United Kingdom school holidays — how the dates actually work

There is no single national table of United Kingdom school holidays, and any site showing one is guessing. Here is who really sets the dates, the shape of a typical year, and how to get a calendar you can trust.

Who sets the dates

In England and Wales, term dates are set by the local authority for community schools — and by the trust or governing body for academies and foundation schools, which is why neighbouring schools can differ.
Scotland’s councils set their own calendars on a noticeably different rhythm: summer starts and ends earlier than in England.
Northern Ireland runs the longest summer of the UK, with July and August off.

The typical rhythm

These are patterns, not official dates — the whole point of this page is that the exact dates are local:

Typical school-year rhythm in the United Kingdom
Period	Typical pattern
Autumn term	Early September to mid-December, with a one-week half-term break in late October.
Spring term	January to late March or early April, with a February half-term week; ends with the roughly two-week Easter break.
Summer term	After Easter to mid- or late July, with a half-term week around late May.
Summer holidays	Around six weeks — late July to the start of September in England and Wales; roughly late June to mid-August in Scotland.

Where the official dates live

For England and Wales, GOV.UK has a term-date lookup by postcode; academies list dates on their own sites. Scottish and Northern Irish dates are on each council’s or the Education Authority’s site.

What to print

The school-year calendar puts August to July on one page — print it, pencil in your own district's dates, and it works for any school. The calendar maker can mark United Kingdom public holidays on it, in either Letter or A4, free and without a watermark.

Countries with official national dates

Fourteen countries do publish school-break dates centrally, and for those the exact dates are on this site, region by region: