Harmonising school term dates for 2017 to 2018

Your contributions will help to ensure that we get the right set of dates in place for our maintained schools in Wales.

We are aware of the difficulties faced by many families as a result of variations in school term dates and therefore school holidays.

In order to address these concerns Welsh Ministers used the Education (Wales) Act 2014 to make legislative changes to how term dates are set in order to enable harmonisation of school term dates for all maintained schools.

These changes mean that local authorities and the governing bodies of voluntary aided and foundation schools must work with each other to ensure term dates are the same or as similar as possible. They can also be directed by the Welsh Ministers on what their term dates must be if those dates are not harmonised or if they need changing.

This is the second consultation on school term dates that has taken place since the new arrangements came into force. The previous consultation which took place in 2014/15 informed a decision which will see school term dates for maintained schools harmonised across Wales for the very first time in 2016/17.