As we're sure you are aware there have been many calls for greater certainty and clarity about term dates after last year’s pattern of dates was amended by some schools and clusters.

Children's Services Review Panel has endorsed the pattern of term dates for the school year 2009-2010. Taking into account the legal requirements on term dates, the standard school year principles, schools' needs for maximum flexibility and the local authorities duties in respect of school transport, the attached calendar provides 190 teaching days. These are the non-negotiable days which form the legal entitlement of all students to have 380 sessions of schooling per year. It will only be on these days that school transport will be provided. Individual schools or clusters cannot vary from these days.

For 2009-10 we are not specifying continuing professional development (CPD) days. Teachers pay and conditions state that teachers should have up to 5 days set aside for CPD so each school will need to decide which 5 days to set aside outside the term dates. On the calendar we have also earmarked five days, which school governors and headteachers could consider setting as non-teaching days, alternatively the five training days can be disaggregated into the equivalent amount of time in after-school sessions.

This pattern provides more certainty for parents about holiday dates and is particularly helpful to parents with children at different schools and for school staff with childcare responsibilities. It is important that staff know as soon as possible when they will need to be available for CPD so they then know which holiday days are available to them. It would be helpful if you could let us know in due course which days you intend to use for CPD by returning the proforma attached here.