing early, and both parents need to be working from the same dates.

So each page gives you the council's dates plainly, and then the bit no council calendar covers: how to split the school holidays fairly, and somewhere to write down what you agree. The free holiday plan template is a good start; the shared calendar keeps it current for both of you.

Every date is checked against the council's own published calendar — our methodology sets out exactly how, and what we do when a council's own page is out of date.