What prompts a school to close 3 days earlier than any other?

[Webuyanyname]

Dd's school finishes 3 days earlier than all other schools in the borough (but started the term no earlier and had the same number of INSET days).

Just wondered what the thought process was....did they decide they were more efficient at teaching children the curriculum than any other school?
Perhaps the children absorbed knowledge slightly quicker than at other schools?
Or maybe they've run out of pens and paper (and energy)?

Seems bizarre to randomly decide to offer less teaching than other schools.

The law is quite clear "In England, local authority maintained schools must open for at least 380 sessions (190 days) during a school year."

"I'm assuming they cannot add more school days on top of the 190/195 mentioned." Yes they can 190 is the minimum

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN07148/SN07148.pdf#page9

I once read on here about a school that extended the school day enough to give an extra week's holiday in May so people could have a cheap holiday - maybe it's something like that...

the school my children attended did the longer school day from Tuesday till Friday (12 minutes or something barely noticeable) and the children had every Monday afternoon off.

awkward for childcare but it complied with total hours of teaching per year.
not a private school.

I note the link from mrz whose views I respect
however the "sessions" rule clearly means hours
case in point is
Peter Symonds 6th for college in Winchester ( yes, I know this is the primary board ) whose school day runs 8:30 to 4:30 and thus terms are a week shorter

on a surreal point, after visiting an island in the Caribbean I was minded to look up international schooling ...
the term dates vary with climate
as do the start and finish times
as do the term length between sectors

BUT
if you take the number of hours of teaching
190 x 6 = 1140
its pretty much the same the world over regardless of all other factors

I'm afraid the sessions rule doesn't mean hours under the law state schools are free to set the length of the school day but not the number if sessions they are open (doesn't apply to academies, free and independent schools).

Peter Symonds doesn't cater for pupils of compulsory education age

The school I work in are doing this.
All schools have a statutory amount of teaching days. Our school, throughout the year, are having desegregated inset days. This means every half term, all staff have to attend training in the evening. This begins after school until 6pm. We do not have as many inset days throughout the year. The time sheet does balance.

Your child's school are probably Doug the same thing. There is no way their school is just deciding to close. That would be illegal.
Believe me staff Christmas shopping days are a thing of the past!

Inset days were introduced in the 80s and aren't teaching days (they were formally "holidays" which teachers gave up for training)

It is probably an academy as said earlier in the thread, they don't need to follow the 190 days rule.

I'd assumed the difference with academies was about the way they were funded/managing budgets etc. I didn't realise they could have different amounts of teaching days - so in theory could they decide to teach 3 days a week for 20 weeks of the year?? Seems very odd. Its really something they should have made clear on the school open days.

(mrscraig - there are 4 inset days already scheduled (1 already done, 3 in 2017) so the 3 extra days holidays presumably can't all be inset days?)

Assuming it's a primary school they'd probably just spend the last 3 days of term making Christmas cards and watching videos. Don't assume it's lost teaching time.

There is an academy chain near me of primary and secondary schools that has done this to give an extra week's holiday in the October half term. Recruitment in London is a real issue as the cost of living is so high. They did a survey of all the teaching staff asking what non-monetary benefit would be the most attractive (i.e. Not a pay rise) and overwhelmingly teachers asked for a week outside of normal school holiday time.

Another school has changed timings so they can have three extra days that they have added to the start of the summer holidays - enabling staff and parents to get cheaper holidays.

There is a teacher shortage at the moment so I wouldn't be surprised to see more of this in the future. The knock on effect I hope is that overall it will reduce the premium school holidays whack into prices!

I'm wondering if your DD goes to the same school as mine Webuyanyname! Her school will break up on Friday but most of the other primaries in the borough go on until 21st. The number of teaching days across the year seems to be correct, it's not an academy nor is it an independent school. It is a complete pain though as we have no childcare and, as DH and I are both teachers, no chance of taking a day's holiday. It's likely that we'll have to take turns to have unpaid leave which will mean being away from our item pupils.

For the schools near me they have 3 occasional days which they can take whenever - it's not inset. If they have a lot of Muslim children they might take it when eid is rather than make the summer term shorter.

For the schools near me they have 3 occasional days which they can take whenever - it's not inset.

I've never heard of this-may I ask which LEA?

They still do the same amount of days as others. But I think it indicates when they are taking them at different times from the rest of the borough - it's Ealing.