Scotland's school year: the August start explained
Reviewed 2026-09-08 · TermMinder
If you move from England to Scotland, the school year feels quietly rearranged. Children go back while English families are still on their summer holiday, take a full week off in October, and finish for the summer before the end of June. None of this is accidental. It reflects a calendar that is set, as in England, council by council.
There is no Scottish national calendar
Scotland's school term dates page on mygov.scot holds no dates at all. It says that "school term and holiday dates vary across Scotland" and links out to each of the 32 councils. The only authoritative source for your child is your own council's page.
Councils do plan ahead. Edinburgh's term dates section already publishes sessions from 2025/26 through to 2028/29, so there is rarely a reason to plan from guesswork. This guide uses Edinburgh's 2026/27 session as its worked example; your council's dates will differ in detail.
The August start
Edinburgh's autumn term starts on Wednesday 12 August 2026. For comparison, Kent's Term 1 starts on 1 September 2026, nearly three weeks later.
The rest of Edinburgh's year follows from that. The autumn term ends on Friday 18 December 2026, the spring term runs from Wednesday 6 January to Friday 2 April 2027 with a mid-term break from 15 to 19 February, and the summer term starts on Tuesday 20 April.
The early start is balanced at the other end of the year. Edinburgh's summer term ends on Tuesday 29 June 2027; Kent's runs to 21 July 2027. The Scottish summer holiday therefore fills July, while the English one runs through late July and August. Families who cross the border notice this immediately: the first weeks of the English holiday coincide with Scottish term time, and vice versa.
The October week and the September holiday
Two autumn features mark out Edinburgh's calendar. The first is the October week: the 2026 mid-term break runs from Monday 12 to Monday 19 October, with pupils back on the 20th. That is two weeks earlier than Kent's break, which starts on 26 October.
The second is a single-day September holiday, which Edinburgh calls the autumn holiday, on Monday 14 September 2026. Whether your council has a September holiday, and when it falls, is another reason the council page matters more than any national summary.
Staff-only days and local holidays
Edinburgh's term dates page also carries days on which staff attend but pupils do not, alongside the holidays. For 2026/27 it lists a "staff only day" on Tuesday 4 May 2027, the day after the May Day holiday, and gives pupils Victoria Day, Monday 24 May 2027, as a local holiday. Check your own council's page to see whether it publishes staff-only days in the same way.
Easter works differently too. The UK Government's bank holidays list shows that Scotland has Good Friday but no Easter Monday bank holiday. Councils make their own arrangements: Edinburgh closes on both Good Friday, 26 March 2027, and Easter Monday, 29 March, then runs a further week of term before its spring holiday from 5 to 19 April. The Easter weekend and the spring break are separate things.
The practical takeaway
If you are planning anything that crosses the border, whether a move, a family visit or a shared custody schedule, never assume Scottish and English dates align. They differ at both ends of the year and in the middle of the autumn term.
Use the finder to locate a published Scottish authority calendar, then check its scope and the council's source. You can save the calendar on this device or subscribe to its public ICS feed to keep the August start, October week and staff-only days beside your plans. Configure alerts in your calendar app; the phone-calendar guide covers the steps.