Councils across Scotland can request up to two additional in-service days during the 2026–27 school year to give teachers time to prepare for curriculum changes. The agreement does not mean that two extra days off have been fixed for every pupil.
The Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers, which brings together the Scottish Government, council body COSLA and teaching unions, agreed the additional days as part of longer-term support for the updated curriculum. On in-service days, staff work on training and preparation while schools are closed to pupils.
Individual councils will decide the dates locally. Education Secretary Màiri McAllan has encouraged them to align any additional days with existing school holidays to reduce disruption. Permission for the days will be granted under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980.
Glasgow City Council welcomed the provision for two extra days and said it would work with staff, young people and parents to identify suitable dates. Its response did not specify those dates. Elsewhere, families will need to look for decisions from their own local authority or school rather than assume that the same dates will apply across Scotland.
Time to prepare for curriculum changes
The training time is intended to help staff engage with draft materials for a refreshed curriculum, whose formal adoption is due to begin in August 2028. Education Scotland, the national education agency, says the work is designed to evolve Curriculum for Excellence rather than replace it wholesale.
Some of the existing structure is expected to remain. That includes the eight curriculum areas and the entitlement to a broad general education from the early years to the end of S3. The senior phase, which includes qualifications, also remains.
One proposed change is a move towards a framework describing what learners should know, do and understand. From August 2028, the existing experiences and outcomes and benchmarks will start to be withdrawn and replaced by that model. The intention is to provide clearer guidance on progression through the curriculum levels and support planning for learning, teaching and assessment.
The government says the draft materials were developed with input from more than 1,500 primary and secondary teachers, early learning practitioners and other experts, including people working in Gaelic-medium education. More than 3,800 teachers, practitioners, council education leads and experts have registered an interest in reviewing the drafts and offering feedback.
What happens next
The current materials are drafts, not the final curriculum. A sample of teachers and other practitioners is being asked for feedback before more developed versions are made available for wider engagement at the end of January 2027. Final versions of the main curriculum frameworks are expected in May 2027.
The reform is planned to be phased in. Government policy sets out implementation from the beginning of the 2028–29 academic year for Early through Third Level, with adoption for Fourth Level and beyond in 2029–30. National qualifications at levels 4 and 5 are expected to align with the revised curriculum from 2031.
A short-term group involving councils, unions and the government is also to assess what further support schools and teachers need. A route map is expected early next year. That work is separate from the agreement for up to two additional days in the current school year and does not itself confirm dates or numbers of extra days in later years.
Before the agreement, the Educational Institute of Scotland said some teachers had been unable to take part in curriculum development because of difficulties providing cover in schools. The union argued that reform risked adding to workload unless enough additional training time was made available.
Greg Dempster, general secretary of the Association of Headteachers and Deputes Scotland, welcomed the agreement, describing preparation time as essential for school leaders and their teams. He said work was under way to seek agreement on further development days in subsequent years.
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