When do schools break up for summer 2027?
Reviewed 2026-09-08 · TermMinder
"When do schools break up?" is the school-date question parents ask most, and for summer 2027 the honest answer is that it depends where in the UK you live, by as much as a month. Here is what the official sources say, nation by nation.
Scotland: late June
Scottish schools finish first. Edinburgh's 2026/27 dates have the session ending on Tuesday 29 June 2027. That early finish is the other half of an early start: Edinburgh's autumn term began on Wednesday 12 August 2026, while most English children were still on holiday. Each Scottish council sets its own dates, so check your own, but by the time Kent's pupils break up on 21 July, Edinburgh's have been off for three weeks.
Northern Ireland: 1 July
The Department of Education's published holidays have the summer holiday beginning on Thursday 1 July 2027. Northern Ireland's mid-year breaks are short: the Halloween break is 29 and 30 October 2026 and the February mid-term is 11 and 12 February 2027, two days each rather than a week. The time comes back as a long July-and-August summer. The department adds that "schools can operate on these dates at their own discretion to suit their individual circumstances", so confirm with your school.
Wales: 20 July, except Powys
Wales sets its dates nationally. The Welsh Government's direction for 2026/27 ends the school year on Tuesday 20 July 2027 for every maintained school in the country, except Powys, whose schools finish on Friday 16 July 2027 so that families can attend the Royal Welsh Show the following week.
England: it depends on your council
England is the complicated case, because each local authority sets its own calendar and the spread is wider than most parents expect. Three examples from councils that have published their 2026/27 dates:
- Leicestershire closes on Tuesday 6 July 2027, having opened on Monday 24 August 2026.
- Kent ends its Term 6 on Wednesday 21 July 2027.
- Surrey finishes on Wednesday 28 July 2027, because it has moved to a two-week October half term and, in the council's words, "five days will be taken from the summer holiday in July 2027".
That is a three-week gap inside England alone. GOV.UK's term dates finder takes a postcode and sends you to the right council page.
The usual caveat applies everywhere in England. Kent's page warns that "term dates for some schools may be different", and Surrey's that "academies, voluntary aided and foundation schools may have different term dates". Your school's own calendar is the final word, even within the same town.
If your council's dates are not out yet
Councils publish at different times. Kent already lists its 2027/28 calendar, and Leicestershire has consulted on dates running from autumn 2027 to summer 2032, with a decision due at its cabinet in September 2026. Others are slower. If yours has not published, resist the temptation to plan from a neighbouring authority or from last year's pattern: a booking made on assumed dates is a booking you may have to change. Note when your council usually publishes and check back, or let a reminder service do the watching for you.
Cross-border families face this twice over. A household with one parent in Scotland and one in England, or grandparents in Wales helping with childcare, needs two or three official calendars to agree before any shared plan is real. The dates above show why: Edinburgh's finish on 29 June and Surrey's on 28 July are a month apart.
Planning around the gap
The spread has a practical silver lining. If your family can travel while other parts of the UK are still in school, whether that is Scottish and Northern Irish families in the first week of July or Leicestershire families in the second, you are travelling before the sharpest peak.
The discipline that matters is checking your own dates before you commit. A council page, not a friend's memory or last year's pattern, is the only safe source: Surrey's move of five days from July into October shows how a familiar calendar can change.
Use the finder to locate an available authority or school calendar, then check the linked official source and school-scope warning. TermMinder pages show a countdown where the calendar has a usable exact date, and public ICS feeds can sit in your calendar app; configure your own alert for break-up day. The October comparison guide shows the same local variation during the school year.