School Holidays

Please visit the Durham County Council website to view or download the school holidays dates for this academic year and next year for all community schools, special schools and voluntary controlled schools. Please note that voluntary aided (church) schools, foundation schools and academies may have set different dates and you should check with the school or academy to confirm their arrangements or view the PDF for schools not following the standard term and holiday dates.

School Holidays During Term Time

As you will be aware, children’s attendance at school is an area which is given a high priority across all schools in the UK.  We regularly send you letters and correspondence which relate to attendance issues and we have systems in place within school to monitor children’s attendance, absence / holiday requests etc. We encourage and strive for all children in school to achieve an attendance rate of at least 96% across an academic year.

However, the national legislation and guidance with regard to attendance is changing from next term and we felt that it is important for you to be aware of these changes as far in advance as possible.

Amendments have been made to the 2006 regulations which come into effect from 1st September 2013.  The current regulations allow Headteachers to grant a leave of absence for the purposes of a family holiday during term time in ‘special circumstances’ of up to 10 school days per year.  Head Teachers can also grant extended leave for more than 10 school days in exceptional circumstances.

As from 1st September 2013 amendments to the 2006 regulations completely remove any references to family holidays and extended leave, as well as the 10 day threshold. The amendments make it clear that Headteachers should not grant any leave of absence during term-time unless there are exceptional circumstances. In such cases Headteachers will determine the number of school days that a child can be away from school.

This will mean that we will not be able to grant holiday requests during term time from 1st September 2013 onwards and holidays taken during term time will be recorded as unauthorised absences. We have sought clarification on what constitutes ‘exceptional circumstances’ and this does not include instances where work place holiday availability / rotas, etc. dictate that holiday dates are tied to certain weeks of the year which may unfortunately coincide with term time dates when children would be in school.

As stated earlier, these new amendments and regulations are prescribed at a national level and will apply to all schools from 1st September onwards. We felt that parents would appreciate early notification of these very important changes so that they can be taken into consideration when planning future holidays.

Thank you for your anticipated help and understanding with this matter.

Please contact the school if you wish to discuss this with the Headteacher.

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