The Department for Education (Section 32 of the Education Act 2002) requires local authorities to provide school term and holiday dates for community, voluntary controlled, community special schools and maintained nurseries in its area.  

Previously, own admission authorities who are responsible for setting their own school year dates have followed the dates set by the local authority.  We would encourage own admission authorities to continue to follow these dates.

It has previously been agreed that two academic years may be consulted on at a time to enable schools to plan in advance.  The school dates for 2025/26 were consulted on and provisionally agreed last year and are included to be formally determined. 

The school year dates proposed includes 195 days of which a maximum of five inset days can be set and deducted by individual schools to ensure that schools meet their statutory obligation to be open for 190 pupil days.

This consultation intends to determine the school holiday patterns for academic years 2025/26 and 2026/27 based on the two files below.

The consultation will run for six weeks, beginning on 3 June 2024 and completing on 14 July 2024.

It is strongly recommended that governing bodies of maintained schools, voluntary aided schools and academies, community and voluntary controlled schools in the London Borough of Waltham Forest agree to follow the same holiday pattern for 2025/26 and 2026/27 to try to:

• Ensure that families come first in school term planning and avoid the potential disruption and attendance issues that are likely to arise for families if local schools use differing school calendars.
• Enable holistic service planning across Council Services and local Schools.
• Reduce the burden on individual schools to set their own holiday patterns.

The proposed dates:

1. Term Dates 2025-26
2. Term Dates 2026-27

Responses should be made via the online survey.   

Alternatively, if this is not possible, please email your response to rob.white@walthamforest.gov.uk

Responses should be made by 14 July 2024 (any responses received after this date will not be considered).