Term start dates

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

There are restrictions on 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. If a course starts on 12 October 2023 and ends on 8 October 2024, we'll pay any funding within the academic year in which the course starts. In this example, we'll complete payments by 31 August.

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. This means that even if the term 3 start date falls on 1 or 2 April, we'll need to process the payments in March.

You should not set the term start and end dates for a Saturday or Sunday when the course does not start or end on either of those days.