Cottenham Through aspiration and endeavour, we flourish
Cottenham Through aspiration and endeavour, we flourish
25th June 2024
Dear Families,
I share with you our final version of school calendar dates for next year September 2024-August 2025, which have been updated on our school website.
Term Dates for 2024-2025
Autumn term for students:
Term begins: Wednesday September 4th 2024 (Year 7) / Friday September 6th 2024 (Years 8-11)
Term ends: Thursday December 19th 2024
Half term: Monday 28th October to Friday 1st November 2024 (training days also at this time)
Training days
September 2nd/3rd (Monday/Tuesday)
October 25th (Friday)
November 4th/5th (Mon/Tues)
December 6th (Friday)
Spring term for students:
Term begins: Tuesday January 7th 2025
Term ends: Friday April 4th 2025
Half term: Monday 17th February to Friday 21st February 2025
Training days
January 6th (Monday)
March 21st (Friday)
Summer term for students:
Term begins Tuesday April 22nd 2025
Term ends: Wednesday July 23rd 2025
Half term: Monday 26th to Friday 30th May 2025
Training days
June 23rd (Monday)
Bank holidays during term time: Monday 21st April 2025 and Monday 5th May 2025
To confirm we are beginning the school year with two school days dedicated to Year 7 students only, on Wednesday 4th September and Thursday 5th September to help with a confident and successful transition from primary to secondary school. Students in Years 8-Y11 will have their return to school on Friday 6th September.
As part of a multi-academy Trust, we work in line with our sister schools to make the most of the opportunities to train staff across our schools and therefore we align staff training days for this. In order to secure high-quality staff development through the year, the schools within the Trust also allocate additional training time for staff in comparison to local authority schools. Our school has decided that we will allocate these additional training days in a cluster around the October half-term. With the autumn term being the longest term of the year, we often find that staff and students become very tired in the run up to Christmas, particularly with seasonal viruses. We also know that peak school holiday prices prevent families and staff from being able to enjoy a break away due to the costs. Therefore, we are piloting extending the October half-term to include two longer weekends, which we hope will support all members of our school community with a slightly longer opportunity to have a rest and recharge in the autumn term.
There are a few changes from the draft calendar that we published earlier in the year to help identify term dates for those families who were looking to book in holidays. Should any families be a position that they have booked a holiday prior to today, which means that a child will not be present at school on a term time date, please do forward a dated proof of booking to the attendance team, who will then authorise this absence. This will not apply to bookings placed from today onwards. We apologise for the inconvenience caused by any date changes.
Yours sincerely,
Zoe Andrews
Principal
Cottenham Village College