Agenda and minutes

No apologies were received.

To provide an opportunity for Members and Officers to declare any personal and/or prejudicial interests in any item on the agenda.

No declarations of interest were made.

In accordance with Procedure Rules Nos.11 and 35 a period of 10 minutes is allocated for members of the public to address the meeting on any matter relevant to the work of the meeting. Individual members of the public may speak for up to 5 minutes but the Chairman or person presiding will decide how the period of time allocated for public speaking will be apportioned where there are a number of speakers. Members of the public are not required to give notice to use this facility. However, as a matter of courtesy, a period of 24 hours’ notice is encouraged.

Members of the public wishing to ask a question at the meeting should provide at least three clear working days’ notice in writing and should include the question with that notice. This will enable an informed answer to be given.

There were no members of the public present.

To consider the outcome of the pubic consultation into a proposal that Cheshire East standardise school term dates on the basis of nine principles agreed and adopted by six of the nine Local Authority members of the Learn Together Partnership.

The Cabinet Member considered a report which summarised the outcome of the public consultation into a proposal that Cheshire East standardise school term dates on the basis of the nine principles agreed and adopted by six of the nine Local Authority members of the Learn Together Partnership (LTP). 

The principles of the LTP standardised year were as follows:

• All terms to start on a Monday (or a Tuesday if so necessitated by a Bank Holiday)
• October half term to always be the last full week in October
• A break as now around Christmas and New Year
• February half term will always be the third full week in February
• The Easter Break will be renamed the Spring Break and will always be the first full two weeks in April
• Easter will always be observed via the bank holidays for Good Friday and Easter Monday
• The Whitsun half term break will be one week across all phases
• Where a school is open for part of a week to pupils, this will be for a minimum of three school days
• The five INSET are all to be designated by the individual school governing body, but there will be no more than two days set consecutively for this purpose

Consultation had been carried out on these principles and of the nine proposals, seven had received strong support.  Concerns had been expressed around two of the issues:

 – the removal of the option for primary schools to have an additional week’s holiday at Whitsun and the Portfolio Holder was asked to consider the retention of the option for Primary School

– fixing a holiday in first two weeks of April, irrespective of the actual Easter dates.  It was noted that both Chester and Shrewsbury Dioceses had not objected to the suggestion as they prefer all Church schools to be in session during Holy Week.  This was not currently the case with all Church of England controlled schools.  

RESOLVED:

That, with effect from the School Year 2012/13, the school term dates for all Community and Controlled Schools will be set in line with the principles of the Learn Together Partnership standardised year, and that this term pattern be recommended to other maintained schools and academies in the Borough, save that Primary Schools retain the option to take an additional week break at Whitsun.