Giving Schools Autonomy to Decide on Term Dates


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If you are a parent, or a teacher working in a school, how do you keep track of school term dates?

I’ve recently discovered an innovative website which is now providing users with access to the term and holiday dates for all schools in England, Wales and Scotland. This is an ideal solution for teachers working in different schools and for parents with children in different schools. How do you plan childcare and holidays away?

Whilst Academies and Free Schools currently have the power to set their own term dates, from September 2015 local education authorities in England will no longer determine the term and school holiday dates but schools will have the power and freedom to set their own.

Term Dates Legislation:

Following the change in legislation, Term Dates may play an integral part in keeping parents, teachers and those interested in education updated. It will be particularly useful to parents with children at different schools, with different term dates.

Term Dates Webiste

Parents can be assured that the website information is accurate and correct. Not only can schools verify the dates themselves, but every date added is checked by the website. Every date that is added or changed is checked by a moderator and an additional level of verification is also available, enabling schools to verify the dates themselves. The site can also alert parents if dates change. It sounds very useful!

When I contacted Jason Korinek, Co-Founder of Term Dates, he said;

Giving schools the autonomy to decide on the dates can only be a good thing. Shorter holidays will help some parents with childcare whilst parents that have children at different schools will find the change ‘awkward’. By subscribing to updates, parents will be have more time to arrange childcare, plan holidays and take days off work. The website already has more than 5,000 visitors a day, and I think it will become a valuable and trusted resource for parents, teachers, foreign visitors to the UK and anyone involved in travel and tourism.

What do you think? It could be worth adding your school term dates to the database.

Term Dates Webiste

Last Term:

Taking a look through the website, two primary schools in Lincolnshire were the first schools in England to break up from the traditional summer holiday. Mercer’s Wood and White’s Wood Academies finished the academic year last term (17th July) for a four-week summer holiday with children restarting school on 19th August.  Children appear to receive two separate holidays during the Autumn Term, one week in September and a week in November; the May half-term is extended to ten days.

I’ve already added the term dates for my school. It looks like a perfect solution/source for finding out what other schools are doing across the UK …

TT.

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