UK Bank Holidays and Shared Parenting

Bank holidays normally land on Fridays or Mondays, creating long weekends. Most schools, shops and banks close or operate at reduced hours.

This can be a welcome departure from routine, as it allows you to spend quality time with your child when they're not preoccupied with school and extracurricular activities.

However, departing from your normal residence and contact schedule can cause conflict over shared parenting and make holidays stressful.

To avoid this, make a holiday schedule with the other parent, and add it to your UK parenting plan. You can handle each bank holiday and special occasion however you agree: alternate which parent gets it, let one parent have it every year, share it, etc.

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Bank holidays

The bank holidays to include in your schedule are:

The U.K. government website has a list of bank holidays updated with the dates for each year.

Other special occasions

Bank holidays are in addition to inset (in-service) days, which you should also plan for in your shared parenting schedule.

Other occasions you may want to add to your schedule include:

  • Your child's birthday
  • Parents' birthdays
  • Religious holidays, such as Easter
  • Burns Night — 25th January (Scotland)
  • St. David's Day — 1st March (Wales)
  • Mother's Day — fourth Sunday of Lent
  • Father's Day — third Sunday of June
  • Guy Fawkes Night — 5th November
  • Remembrance Sunday — second Sunday of November
  • Christmas Eve — 24th December

The easiest way to make a holiday contact schedule

There's a lot to think about when you build a holiday schedule. You'll want it to address weekend and midweek holidays, reflect special occasions unique to your family (like birthdays) and work for years to come.

The Custody X Change app makes it easy. Just open your Custody X Change calendar and follow our steps to make a holiday schedule.


You can customize this to fit your situation with Custody X Change.

To make a residence and contact schedule quickly and affordably, turn to Custody X Change. In no time, you'll have written and visual versions that include the holidays you care about.

Visualise your schedule. Get a written parenting plan. Calculate your parenting time.

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Six reasons to use Custody X Change

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Our detailed visuals and plans make it easier to reach consensus.

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