October Half-Term 2026: A Fresh Start for Your Maktab or Madrasah

Think about the last few weeks.

A new intake of little ones who'd never held a Qa'idah before. Parents at the door asking which class their child is in. A register on paper, another in a spreadsheet, and a third in someone's head. The WhatsApp group buzzing at 10pm with "is maktab on tomorrow?" And somewhere in the middle of it all, you, trying to make sure every child gets a little closer to the Qur'an each week.

You do it because it matters. Every letter a child learns to read is a letter they may recite for the rest of their life. That's worth protecting. But it shouldn't have to come with this much admin.

October half-term is the pause. For most schools in England it runs from Monday 26 October to Friday 30 October 2026, and classes pick back up on Monday 2 November. It's the one week of the autumn term where nobody is chasing you, and it's the perfect time to set things up properly.

Why half-term is the right time to switch

Changing systems in the middle of a busy week never works. Changing them in September, when you're enrolling new students and settling classes, is even harder. Half-term is different.

• Your classes are already settled. You know who's in which group, so you're setting up what's real, not guessing.
• Teachers have a breather. They can log in, look around and feel ready before the children are back.
• Parents notice the difference straight away. They go on holiday with WhatsApp chaos and come back to a proper parent portal.
• It sets up the rest of the year. The stretch to winter is where routines stick. Start it right and it carries you through to Ramadan and beyond.

Set up in 10 to 20 minutes. Really.

We built Labbaik so that a maktab run by volunteers could get going in one sitting, with a cup of tea, no IT person required. No sales call. No demo you have to book. No onboarding engineer.

You sign up, tell us what kind of organisation you run, add your classes, import your students from a spreadsheet and invite your teachers. For most maktabs and madrasahs that's 10 to 20 minutes from start to finish. By the time half-term ends, your first register can be taken on a phone in a single tap.

Coming from e-Maktab, IBEAMS or a spreadsheet? You don't have to start from scratch. Hijrah by Labbaik moves your students, families, classes and payments across for you. Upload your files as they are, check everything before it goes live, and it's completely free.

For maktabs and madrasahs: Qa'idah to Hifz, one record

Every child's journey, kept in one place, from their very first lesson.

• One-tap attendance from the teacher's phone, with parents updated automatically.
• Progress from Qa'idah to Qur'an, with students moving up when they finish, so nobody slips through the gaps.
• Advanced Hifz tracking in under a minute: Sabak, Sabak Para and Dhor logged separately, surah by surah, with a live juz map.
• A parent portal with a magic link, no passwords. Parents see attendance, progress and teacher notes without having to ask.
• Fees with sibling discounts, collected by card or Direct Debit through Stripe, or recorded when parents pay in cash.
• Safeguarding and DBS records for every staff member, with alerts before anything expires.

See everything on our maktabs and madrasahs page.

For Darul Ulooms and Alimiyyah programmes

A Darul Uloom isn't a maktab with older students. You're teaching kitabs over years, across subjects, to students who are carrying this knowledge forward for the next generation. The tools should reflect that.

• Track every kitab, chapter by chapter. Upload any kitab in Arabic, Urdu or English and Labbaik breaks it into sections, so you can see exactly where each class and each student is.
• Subjects, exams and reports across every year of the Alimiyyah course, without a separate spreadsheet for every class.
• Ijazahs and sanad kept on each student's record, and anyone can confirm an ijazah is genuine by scanning its QR code.
• Adult learners welcome. Alimiyyah and Alimah students can register themselves and get their own progress updates, no parent account needed.

Read more on our Islamic institutes page.

For Islamic classes, online and in person

Not every class happens in a building. Tajweed over Zoom, an evening Arabic course for reverts, a sisters' halaqah after the kids are asleep. They all deserve the same care.

Connect your Zoom, and students get a WhatsApp message when class starts. They join from their student portal and are marked present automatically. Recordings come from your own Google Drive or Dropbox, and students only ever see the lessons you choose to share. We wrote more about this in online maktabs and madrasahs finally have a home.

Free on the Safar plan. Actually free.

Everything above is available on our Safar plan, and Safar has no monthly cost. No setup fee. No student cap. No card needed to sign up.

The only time Labbaik earns anything is if you choose to collect fees or donations by card through Stripe, where there's a small platform fee on those payments. Cash and bank transfers are never charged. If you don't collect through us, you pay us nothing. The full breakdown is on our pricing page.

We did it this way because most maktabs run on sadaqah, small fees and the goodwill of volunteers. Every pound you don't spend on software is a pound that can go on books, heating or a teacher's wage.

UK support from people who get it

Labbaik is built in the UK, by a team who understand how maktabs and madrasahs actually run. When you message us, you're talking to people who know what a Sabak Para is, why Dhor matters, and what the Monday after half-term feels like.

We're registered with the ICO and built for UK GDPR, payments are in pounds through Stripe, and student data is never sold. You can read more on our security page. And if you need a hand, you can reach us on WhatsApp or at [email protected].

Trusted by 75+ masajid & madrasahs

Organisations using Labbaik include Al-Bokhari Centre, Al Huda Academy, Ashrafia Madrasah Blackburn, Central Mosque Blackpool, Land of Knowledge, Jamia Islamia Ghausia Masjid, Lincoln Central Mosque & Cultural Centre, Madina Masjid Rochdale, Masjid Irshad, Ummah Masjid, Zakariyya Masjid.

Your half-term plan

If you only do one thing this half-term, make it this:

1. Before 26 October: create your free account. It takes a couple of minutes.
2. During half-term: upload your e-Maktab, IBEAMS or spreadsheet files to Hijrah and let it move your students, families, classes and payments across. Check everything, then invite your teachers.
3. Friday 30 October: send parents their portal link, so they're ready for Monday.
4. Monday 2 November: take your first register in one tap, and feel the difference.

The children coming through your doors after half-term are the imams, ustadhs, aalimahs and parents of tomorrow. The work you do with them is sadaqah jariyah. Let us take care of the admin, so you can give your time to what really matters: them.

Questions schools ask us