Very late change to term dates

[PensionPuzzle]

This is possibly outing but I'm not sure I care on this one.

DD's school have just (!) published term dates for 2026-27 school year and the head has put four inset days in the first week back. He has given his reasons for doing so, to me as a teacher they don't seem sound but I don't think he will take any notice of what I'm saying as a parent.

Am I right in thinking this is unacceptably late to publish such an unusual pattern of inset? Obviously we've had the LA term dates well in advance but I've never in all my years seen a school take a full first week for inset so I don't believe it's reasonable that the average parent would be expecting or geared up for this.

If I'm right and it is unreasonable, what can I do about it? I've replied to the notification on their communication system but I feel quite strongly that this should be discussed further (unless others feel it's tough luck in which case I'll pipe down). Governors?

At my own school and various local schools, kids don’t start till 7th September. All inset days before that.

But did they get told this on the late May bank holiday for the coming September?

For context here the norm is one or two days, so most people will have assumed worst case it's two days they need to have childcare sorted for.

I have worked in five different LAs now and not a single one has done more than two inset days- I appreciate it may be the norm elsewhere but here it is to me a) unacceptably late notice and b) unusual enough that people won't have pre-emptively made suitable arrangements whilst they wait for the publication of the term dates

I’d say 3+ months is more than sufficient notice.

Plenty of notice. All schools/MATs are different.