Both councils are currently undergoing consultations for their new term times
06:00, 04 Jun 2026Updated 11:26, 04 Jun 2026
Both Leicester City and Leicestershire County Council are consulting on term time dates for later years(Image: Getty)
Parents in Leicester could see summer holiday changes under proposed term-time plans which may see city students break up a week later than the rest of the county.
Both Leicester City Council and Leicestershire County Council are currently consulting on new school term dates for 2027/28 through to 2031/32.
Leicester and Leicestershire schools usually break up for the summer earlier than the rest of the country to align with the traditional 1960s ‘July Fortnight’ when local factories would shut down.
This allows many parents to take advantage of cheaper holidays, with many neighbouring counties breaking up for the summer later.
The county council has proposed two options, both of which retain the Leicestershire fortnight. The first option is set to retain the term pattern which will see the autumn term break last for only one week.
The second option will also keep most of the Leicestershire fortnight but it will be shorter by one week to allow for a longer two-week autumn term break.
Leicester City Council is also undertaking a similar consultation, but it has been revealed that the term dates will differ – particularly in 2028.
The city’s first model proposes that the academic year starts just before the August bank holiday and includes a two-week autumn half-term break, intended to break up the longer autumn term. As a result, the summer holiday would be slightly shorter, at around five-and-a-half weeks.
Model two is based on the traditional Leicester term-date pattern which would see pupils returning to school after the August bank holiday and a one-week autumn half-term break. The academic year would still end in the second week of July while the summer holiday would be around six weeks.
Many of these differences are due to the city council dictating when inset days are scheduled, calendar arrangements and interpretations of the Leicestershire fortnight.
Leicester City Council has proposed starting the summer holidays one week later than the county school dates in July 2028, and two days later in each subsequent school year, meaning that parents with children in the city and the county could break up at different times.
The county council hopes to start the summer holidays on July 10, 2028 for both its proposed options whereas the city council plans for children to break up on July 17, 2028 instead for both its preferred options.
During a meeting of the Leicestershire County Council‘s Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Committee, councillors raised their concerns about the consultation and the differing dates.
The city council has admitted it isn’t changing anything but city children will start summer later than county school children(Image: Caitlin James)
The county’s education boss Tim Browne admitted that the first year in the cycle would mean the city and the county “would be a little bit different” with later years “falling more in line”.
He also said the council would look at aligning “as far as possible” with the city and take on feedback from the consultation.
Renata Chantrill, head of strategy for education efficiency at the county council, also told the committee that it wanted to “retain that two-week Leicestershire fortnight that’s really important to Leicestershire families” adding that the first year was “quite a difference”.
She also said the county council wanted to work with the city council following the end of both consultations.
Conservative Cllr James Poland told the committee: “It would save parents a significant amount of hassle if we didn’t have big differences between them [the city and county term dates].”
Mrs Chantrill also added that the county council doesn’t allocate inset days, with the decision being left to academies and headteachers, whereas the city council does and that apart from the first year, the two-day difference is “unlikely to have a huge detrimental impact”.
The county council previously went back to the drawing board after pushback from parents(Image: LeicestershireLive)
She also revealed that there have been more than 5,000 responses on the consultation with responses being “50-50” on both of the options and that the county and city councils would work together to try and align dates after the consultation has finished.
The council originally looked at three proposals, with the preferred model meaning parents and children would lose a week from the Leicestershire fortnight and have a two-week autumn break instead of the existing one-week off.
However, it was decided that education bosses would go back to the drawing board to look at the options again.
A Leicester city council spokesperson said: “We are not proposing any change to the usual finish times for the summer term.
“Our consultation sets out two options, both of which retain the current pattern at the end of the summer term, retaining the city’s usual mid-July start to the summer holidays.
“Our consultation is open until June 17 at consultations.leicester.gov.uk and we welcome people’s views. Please fill in the consultation to see the date options in detail.”
The county council is currently running until June 15 and can be found here.