What are the three UK school terms?

The UK school year is split into three terms: autumn (September to December), spring (January to March or April) and summer (April to July). Each term has a half-term break of about a week in the middle, and the terms are separated by the Christmas, Easter and summer holidays.

What is the difference between a half-term and a holiday?

A half-term is a short break, usually one week, that falls in the middle of a term. A holiday is the longer break between terms, such as the two weeks at Christmas and Easter or the roughly six weeks in summer.

INSET stands for In-Service Education and Training. They are days set aside for staff training when pupils do not attend school. Most schools have around five a year, and each school chooses its own dates and tells parents directly.

Why are INSET days called Baker days?

They are named after Kenneth Baker, the Conservative Education Secretary who introduced them in 1988. He added training days on top of the existing teaching days, so people nicknamed them Baker days.

How many INSET days are there each year?

Pupils are taught for a minimum of 190 days a year, while teachers are contracted for 195. The extra five are INSET days. Some schools are allocated up to six, used at their discretion.

When are INSET days usually scheduled?

Schools often attach INSET days to the start or end of a term or holiday, but they can fall on any school day. Because each school sets its own, two children at different schools can have completely different INSET dates.

How do I find my own school's term dates and INSET days?

Check your school's own website or app rather than a generic calendar, because academies and local authorities can set their own dates. Term dates are usually published a year ahead; INSET days are often confirmed separately, so look out for them in newsletters and messages.

UK School Calendar Explained: Terms, Holidays and INSET Days

Q: Why are school holidays different in Scotland?

Scotland sets its own calendar, council by council. Pupils usually go back in mid-August and break up in late June or early July, earlier at both ends than England. St Andrew's Day on 30 November is also a common school closure in Scotland.

Key Takeaways

The UK school year has three terms (autumn, spring, summer), each split by a half-term break, with longer holidays at Christmas, Easter and over summer.
INSET days are staff training days when pupils stay home. Most schools have five a year, set at the school's discretion.
They are nicknamed "Baker days" after Kenneth Baker, who introduced them in 1988.
There is no single UK calendar. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland differ, and academies and councils can set their own dates.
Scotland varies most, starting in mid-August and finishing in late June or early July.
Always check your own school's dates, then make sure everyone who looks after your child has the same INSET days and term dates.

Every parent has done it at least once: turned up at the school gates on a Monday morning to find the playground empty, because it was an INSET day nobody had written down. The UK school calendar looks simple from a distance, but the detail is where families get caught out.

Here is the short version. The school year runs in three terms, each broken up by a half-term, with holidays in between. On top of the 190 days your child is taught, schools add a handful of training days called INSET days when pupils stay home. None of it is fully standardised, so the dates depend on where you live and which school your child attends.

This guide explains how the whole calendar fits together, what INSET days actually are, and why the dates are never quite the same from one family to the next.

What are the UK school terms and how is the year structured?

The UK school year is divided into three terms: autumn, spring and summer. Each term is split in the middle by a half-term break, and the terms are separated by longer holidays.

Here is the usual shape of the year:

Autumn term: early September to mid-December, with a half-term break in late October
Spring term: early January to late March or early April, with a half-term break in mid-February
Summer term: April to mid or late July, with a half-term break in late May or early June

The breaks between terms are the holidays everyone knows: around two weeks at Christmas, two weeks at Easter, and roughly six weeks over summer. In total, children are taught for a minimum of 190 days a year.

A quick example from England's 2026-27 year: autumn term starts around 1 September 2026, October half-term runs 26-30 October, and term ends around 18 December. These are illustrative, so always check your own school's published dates.

What is the difference between term dates, half-terms and holidays?

A half-term is a short break in the middle of a term, usually one week. A holiday is the longer break between terms.

It is an easy distinction to blur, but it matters when you are booking time off or arranging childcare:

Half-term: roughly one week, mid-term (for example, the October and February breaks)
Holiday: the longer gaps between terms (Christmas, Easter and summer)

"Term dates" simply means the first and last day your child is actually in school for each term. The reason people obsess over them is that they are the fixed points everything else hangs off: holiday clubs, family trips, and the dreaded question of who covers the gaps.

What are INSET days and why do schools have them?

INSET days are staff training days when teachers are in school but pupils stay home. INSET stands for In-Service Education and Training, and the days are used for things like training, planning and meetings.

The reason they exist comes down to how teachers' time is structured. Pupils must be taught for at least 190 days a year, but teachers are contracted for 195. Those extra five days are set aside for professional development rather than teaching, which is why your child is off but the school is not technically closed.

So an INSET day is not a bonus holiday or a snow day. It is a normal working day for the school, just without the children.

How many INSET days are there and when do they fall?

Most schools have five INSET days a year, and some are allocated up to six to use at their discretion. Each school decides its own dates and tells parents directly.

You will also hear them called "Baker days". That name comes from Kenneth Baker, the Conservative Education Secretary who introduced the training days in 1988 on top of the existing teaching days.

The tricky part is the timing. Schools often attach INSET days to the start or end of a term or a holiday, effectively stretching a break by a day, but they can fall on any school day. Because every school sets its own, this is where coordination falls apart:

Two children at different schools can have completely different INSET dates
A date that is a normal working Tuesday for you is suddenly a no-school day for your child
The dates are often announced separately from the main term calendar, tucked into a newsletter or an app message

This is exactly the kind of date that triggers the Mumsnet threads every parent recognises: last-minute swaps with friends, calling in grandparents, or burning a day of annual leave because an INSET day crept up unnoticed.

Why do term dates and holidays vary across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

There is no single UK school calendar. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each set their own dates, and even within England, academies and local authorities can differ from one another.

Scotland varies the most. Scottish pupils usually go back in mid-August (in 2026 most councils return between around 12 and 19 August) and break up in late June or early July, earlier at both ends than England's early-September to late-July year. St Andrew's Day on 30 November is also a common school closure in Scotland that does not exist elsewhere.

Closer to home, the variation is subtler but just as disruptive:

An academy can set term dates that differ from the local council's
Siblings at different schools can break up on different days
Co-parents in different areas may be working to two different calendars for the same children

The practical takeaway: never assume. A friend's term dates, or last year's dates, are a starting point, not a guarantee.

How can parents stay on top of term dates and INSET days?

Start with the source of truth, then make sure those dates reach everyone who needs them. Check your own school's website or app for the official term dates and INSET days, rather than relying on a generic calendar that may not match your school.

The harder problem is not finding the dates. It is keeping them in one place that the whole caregiving network can see. Term dates arrive as a PDF on the school site, INSET days turn up in a newsletter, and a one-off closure lands in a WhatsApp group. The information is scattered, and it usually only lives in one parent's head.

A few habits that help:

Add every term date and INSET day to a shared calendar as soon as the school publishes them
Note the dates that are working days for you but no-school days for your child, since those are the ones that catch families out
Make sure grandparents, childminders and co-parents are looking at the same dates, not separate copies
Set a reminder a week ahead of each INSET day, while there is still time to arrange cover

This is the part Maxie was built for. When we were building it, the pattern we kept seeing was not that parents lacked a calendar. It was that the dates that mattered arrived from too many places and never reached everyone who looked after the child.

Working out the dates is the easy bit. Getting them in front of everyone who looks after your child is the part that trips families up. Maxie keeps your school's term dates and INSET days in one shared family calendar that grandparents, childminders and co-parents can all see, and reminds the right people before each one, so a no-school day never lands as a normal working morning. Try it free with no card required.

Related Resources: