United Kingdom. Sources, coverage and why no single feed exists
School term dates API: what actually exists, and what does not
The UK has no national school term dates API, by statute rather than technology. Section 32 of the Education Act 2002 splits the decision between councils and governing bodies across thousands of schools. gov.uk's tool covers England and Wales only.
No single body
the statutory position: for community and voluntary controlled schools the local authority sets term dates, and for foundation and voluntary aided schools the governing body does
Your council's site
gov.uk's own answer: find your child's school term, half term and holiday dates on your local council's website
England and Wales only
the coverage of the gov.uk tool, with Scotland and Northern Ireland pointed elsewhere entirely
| Option | Checked 15 August 2026 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The individual school One child, one school, and being certain | The school's own published calendar. For a foundation, voluntary aided or foundation special school in England, section 32 of the Education Act 2002 puts the determination of term and holiday dates with the governing body, so this is not a copy of anybody else's dates. It is the decision itself. | One school, completely and correctly, including its own inset days. | The source of truth. Every other row on this table is downstream of this one. | No. A page, a PDF or a newsletter, in whatever format the school chose. | At scale, immediately. There is no consistent URL pattern, no consistent format, and a school that updates its calendar does not notify anybody. |
| The local authority Community and voluntary controlled schools across one area | The council's published term dates. Section 32 makes the local authority the body that determines the dates when school terms and holidays begin and end for community, voluntary controlled and community special schools, and for maintained nursery schools, so for those schools this is authoritative. | Its own maintained schools, in its own area. Academies, free schools and voluntary aided schools in the same area may differ. | Authoritative for the categories it determines, and a strong default for the rest, but not binding on them. | Sometimes. A minority publish structured data or an iCal feed; most publish a page or a PDF. There is no common schema and no requirement to have one. | The assumption that a council's dates cover every school in the area. In an area with many academies, that assumption is wrong for a large share of the schools. |
| The gov.uk term dates tool A parent finding one school's dates, which is what it was built for | The government's own front door for this question. Its answer is a redirection rather than a dataset: find your child's school term, half term and holiday dates on your local council's website. | Available in England and Wales only, with Scotland and Northern Ireland pointed to separate resources. | Official, and deliberately a signpost rather than a source. It does not hold the dates. | No, and it is not intended to be. It is a lookup for a parent. | As a data source, by design. It is the clearest available evidence that no national dataset exists, which is why it is on this table. |
| Get Information about Schools Resolving which schools exist, of what type, under which authority | The Department for Education's register of schools and colleges in England, with establishment records, types, status and identifiers, downloadable in bulk. | Establishments in England, comprehensively. It is the register, not a calendar. | Official and authoritative for what it covers. | Yes. This is the one genuinely machine-readable official source in this area, and it is the right starting point for any project that needs to enumerate schools. | It does not contain term dates. What it gives you is the list of schools and their governance type, which tells you which body sets each school's dates under section 32. That is the half of the problem that is solved. |
| Scotland and Northern Ireland Coverage outside England and Wales, which the gov.uk tool excludes | Separate arrangements in separate systems. The gov.uk service states it is available in England and Wales only and directs readers to separate resources for Scotland and for Northern Ireland, which is the extent of what it says about either. | Their own nations, on their own terms. This site does not describe those arrangements in detail, because the pages that do could not be read from here and we do not attach claims to sources we have not opened. | Official within each nation. | Generally no, in the same way as English councils. | Any assumption that a UK-wide project can use one model. The structures, the terminology and the publishing arrangements differ by nation, which is a design decision to make early rather than a detail. |
| A commercial or scraped aggregator Prototyping, and nothing that matters | A third party that has collected term dates from councils and schools and offers them through an interface. This is the category most people are looking for when they search for a term dates API. | Claimed rather than verifiable. Nobody publishes a coverage figure that can be checked against a denominator, because the denominator is every school in the UK and the register of those is a separate dataset. | None. It is a copy of somebody else's decision, and it is not notified when that decision changes. | Yes, which is the entire attraction and the reason the trade-off gets made without being examined. | Silently, and at the worst moment. A school moves an inset day in September and the aggregator learns about it when somebody complains. For anything scheduling around a school day, the failure lands on a family rather than on the developer. |
How these were chosen, how they are ordered, and the finding this page exists to publish
Six sources rather than six products, because the honest finding is an absence: no national school term dates API exists for the UK, and no source here substitutes for one. That absence is the most useful thing anyone researching this can be told. Every commercial page on the subject avoids saying it.
This is statutory, not a build problem. Under section 32 of the Education Act 2002, English councils decide for community, voluntary controlled and community special schools and maintained nursery schools. Governing bodies decide for foundation, voluntary aided and foundation special schools. Academies and free schools set their own. So thousands of places set dates, and none must aggregate them.
Order runs from the most authoritative to the most convenient, which is close to the reverse of how people find them. The individual school is the source of truth and the hardest to query; a scraped aggregator is instantly queryable and authoritative about nothing.
Who sets the dates is quoted from the Education Act 2002 on legislation.gov.uk. Coverage is quoted from the gov.uk service itself, both read on 15 August 2026. No commercial provider is named, no price appears and no coverage percentage is claimed for any source, because nobody publishes one. An invented figure would be exactly what this table warns about.
This page does not operate a term dates feed. If it did, the honest disclosure would be the same as for every other aggregator here: coverage incomplete, freshness unguaranteed, and the school itself still the source of truth.
- The individual school Education Act 2002 s.32 (legislation.gov.uk)
- The local authority gov.uk, find your local council
- The gov.uk term dates tool gov.uk, school term and holiday dates
- Get Information about Schools Get Information about Schools (Department for Education)
- Scotland and Northern Ireland gov.uk, school term and holiday dates
- A commercial or scraped aggregator gov.uk, school term and holiday dates
Term Dates API is an information site. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the Department for Education, the Department of Education in Northern Ireland, any local authority, any school or any government body. It does not operate a term dates feed and is not selling one: the finding this site publishes is that no national UK school term dates API exists, and the statutory reason for that. Every statement about who sets term dates is quoted from the Education Act 2002 on legislation.gov.uk, and every statement about coverage from the gov.uk service itself, both read on the date shown at the top of this page. We publish no coverage percentage for any source, because nobody publishes one that can be checked. For any individual school, that school's own calendar is the authority, and it is the only place inset days appear.
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Who sets UK school term dates, and where they are published, 2026
Last updated
The reason there is no national term dates API is written into the Education Act 2002: different school types have their dates set by different bodies. This table maps the statutory position onto where the dates actually appear.
The statutory rows are quoted from section 32 of the Education Act 2002 on legislation.gov.uk, headed Responsibility for fixing dates of terms and holidays and times of sessions: England, read on 15 August 2026. The coverage statements are quoted from the gov.uk school term and holiday dates service, including that it is available in England and Wales only and that its answer is to find the dates on your local council's website. The Northern Ireland row deliberately carries no description of that nation's arrangements: the Department of Education page was refused to our checker, and this estate does not attach a claim to a source it has not read. The register row describes the Department for Education's Get Information about Schools service, which holds establishment records rather than calendars. No coverage percentage, price or freshness guarantee is stated for any source, because none is published by anybody and every such figure in this market is a claim rather than a measurement. Where this table says something does not exist, it means we looked for it in the official sources cited here and found the official position to be a redirection to several thousand separate publishers. Nothing here is estimated.
| School type or nation | Who sets term and holiday dates | Where they are published | Machine readable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Community, voluntary controlled and community special schools, England | The local authority determines the dates when the school terms and holidays are to begin and end. The governing body determines the times of the school sessions | The council's website, in whatever format it chose | Occasionally. A minority of councils publish structured data or an iCal feed |
| Maintained nursery schools, England | The local authority, on the same basis | The council's website | Occasionally, alongside the schools above |
| Foundation, voluntary aided and foundation special schools, England | The governing body determines both the term and holiday dates and the times of the school sessions | The school's own website | No consistent format and no consistent location |
| Academies and free schools, England | The trust, independently of the local authority | The school's or trust's own website | No |
| Independent schools | The school | The school's own website, and terms frequently differ markedly from the maintained pattern | No |
| Wales | Local arrangements | Covered by the gov.uk tool, which is available in England and Wales only | No |
| Scotland | Local arrangements through its councils | Outside the gov.uk tool, which points to a separate resource | No |
| Northern Ireland | Not described here: the Northern Ireland guidance could not be read from this network, so no claim is attached to it | Outside the gov.uk tool, which states it is available in England and Wales only and points to a separate resource | No |
| Every school in England, as a list | Not applicable | Get Information about Schools, the Department for Education register, downloadable in bulk | Yes, and it holds no term dates. It tells you which body sets each school's, which is the other half |
- There is no national school term dates API for the UK, and the reason is statutory: the Education Act 2002 puts the decision in different hands for different school types.
- For community, voluntary controlled and community special schools in England, the local authority determines the dates when the school terms and holidays are to begin and end.
- For foundation, voluntary aided and foundation special schools in England, the governing body determines both the term dates and the times of the school sessions.
- Academies, free schools and independent schools set their own dates independently of the local authority, so a council's calendar does not bind them.
- gov.uk's own term dates service answers the question by telling you to find the dates on your local council's website, which is a signpost rather than a dataset.
- That service is available in England and Wales only, with Scotland and Northern Ireland directed to separate resources.
- The Department for Education's Get Information about Schools register is machine readable and comprehensive for England, and contains no term dates: it tells you which body sets each school's.
- No aggregator publishes a verifiable coverage figure, because the denominator is every school in the UK and the register of those is a separate dataset from any calendar.
Cite this page
“Who sets UK school term dates, and where they are published, 2026”, Term Dates API, https://termdatesapi.co.uk/ (updated 2026-08-15). The statutory rows are quoted from section 32 of the Education Act 2002 on legislation.gov.uk, headed Responsibility for fixing dates of terms and holidays and times of sessions: England, read on 15 August 2026. The coverage statements are quoted from the gov.uk school term and holiday dates service, including that it is available in England and Wales only and that its answer is to find the dates on your local council's website. The Northern Ireland row deliberately carries no description of that nation's arrangements: the Department of Education page was refused to our checker, and this estate does not attach a claim to a source it has not read. The register row describes the Department for Education's Get Information about Schools service, which holds establishment records rather than calendars. No coverage percentage, price or freshness guarantee is stated for any source, because none is published by anybody and every such figure in this market is a claim rather than a measurement. Where this table says something does not exist, it means we looked for it in the official sources cited here and found the official position to be a redirection to several thousand separate publishers. Nothing here is estimated.
Go deeper
Each one cites where its numbers come from.
Why there is no national school term dates API
Section 32 of the Education Act 2002 distributes the decision across thousands of bodies. That is the reason, and it is not one anybody can engineer around.
Finding your school's term dates, in the right order
Three sources, in descending order of authority. Which to trust when they disagree, and the one date type that is never on a council calendar.
Building software that depends on school term dates
Every source is incomplete or stale. How to design for that honestly, what to enumerate first, and the failure mode that lands on a family.
School term dates across the four UK nations
gov.uk's tool covers England and Wales only. What Scotland and Northern Ireland do instead, and why one model does not fit all four.
Questions, answered directly
Is there a national school term dates API for the UK?
No, and the reason is statutory. Under section 32 of the Education Act 2002, English councils decide for community, voluntary controlled and community special schools. Governing bodies decide for foundation, voluntary aided and foundation special schools. Academies, free and independent schools set their own. Several thousand places set dates, and no body must aggregate them. gov.uk points to councils' websites.
Who sets school term dates in England?
By school type. Under section 32 of the Education Act 2002, the local authority sets term and holiday dates for community, voluntary controlled, community special and maintained nursery schools. Governing bodies set session times. For foundation, voluntary aided and foundation special schools, the governing body sets both. Academies and free schools set their own, independently of the local authority.
Where does gov.uk get school term dates from?
It does not hold them. The gov.uk school term and holiday dates service tells you to find term, half term and holiday dates on your local council's website. It covers England and Wales only, with separate resources for Scotland and Northern Ireland. That is the clearest evidence no national dataset exists: a government holding one would not answer this way.
Can I rely on my council's term dates for any school in the area?
Only for schools the council decides for: under section 32, community, voluntary controlled, community special and maintained nursery schools. Foundation and voluntary aided schools' governing bodies set theirs. Academies, free and independent schools set theirs outside the council altogether. With many academies, the council calendar covers a minority of schools. It never covers inset days, which each school sets.
What is the most reliable machine-readable source in this area?
The Department for Education's Get Information about Schools register, comprehensive for England and downloadable in bulk. It holds establishment records, not calendars, so no term dates. It does give every school and its governance type, which under section 32 decides which body sets its dates. That half has a clean official answer: start any project there.
How accurate are commercial term dates feeds?
Nobody publishes a verifiable figure, which is worth noticing. Coverage cannot be checked: the denominator is every UK school, held in a separate register. Authority is worse: an aggregator copies a school's or council's decision and is not told when it changes. A moved inset day reaches it when somebody complains, and for school-day scheduling that lands on a family.
Do the four UK nations work the same way?
No: gov.uk's tool covers only England and Wales, pointing elsewhere for Scotland and Northern Ireland. Scotland's councils set its dates, using different terms that matter to parsers. This site says nothing more on Northern Ireland, as the Department of Education page that would settle it was unreadable. A model built on English councils does not fit the other three.
Sources
This site's own dataset, every figure quoted from its source and dated:
- The median published figure in the Term Dates Supply Board is 28 GBP across 1 source's own page in GBP (range 28 to 28 GBP; 2 sources publish a figure), read 12 October 2026.
See every source, and what each one costs you
Six sources on coverage, authority and machine readability, with the statutory reason no seventh exists.