Local Authorities have a duty to determine school term dates for maintained schools. Schools must be open to pupils for 190 days in an academic year, and 195 days for teachers.
We're consulting:
- all Suffolk Headteachers and Chairs of Governors - Own Admission Authority (OAA) Schools for information only
- all Teaching Trade Unions and Unison
- neighbouring counties
- Church of England and Catholic Diocesan Officers
- Suffolk County Council’s Passenger Transport Team
We have liaised with colleagues in neighbouring local authorities and whilst proposed dates broadly align, we cannot guarantee that our term dates will be identical. The aim of aligning term dates is to enable parents with different aged children to have breaks at the same time and to be able to book holidays more easily.
Own admission authorities (academies, free schools and voluntary aided schools) can set their own term dates and can set longer holidays if they have longer school days. We try to minimise discrepancies to ensure that the impact on families and other services, such as funded school travel and catering services, are kept to a minimum. We ask OAA schools to please align your term dates with ours if this is possible.
Proposed term dates
The proposed term date timetable for Suffolk’s community, voluntary controlled, community, special and maintained nursery schools for the 2023/2024 school year is as follows:
Autumn Term
- 1 September 2023 to 21 December 2023
- Half term starting week commencing 23 October 2023
Spring Term
- 5 January 2024 to 28 March 2024
- Half term starting week commencing 19 February 2024
Summer Term
- 12 April 2023 to 19 July 2024
- Half term starting week commencing 27 May 2023
Recommended PD days
- 1 and 4 September 2023
- 30 October 2023
- 5 January 2024
- 12 April 2024
Schools can set their own PD Days to allow for specialist trainers to attend as many schools as possible.
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