Term dates, INSET days and the dates schools spring on you
How the English school year is built, why INSET days are never national, the admissions deadlines that do not move, the SATs and GCSE weeks for 2027, and the dress-up days worth putting in the calendar now.
By The AskBobbie team · 29 September 20264 min read
Some dates are set nationally and never move. Some are set by your council. Some are set by your headteacher and appear in a newsletter in week two. And some are set by a charity and changed by the PTA. Knowing which is which is most of the battle.
How the year is built
The English state school year is 195 days for staff and 190 for pupils. The five-day difference is the INSET days. The year runs in three terms, each split by a half term:
- Autumn: early September to just before Christmas, half term in late October.
- Spring: early January to just before Easter, half term in mid February.
- Summer: after Easter to around 20 July, half term at the end of May.
For 2026/27 most English schools run from Tuesday 1 or Wednesday 2 September 2026 to Friday 23 July 2027, but the exact days are set by your council for community schools, and by the academy trust for academies and free schools. Two schools in one town can differ by a day or two at each end.
Where to look: your school's website first. Then gov.uk/school-term-holiday-dates, which routes you to your council's page by postcode. If they disagree, the school wins.
INSET days: why they are never national
Every state school has five INSET (in-service training) days. The headteacher places them. They cluster at the start of terms and either side of half terms, which is why the first day of the autumn term is often a Monday for staff and a Wednesday for children, and why a half term sometimes gains a Friday or a Monday.
They are almost never coordinated between schools, even in the same trust, so a family with children at two schools should expect two different sets. They are published on the school's website and in the September newsletter. Put all five in the calendar the day they are published; they are the dates most often forgotten in March.
The dates that do not move
These are national, set by the Department for Education, and the same for every council in England:
| What | Date |
|---|---|
| Secondary school applications close (Year 7 in September 2027) | 31 October 2026 |
| Primary school applications close (Reception in September 2027) | 15 January 2027 |
| Secondary offers, national offer day | 1 March 2027 |
| Primary offers, national offer day | 16 April 2027 |
| KS2 SATs week (Year 6) | 10 to 13 May 2027 |
| GCSE exams | 10 May to 18 June 2027 |
| KS2 SATs results to schools | 6 July 2027 |
| GCSE results day | 19 August 2027 |
The application deadlines are the ones that hurt: a late secondary application is considered after every on-time one, and the popular schools are full by then. If you have a child in Year 6 or in nursery, the deadline is the most important date in this article.
The dress-up days
Set by charities, adopted by schools, sometimes moved by the PTA. Confirm each against the school newsletter before buying anything.
| Day | 2026/27 date | What usually happens |
|---|---|---|
| Harvest festival | Late September or early October, school's choice | A tin or packet for the food bank; sometimes "wear something autumnal" |
| BBC Children in Need | Friday 13 November 2026 | Spotty or Pudsey themed non-uniform, a pound in a bucket |
| Christmas Jumper Day | Thursday 10 December 2026 (official), often moved to the last week | A jumper, a pound for Save the Children |
| Nativity and Christmas concerts | Second and third weeks of December | A costume, usually needed by the dress rehearsal a week before |
| World Book Day | Thursday 4 March 2027 | A costume, the £1 book token |
| Red Nose Day | March 2027, date to be confirmed by Comic Relief | Non-uniform, a red nose |
| Sports day | June or early July, school's choice | Sun cream, a hat, a bottle, and in some schools a coloured T-shirt for the team |
The dates that arrive in a newsletter
Class assemblies, trips, parents' evenings, photo day, the school disco, the residential meeting, "bring a shoebox by Friday". These are set by the school and told to you once, usually in the weekly newsletter, sometimes only in a ClassDojo caption. There is no calendar to look them up in later, which is why they are the ones that get missed.
The fix is not to read the newsletter harder. It is to have somewhere the dates go the moment they are announced. Forward the newsletter to a place that pulls the dates out (this is what Bobbie does), or read it once with the calendar open and type as you go. Either way, do it on the day it arrives, because that is the only time you will.
Further reading
Sources: GOV.UK primary assessments future dates; JCQ via Third Space Learning, GCSE exam dates 2027; BBC Children in Need appeal show 2026; Save the Children Christmas Jumper Day; World Book Day 2027; Cognito, UK school term dates 2026 to 2027; admissions dates from local authority pages including Sutton.
Questions people ask
- Where do I find my school's term dates?
- The school's own website first, then gov.uk/school-term-holiday-dates, which sends you to your council's page by postcode. Academies and free schools can set their own dates, so the school's website wins over the council's if they differ.
- Why are INSET days different at every school?
- Because each headteacher sets their school's five training days. Councils publish term dates; heads place the INSET days inside them. Two schools on the same street can differ, which is why siblings at different schools get different long weekends.
- Is Christmas Jumper Day a real date?
- Save the Children's official date is Thursday 10 December 2026, but the charity says any day works, and many schools pick their last week of term instead. Check the newsletter before you buy the jumper.