Rules
How many school days are there in a year?
The rule is 190, but councils count differently, and the gap is where INSET days go.
A school year in England has 190 days with pupils: the law sets at least 380 sessions, and a school day has two. Teachers work 195 days, so five are training days without pupils. Councils publish their calendar either as 195 days, leaving each school to remove its five INSET days, or as about 190 days with the INSET days on top. On this site the engine counts, for each council, the weekdays in term minus bank holidays and any in-service days the council itself fixes: a council that publishes 195 days shows 195, and its pupils will in fact attend 190. Scottish calendars come to about 190 pupil days too, with in-service days already removed. Northern Ireland schools must be open on 200 days, of which up to 10 can be development days. Choose a council below to see its count, first day and last day.
Dates read by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How the dates are checked
What the law says
Regulation 3 of the Education (School Day and School Year) (England) Regulations 1999 divides every school day into two sessions with a break in the middle and requires at least 380 sessions a year. If a school is prevented from meeting for a session and cannot make it up at another time, the session is treated as held. That is the legal basis of the 190 days. The 195 days and 1,265 hours of directed time come from teachers' pay and conditions, which is why Kent's calendar explains that schools may replace INSET days with extra hours instead.
Every council's count for 2026-27
A count of 195 or 196 means INSET days are still to come out. A count near 190 means the council either fixed its in-service days or built the year at 190. A count of 197 or 198 means the published calendar holds a few more days than the usual 195, which schools absorb with INSET or closure days of their own; the council page quotes what the council says about it.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
Scottish councils mark their in-service days on the calendar, so the count in the table is already the number of pupil days. Welsh councils work to the same 190 pupil days, and some fix their INSET days on the calendar. In Northern Ireland, nidirect says schools must open for 200 days and can use up to 10 of them for staff training and school development.
Why the count matters to parents
Attendance is measured in sessions against this total. A 95 per cent attendance rate allows about nine and a half days off in a year, for any reason; 90 per cent, nineteen days, is the level at which a pupil is counted as persistently absent. In England, ten unauthorised sessions within ten school weeks is the threshold for a penalty notice.