Local Authorities have a duty to determine school term dates for Local Authority maintained schools. Schools must be open to pupils for 190 days in an academic year, and 195 days for teachers.
Foundation, Voluntary Aided, Academies and Free schools are responsible for setting their own dates and so may choose to follow a pattern and/or specific dates that do not match those set by Cambridgeshire.
How are school term and holiday dates proposed?
Cambridgeshire County Council works in conjunction with our neighbouring Local Authorities to set proposed dates for an academic year, this is known as the Eastern Region Model Calendar.
We do this because we feel it is better to have a co-ordinated approach to setting school term dates to minimise the impact on families and school transport providers.
However, whilst our proposed dates align, we cannot guarantee that our term dates will be identical to those of our neighbours, as there is no formal mechanism for the regional setting of school term and holiday dates.
School term and holiday dates 2026-2027
Thank you very much to all those who responded to the consultation regarding these dates. During the period of the consultation, we received 25 responses. 19 responses were in favour of the proposals (76%) and 6 were not or raised queries or concerns (24%).
Many of the comments received related to the length of the autumn term and requesting consideration of a two week half term autumn break. These comments have been carefully considered and have been previously discussed with our neighbouring local authorities. However, the dates proposed in the consultation have been agreed. These are the same dates as proposed by the Eastern Region Group of Local Authorities, which comprises all our neighbouring authorities
The confirmed Cambridgeshire school holiday and term time dates for 2026 – 2027 are therefore agreed. These dates total 195 days, from which schools should choose 5 days to set aside as professional training days.
Foundation, Voluntary Aided, Academies and Free schools are responsible for setting their own dates. They may choose to follow a pattern and/or specific dates that do not match those set by Cambridgeshire.
Visit School term dates for all confirmed Cambridgeshire school holiday and term time dates.
