School term dates

Overview

Leicester City Council is consulting on future school term and holiday dates and we would like to know your views.

Term dates for Leicester city schools in the 2019/2020 academic year have already been published. These were set following a public consultation exercise, in which respondents voted by a 3 to 1 majority to support the pattern that has been adopted.

The date pattern was designed to create half terms of equal length wherever feasible, to ensure that pupils and school staff did not have to work for excessive periods without appropriate holidays.

However, Leicestershire County Council has recently decided to set dates for their schools that differ from those already set for city schools. The pattern they have decided upon has Autumn half terms of 32 and 45 days respectively.

As a matter of principle, Leicester City Council would not normally support half terms that require pupils and staff to work for nine weeks without a break.

However, we also recognise the genuine difficulties caused to parents and pupils when city and county schools have different term and holiday dates.

As a result, we would like your views on whether or not we should change the dates in the city to match those set by Leicestershire County Council for 2019/20.

We are also seeking your views on whether we should also follow the date patterns set by Leicestershire County Council for the 2020/21 and 2021/22 academic years, or whether we should set dates that split the half terms more equally where possible.