School Holidays and Shared Care: Easter, Bank Holidays, and INSET Days

Charlotte found out on a Tuesday afternoon, when her daughter Chloe emptied her school bag at the kitchen table and a crumpled letter from school dropped out. The following Friday and Monday were INSET days — teacher training. Not a bank holiday, not half-term. Just two ordinary weekdays when school would be closed.

She opened the child arrangements order on her phone. Christmas, Easter, summer. Nothing about INSET days. She scrolled back through her messages with Graham to see whether they had agreed something the previous year, and found a thread from September that ended with "let's sort it nearer the time" — and no conclusion.

At ten o'clock that evening she messaged him. He replied twenty minutes later: "Weren't those days yours? I'm at work on Friday." Neither of them was being unreasonable. The school calendar had created a gap that their order simply did not cover. That is not conflict. It is uncertainty — which is a different thing, and equally exhausting.

In shared care arrangements, school holidays do not follow the regular rota: a child arrangements order usually has specific provisions for Christmas, Easter, and summer that override the day-to-day pattern and alternate year by year. Bank holidays, half-terms, and INSET days almost never appear in orders and are typically handled by following the regular rota or agreeing case by case. The exact dates are set by each school's academic calendar, which is published annually and changes every year.

Why does a routine that works forty-six weeks fall apart the moment a bank holiday arrives?

Because day-to-day handovers run on habit, and school holidays are, by definition, the exceptions. Once a shared care pattern has been ticking along for months, it happens almost on autopilot.

The school calendar disrupts that pattern several times a year, and each time in a slightly different way: Easter can fall anywhere between late March and late April, the October half-term breaks the rhythm of the autumn term, an INSET day appears in February just when things have settled again. None of these is complicated in isolation. What is hard is remembering how each one affects the next. A well-maintained shared care calendar does not eliminate those interruptions, but it stops you recalculating everything from scratch each time.

What does a child arrangements order say about school holidays?

Most child arrangements orders include a separate clause covering holiday time, distinct from the regular term-time arrangements. Three ideas tend to underpin it:

• Holiday periods override the regular pattern. While a holiday period is running, the normal weekly rota and alternating weekends do not apply. They resume when term starts again.
• The main holidays are split in half. Christmas, Easter, and the summer break are each divided between the parents.
• The choice alternates year by year. One parent has first choice in even years, the other in odd years — or one parent proposes dates before a fixed deadline and the other selects from what remains.

Difficulties tend to appear at the edges: what exactly counts as "the Easter holidays," what time each half begins and ends, and what happens with everything that is not Christmas, Easter, or summer. A child arrangements order, once approved by a court, is the document that matters if a serious disagreement arises. Informal agreements you have made since are perfectly valid and very common — but they do not replace the order. If the mismatch feels structural, the formal route is to apply to vary the order, and it is worth speaking to a solicitor before going down that road.

How do you split Easter when it falls on different dates every year?

Easter is the only major school holiday in England with a moving date, which is why it causes more friction than Christmas or summer. Easter Sunday can fall anywhere between late March and late April: in 2026 it fell on 5 April, in 2027 it falls on 28 March, and in 2028 it shifts all the way to 16 April.

That means it interacts with your regular rota differently every year. One year it will land squarely across a stretch that was already yours; the next it will sit just before your alternating weekend, handing you a long unbroken run — while the other parent goes nearly a fortnight without seeing the children. There is no bad faith in that. It is arithmetic. It is worth thinking in advance about how the regular pattern restarts once Easter ends, so neither parent is caught off guard. Setting up your custody calendar properly is the clearest way to spot those clashes before they happen.

What counts as "the Easter holidays" under the order?

The Easter holiday period is set each year by the school or local authority, and it does not always align with religious calendars. If your order says "the Easter school holidays," it means whatever dates appear in your child's school calendar for that year. Two things worth pinning down in writing:

• The exact start and end time. The most practical anchor is the school itself: from collection on the last day of term to drop-off on the first day back.
• Where the midpoint falls. A ten-day break cannot be split into two perfectly equal halves. Agreeing a fixed midpoint — a specific time on a specific day — removes the argument about who had an extra day this year.

Who has the children during bank holidays?

England and Wales have eight bank holidays per year. Most child arrangements orders do not name them individually, yet between them they create several long weekends across the year. Two approaches are common in practice. The more usual one is to treat bank holidays as part of the regular rota: the parent who already has the children on that day simply has a longer weekend. The second, less common approach treats bank holiday weekends as mini-holidays and alternates them by year. Neither is inherently better, but it matters which one your order reflects. With the first approach, one parent can end up with several consecutive long weekends by sheer chance; with the second, the balance is more predictable but requires a little more active management.

What if the children's school is in a different local authority to where one parent lives?

In England, term dates are set by local authorities for maintained schools, and independently by academies and free schools. If your children attend school in one area while one parent lives in another, the two schedules may not align. The practical rule is straightforward: the school calendar governs, regardless of where each parent lives. Whoever has the children on a day the school is closed has the children — whether or not that day is a holiday in the other parent's local area.

What are INSET days?

INSET stands for In-Service Education and Training — days when school is closed for staff professional development. The children are at home, but the day is neither a bank holiday nor part of a formal school holiday. Schools in England typically take five INSET days per academic year. Some are timed around bank holidays to extend a break; others fall mid-term with little fanfare.

In shared care terms the position is usually simple: if the order only mentions Christmas, Easter, and summer, an INSET day is not a holiday period and the regular rota applies. The real challenge is practical, not legal. INSET days are school days on paper but not in practice, so they tend to be absorbed by grandparents, holiday clubs, or whoever can step in — and they generate more friction than their importance really warrants.

