Time off secondary..to say anything?

gabyjane

Ok won't reply individually as will take all night but thanks for all the replies despite some of them being a little OTT!!

Ok yes we booked the last holiday knowing we were going yes BUT it is due to dh only having certain months of during the year and me being a childminder so putting all the parents and children first..maybe i shouldn't?!.. also i am a decent parent who never lets dd have time off and as already said she has always had a very high attandance and is top at most things so i'm not harming her in anyway.
The letter to the lady who needs it will be done tonight and dd can take in tom. The reason i didn't think of the time off is it's a suprise for dh which took a lot of sorting for his work, my other job, the cats being sorted..etc..completely forgot about school stupidly and i then left it and they booked up so had to take the weekdays instead..i then clicked it would involve days off and it was too late..it is only though 2 days.

Again thanks for your help..i guess i know we are doing wrong but i have to!

mico62

By law schools may authorise up to 10 days in a school year any more would be recorded as unauthorised but as they're in different years you should be ok so I'd submit the form now. I work in a school and requests have to be made 6 wks in advance, the head usually authorises them except when you get to Y10 & 11 and this is mainly due to controlled assessments for GCSEs.

All schools are different though and my kids' school has a zero tolerance except in exceptional circumstances, eg if a parent is allocated holidays in term time they must provide proof from their employer.

bonty44

susieb wrote: »

I would not mind them being stroppy over time off, if it applied to teachers as well. My dd is in year 8, and last year had cover teachers for many lessons, cover teachers do their best but they dont even follow the work set by the ill teacher.
Some days out of 5 lessons, 3 were cover!
They are quick to send a letter home if attendance falls below 96%, hope the teachers get something similar.

Was waiting for a comment like this about teachers

Why are teachers not supposed to be ill? Logically we are more likely to be ill than a number of jobs because of the contact we have with large numbers of children. The number of times I have had to phone a parent to take home a child who has a raging temperature / been sick in class / not been able to get their head off a table, and the number of times said children have told me that they had told their parents how they felt before they got ready for school!!! At the end of the day, we all do our best, don't we? It took a good five years for my immune system to be strong enough to shrug off most of the bugs circulating about the school. Also, it is not the teachers who set the attendance rules.

Spendless

bonty44 wrote: »

Was waiting for a comment like this about teachers

Why are teachers not supposed to be ill? Logically we are more likely to be ill than a number of jobs because of the contact we have with large numbers of children. The number of times I have had to phone a parent to take home a child who has a raging temperature / been sick in class / not been able to get their head off a table, and the number of times said children have told me that they had told their parents how they felt before they got ready for school!!! At the end of the day, we all do our best, don't we? It took a good five years for my immune system to be strong enough to shrug off most of the bugs circulating about the school. Also, it is not the teachers who set the attendance rules.

and just like you have pointed out, there's 2 sides to each story.:) My eldest told me he 'felt sick' this morning. Having given him the benefit aof the doubt too many times last year -only to have him bouncing round the living room around 10am with nothing wrong. I told him 'tuff' he was going in-I was going to work. Mr S is away o/night in London. Grandmother is elderly, FIL has had a stroke, MIL is on holiday, neice is back at Uni and my parents and both sets of sisters work. IF he WAS genuinely sick school would have to ring me and then I would arrange to come home.
Around 10 minutes later he announced 'I'm ok now - I just burped!!!!'
Had it been genuine illness he would have told his teacher the same story your pupils do.

Savvy_Sue

bonty44 wrote: »

The number of times I have had to phone a parent to take home a child who has a raging temperature / been sick in class / not been able to get their head off a table, and the number of times said children have told me that they had told their parents how they felt before they got ready for school!!!

Spendless wrote: »

and just like you have pointed out, there's 2 sides to each story.:) My eldest told me he 'felt sick' this morning. Having given him the benefit aof the doubt too many times last year -only to have him bouncing round the living room around 10am with nothing wrong. I told him 'tuff' he was going in-I was going to work. Mr S is away o/night in London. Grandmother is elderly, FIL has had a stroke, MIL is on holiday, neice is back at Uni and my parents and both sets of sisters work. IF he WAS genuinely sick school would have to ring me and then I would arrange to come home.
Around 10 minutes later he announced 'I'm ok now - I just burped!!!!'
Had it been genuine illness he would have told his teacher the same story your pupils do.

What she said ... :rotfl:

Going back to the OP: you need to find out how the system works, and follow it. It seems you have got forms for next year, but if you need forms for this year as well, you need to know how to ask for them.

