Term start dates

Your term dates should be linked to the season your course begins.

There are restrictions to how early a term can begin. This is to make sure students’ payments are spread out throughout the academic year.

Academic year start: Autumn (August to December)

Term 1 start no earlier than 1 August

Term 2 start no earlier than 1 January

Term 3 start no earlier than 1 April

Academic year start: Winter (January to March)

Term 1 start no earlier than 1 January

Term 2 start no earlier than 1 April

Term 3 start no earlier than 1 July

Academic year start: Spring (April to June)

Term 1 start no earlier than 1 April

Term 2 start no earlier than 1 July

Term 3 start no earlier than 1 January

Academic year start: Summer (July)

Term 1 start no earlier than 1 July

Term 2 start no earlier than 1 January

Term 3 start no earlier than 1 April

We will not make payments to students beyond the end of the academic year of study. If a student starts a course on 12 October 2022 and ends on 8 October 2023, we'll pay any funding due within the academic year in which the course starts. In this case, we'll complete payments by 31 August.

You can compress the term dates in the final course year into the remaining period of attendance.

If a bank holiday falls at the beginning of April, the term 3 start date must be no earlier than 3 April. Our system schedules payments before the bank holiday, so even if a term 3 start date falls on 1 or 2 April, the payments will need to be processed in March.

This also applies to January start dates which can be affected by the New Year bank holiday. Please take care to enter term dates after this bank holiday if students are not in attendance.

If you enter a term start or end date that's on a weekend, the system will ask you to confirm this is correct before it lets you save the course.