The encouraging news is that INSET days are known well in advance. The full list usually arrives with the start-of-year information in September. Adding them straight to a shared calendar eliminates almost every last-minute scramble. If keeping both parents equally informed about school communications is a sticking point, sorting that out first removes a lot of the background noise.

Where do I find the school's academic calendar?

There is no single national school calendar in England and Wales. Local authorities publish term dates for maintained schools in their area, typically in the spring for the following academic year. Academies and free schools set their own calendars. Your child's school website will always have the definitive version.

Two points that are often overlooked:

• Year groups do not always break up on the same day. In many schools, younger pupils may finish a day or two before older ones. If your children are in different year groups or different schools, the summer holidays do not necessarily start on the same day for each of them.
• The school's calendar is what governs, not the local authority where each parent lives. Two schools a mile apart can have different half-term dates.

With the school calendar and the September letter in hand, you have the whole academic year in front of you. Mapping that onto your arrangements — and seeing at a glance where the regular pattern is interrupted — is exactly what a shared parenting calendar is built to do.

What about summer and Christmas?

These are the two periods that almost every child arrangements order addresses in detail. Summer is typically divided by weeks or fortnights, with parents alternating who chooses first each year. Christmas is usually split across the school holiday itself, with Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve rotating between parents. If either is coming up soon, we have guides specifically on organising summer holidays in a shared care arrangement and on splitting Christmas when you live apart.

A real case: the problem was interpretation, not the arrangement

Rachel and Daniel had been running a week-on, week-off pattern for two years, and it worked well. Their son Isaac, aged nine, knew exactly which house he was sleeping in on any given night. The only time they ended up at odds was Easter.

The order said: "The Easter school holidays shall be divided equally, the first half to be spent with the father in even years and with the mother in odd years." Perfectly clear on paper. In practice, the same questions resurfaced every spring: did the period begin when school finished on the last day of term, or the following morning? If there were ten days, did "the first half" mean five days or five nights? They each answered those questions in the way that felt natural to them — and one year they realised they had been tense for three weeks over a real difference of twelve hours.

They did not go back to court. They wrote a short email setting out three rules: the period runs from school collection on the last day of term to drop-off on the first day back; the midpoint is always the Sunday in the middle of the Easter break at noon; and INSET days follow the regular rota. They then added the seventeen affected days to a shared calendar that Isaac could also see. The order did not change by a single word. What changed was how they used it.

What interrupts the regular rota — and what does not

Check each row against your own order — yours may say something different.

Before each holiday period: a checklist

• I have this year's school calendar, not last year's.
• I know what the order says about this period — and what it does not say.
• Start and end times are agreed and clear.
• The midpoint is defined and I know whose turn it is this year.
• I have shared my dates within any deadline the order sets.
• Holiday clubs, trips, and childcare are confirmed, and the other parent knows.
• I know how the regular rota resumes when term starts again.
• The children know where they will be and when.

If any box is blank, now is a better moment to resolve it than the evening before. And if it would help to hold everything in one place, that is exactly the kind of admin Niddo is designed to take off your hands.

School holidays should be remembered for what happened during them — not for the weeks of uncertainty that came beforehand.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do school holidays override the regular shared care arrangement?

Usually they suspend it for the duration. Most child arrangements orders treat Christmas, Easter, and summer in a separate clause that takes priority over the regular weekly rota. What varies most is the exact point at which the regular rota resumes when the holiday ends.

When exactly do the Easter holidays start under a child arrangements order?

If the order does not specify, it defaults to the dates published in the school's academic calendar, which changes each year. Most families anchor it to the school: from collection on the last day of term to drop-off on the first day back. Putting that in writing once avoids the same question arising every spring.

Who has the children on an INSET day?

Unless the order says otherwise, an INSET day is not a holiday period: the regular rota applies, and the parent who has the children on that day keeps them. The real challenge is usually childcare, not the legal position.

What happens to bank holidays if the order does not mention them?

The most common outcome is that a bank holiday extends the time of whichever parent already has the children, so a regular weekend simply becomes a long one. If that consistently feels uneven, it is a useful topic to raise in family mediation.

Can we change the holiday split if we both agree?

Yes — parents can vary arrangements informally, and doing so is completely normal. It is sensible to put any changes in writing, even just by email. If the change is meant to be permanent, the formal route is to apply to vary the child arrangements order.

What if the other parent does not share dates by the agreed deadline?

Many orders include a deadline — for example, 30 April for summer holiday dates — and provide that the choice passes to the other parent if it is missed. Check the wording in your order and keep a written record that you asked for the dates.

When is the school's academic calendar published?

Local authorities typically publish term dates for maintained schools in the spring, for the following academic year. Academies and free schools publish their own. INSET days are usually confirmed in September, at the start of the new term.

Key points

• School holidays cause friction not because the order is poorly drafted, but because they interrupt a pattern that runs smoothly for most of the year.
• Christmas, Easter, and summer usually have their own clause in a child arrangements order; bank holidays, half-terms, and INSET days rarely do — and that is where uncertainty accumulates.
• Easter is the only major school holiday with a moving date: it can shift by up to four weeks from one year to the next.
• If the order only names the three main holidays, the usual position is that INSET days and half-term weeks follow the regular rota.
• School term dates are set by local authorities or individual schools, and the last day of term may differ between year groups.
• Agreeing the start time, end time, and midpoint in writing avoids almost every recurring disagreement.