South African school calendar 2027: term dates and holidays

The 2027 South African public school year is two weeks shorter than 2026. Learners get 197 school days instead of 200, and the year ends a day earlier. If you are planning leave, childcare, flights or exam revision around the school calendar, those differences matter.

This page transcribes the gazetted calendar and explains where published sources disagree - because they do, and the difference is nine days in Term 3.

2027 public school term dates at a glance

Term	Learners open	Learners close	Weeks	School days
Term 1	Wed 13 January 2027	Fri 19 March 2027	10	48
Term 2	Tue 6 April 2027	Fri 25 June 2027	12	56
Term 3	Tue 20 July 2027	Wed 22 September 2027	10	46
Term 4	Tue 5 October 2027	Wed 8 December 2027	10	47
Total			42	197

Educators report on Monday 11 January 2027 and close on Friday 10 December 2027, which is 201 working days. The gazette prints educator dates in brackets next to the learner dates, and this catches people out every January: if you are a teacher, the 13 January date is not your reporting date.

School holidays in 2027

The four breaks total 87 days off, plus public holidays that fall inside term time.

Break	Dates	Days off	Learners return
Autumn	Sat 20 March – Mon 5 April 2027	17	Tue 6 April
Winter	Sat 26 June – Mon 19 July 2027	24	Tue 20 July
Spring	Thu 23 September – Mon 4 October 2027	12	Tue 5 October
Summer	From Thu 9 December 2027	-	Not yet gazetted

The autumn break is unusually long in 2027 - 17 days, compared with 11 days in 2026. That is not a policy change; it is simply where the dates fall. Term 1 ends earlier in 2027 (19 March versus 27 March) and Term 2 starts on 6 April, which is later than Easter.

The summer reopening date is not yet confirmed

The gazette confirms that learners close on 8 December 2027. It does not yet confirm when they return in January 2028, because the 2028 school calendar had not been published at the time of our last review. The Department of Basic Education has consistently started the year in the second week of January since 2024, so mid-January 2028 is the working assumption - but we have marked that as tentative rather than confirmed, and this page will be updated when the 2028 gazette appears.

Public holidays that affect the 2027 school year

Only three public holidays fall inside term time in 2027, which is part of why the year has a higher proportion of uninterrupted teaching weeks than 2026.

Date	Holiday	Falls during
Mon 22 March	Human Rights Day (observed)	Autumn break
Fri 26 March	Good Friday	Autumn break
Mon 29 March	Family Day	Autumn break
Mon 26 April	Special school holiday	Term 2
Tue 27 April	Freedom Day	Term 2
Sat 1 May	Workers’ Day	Term 2 (Saturday)
Wed 16 June	Youth Day	Term 2
Mon 9 August	National Women’s Day	Term 3
Fri 24 September	Heritage Day	Spring break
Thu 16 December	Day of Reconciliation	Summer break
Sat 25 December	Christmas Day	Summer break
Mon 27 December	Day of Goodwill (observed)	Summer break

Three rules explain the whole table, and once you know them you can work out any year yourself:

1. A public holiday that falls on a Sunday moves to the Monday. Section 2(1) of the Public Holidays Act 36 of 1994 says so. That is why Human Rights Day appears as Monday 22 March 2027 and the Day of Goodwill appears as Monday 27 December 2027.
2. A public holiday that falls on a Saturday does not move. There is no substitute day for a Saturday holiday. Workers’ Day 2027 is a Saturday, so Monday 3 May 2027 is an ordinary working day - despite what you may read elsewhere.
3. A special school holiday is not a public holiday. It closes schools only. Government departments, banks and most businesses remain open.

Where the published 2027 dates disagree

This is worth knowing because it will cost you time if you find the wrong table first.

The gazetted calendar (Government Gazette 52178 of 25 February 2025) sets Term 3 as 20 July to 22 September and Term 4 as 5 October to 8 December.

The general school calendar summary on gov.za has, for some time, listed Term 3 as ending 1 October (11 weeks, 54 days) and Term 4 as starting 11 October. Those figures do not add up to the published annual totals. The 2027 gazette states 42 weeks and 197 learner days; the gov.za summary rows, if used, would produce a different year length, and they match the 2025 calendar almost exactly - which strongly suggests the summary page is showing a stale row.

We follow the gazette, because it is the legal instrument and because its internal arithmetic reconciles. We have flagged the discrepancy rather than quietly picking a side, and the 2027 fetcher checks both pages so a correction is caught quickly.

Independent and private schools are different

The gazetted calendar binds public schools only. Independent schools are not required to follow it, and many do not.

Most independent schools belong to the Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa (ISASA), which publishes its own guidelines - commonly a three-term year or an adjusted four-term year. In 2027 the ISASA guidance suggests a three-term year running from mid-January to early December with a mid-year break in late June and July, but individual schools set their own terms and many deviate to match public exam dates.

If your child attends an independent school, the school’s own diary is the only authority. No general calendar, ours included, can tell you when that school closes.

How to use these dates

• Booking December travel. Learners finish on 8 December 2027. The first two weeks of December are still term time for Grade 7 and Grade 12 learners writing final assessments, so do not assume a December 1 departure works for everyone in the house.
• Planning leave. Use our long weekend planner to see which single leave days produce the longest breaks. In 2027 the highest-value leave days are 5–8 April (four days of leave for a nine-day break around Easter) and 28–30 April (three days of leave for a six-day break built around the special school holiday and Freedom Day).
• Revision planning. Term 3 ends 22 September and Term 4 opens 5 October, leaving Grade 12 learners with 12 days of study before the final stretch.
• Matric exam planning. The 2027 NSC timetable is published separately by the Department of Basic Education and is not part of the school calendar. See our matric exams and results page for the confirmed dates.

A note on what changed since the proposed calendar

The 2026 and 2027 calendars were published as drafts for comment in late 2024 and finalised in February 2025. Two things changed between the proposed and final versions:

• 2026 Term 3 moved from ending 2 October to ending 23 September, and Term 4 from starting 13 October to starting 6 October.
• 2027 Term 3 moved from ending 1 October to ending 22 September, and the total learner days dropped from 199 to 197.

If you downloaded a 2027 calendar before March 2025, it is probably the draft. Check the gazette number: the final 2027 calendar is in Gazette 52178.