Explanatory note

The Education (School Day and School Year) (Wales) Regulations 2003 apply to schools maintained by local education authorities and to special schools (whether or not so maintained). They make provision (among other things) for a school day which is ordinarily to be divided into two sessions (with a break in the middle), and for schools (other than nursery schools) to meet for at least 380 sessions during any school year. Regulation 5 of those Regulations (which is now spent) provided for specified numbers of school sessions in the 2003/4, 2004/5, 2005/6 school years devoted to specified forms of teacher training to count as sessions on which the school met.

These Regulations substitute a new regulation 5 which, in broad terms, provides for up to four sessions in each of the 2006/7 and 2007/8 school years to count as sessions on which the school met if they were devoted to the provision of certain forms of training. Broadly, the forms of training which count are training relating to–

• the preparation and implementation of plans aimed at facilitating the transition of pupils between key stages and between primary school and secondary school ( including, in the latter case, the statutory plans required to be drawn up under section 198 of the Education Act 2002),

• forthcoming changes in the National Curriculum, and

• the Assembly’s plans for extending learning options for 14- 19 year olds.