THE holiday headache facing local parents with children attending schools in more than one local authority could finally be given some welcome relief.

Parents may no longer be forced to take one of their youngsters out of school during term time so that the whole family can holiday together.

Schools across Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset are poised to set identical term dates under the Standard School Year scheme following overwhelming support from parents and locals.

Some 87 per cent of people taking part in the cross-authority consultation are in favour of the Standard School Year to create six terms a year of roughly equal length plus the traditional six-week summer holiday.

Education bosses at County Hall are being recommended, when they meet on Monday, to adopt the new term structure from 2008, subject to agreement from schools chiefs in Bournemouth and Poole.

Education authorities in Devon, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Somerset have already embraced the new term structure, which is being promoted nationally by the Local Government Association (LGA).

Stephen Prewitt, Dorset's director of children's services, says the county, Bournemouth and Poole want to co-operate over term changes "because of the large number of pupils who cross boundaries between the three authorities to attend school".

"There is a concern that where term dates do not match across authorities, there will be tendency for parents to take children out of school during term time and that increased absence for holidays will have an adverse impact on teaching and learning," he said.

Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole currently set their school term and holiday dates according to a three-term year, the length and timing of the second and third terms being determined by the time of Easter.

When Easter is early, the second term is short; when Easter is late, the second term is long. This means that the school terms are of varying length, and half terms can be as short as three weeks.

When Easter falls particularly early or later under the three-term pattern, dates between local authorities cannot be synchronised and this causes terrible problems for parents.

More than 7,700 parents, schools, governors, PTA's and representatives from local tourism and commerce associations took part in the consultation before Christmas, and 6,728 voted in favour of the changes.

"The decision on this will be made at Poole council on March 27 and the recommendation is the same as Dorset's," said a spokesman from Poole education authority.

"The only sticking point could be Easter but we will have to meet that problem if and when it occurs although it wouldn't be very often."

"But whatever happens we have all already agreed to set the same term dates."

Under the Standard School Year proposals each LEA in England will ensure that the school year is consistently and predictably divided into six blocks of roughly even length which are more evenly distributed throughout the year.

There would be two, approximately seven-week learning blocks before Christmas followed by four, approximately six-week blocks afterwards.

The spring break is fixed and taken around the first two weeks of April irrespective of the timing of Easter.

Where the break does not coincide with Easter Bank Holiday the date should be, as far as practicable, nationally agreed and as consistent as possible across all local authorities, says the LGA. The longer summer holiday remains.

Marilyn Richards, communications officer at Bournemouth, said: "Bournemouth has joined with Poole and Dorset to consult on support for moving to a standardized pattern of school term dates. We will now discuss the results with the cabinet member for Children and Families Services and prepare a report with a recommendation for members to be considered in April."