I say this as someone who worked through the following fiasco (but only once!):

1. Write and say "DS1 will not be in school on X date because of a family celebration which it has not been possible to arrange during school holidays". Give this letter to DS1 to give to his tutor.
2. DS1 says "that letter won't do, you have to fill in a form."
3. Ask DS1 to go to school office to request a form.
4. DS1 reports that he cannot be given a form: I need to write to his tutor and ask for a form.
5. I write to DS1's tutor: "DS1 will not be in school on X date because of a family celebration which it has not been possible to arrange during school holidays. Please let me have a form for this."
6. Eventually DS1 comes home with the form. I complete it and send it back.
7. I wait to hear whether 'permission' has been granted, and hear nothing. Nothing at all, not even "Your child's education is very important and you really shouldn't do this but just this once."

I might not have minded so much, but the day off I was 'requesting' for him was Sports Day. Shoot me down in flames, in subsequent years I phoned him in sick on the day, because a) having gone to those lengths in order to hear nothing it didn't seem worth the effort and b) if I had sent him to school on Sports Day he would have come home ill (or drowned) from the combination of sun and hayfever! And I told his tutor as much when I saw him later.

And yes, it was only in the first year that we had a genuine family celebration, but as Sports Day at that school always coincided with an INSET day at the primary school, it was a good weekend to get away for.

Oldernotwiser

I agree that you need to speak to the school in advance but you should remember that you're asking for permission to take her out of school, not just telling them that this is what's going to happen! If you try this they will be within their rights to count it as unauthorised, even if this is the only time you're taking her out this year.

Emmylou_2

Spendless wrote: »

and just like you have pointed out, there's 2 sides to each story.:) My eldest told me he 'felt sick' this morning. Having given him the benefit aof the doubt too many times last year -only to have him bouncing round the living room around 10am with nothing wrong. I told him 'tuff' he was going in-I was going to work. Mr S is away o/night in London. Grandmother is elderly, FIL has had a stroke, MIL is on holiday, neice is back at Uni and my parents and both sets of sisters work. IF he WAS genuinely sick school would have to ring me and then I would arrange to come home.
Around 10 minutes later he announced 'I'm ok now - I just burped!!!!'
Had it been genuine illness he would have told his teacher the same story your pupils do.

My mum was smart. I think it has something to do with me being no4...

If I was "better" by 10.30, I'd go into school at morning break. If I was better by 1.00, I'd go into school at lunchtime

I learned not to be "better" until 3.00 :rotfl:

balletshoes

We weren't allowed out of our beds if we were too ill to go to school - no tv, nothing to do but sleep. So if we weren't really poorly, it was very very boring at home. I follow the same rule with my DD if I'm in any doubt at all that she's not really too ill to go to school. She rarely asks to stay off school ill .

Spendless

Emmylou wrote: »

My mum was smart. I think it has something to do with me being no4...

If I was "better" by 10.30, I'd go into school at morning break. If I was better by 1.00, I'd go into school at lunchtime

I learned not to be "better" until 3.00 :rotfl:

I did ask in the end if I could send him back later in the day if he had 'recovered'. I know when I was at school you could go in for the afternoon if something had prevented you being there in the morning (I'm talking the 70s tho) but din't know if these things had changed. Anyway when the school sec said I could, I have sent him back in.

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

What she said ... :rotfl:

Going back to the OP: you need to find out how the system works, and follow it. It seems you have got forms for next year, but if you need forms for this year as well, you need to know how to ask for them.

I say this as someone who worked through the following fiasco (but only once!):

1. Write and say "DS1 will not be in school on X date because of a family celebration which it has not been possible to arrange during school holidays". Give this letter to DS1 to give to his tutor.
2. DS1 says "that letter won't do, you have to fill in a form."
3. Ask DS1 to go to school office to request a form.
4. DS1 reports that he cannot be given a form: I need to write to his tutor and ask for a form.
5. I write to DS1's tutor: "DS1 will not be in school on X date because of a family celebration which it has not been possible to arrange during school holidays. Please let me have a form for this."
6. Eventually DS1 comes home with the form. I complete it and send it back.
7. I wait to hear whether 'permission' has been granted, and hear nothing. Nothing at all, not even "Your child's education is very important and you really shouldn't do this but just this once."

I might not have minded so much, but the day off I was 'requesting' for him was Sports Day. Shoot me down in flames, in subsequent years I phoned him in sick on the day, because a) having gone to those lengths in order to hear nothing it didn't seem worth the effort and b) if I had sent him to school on Sports Day he would have come home ill (or drowned) from the combination of sun and hayfever! And I told his tutor as much when I saw him later.

And yes, it was only in the first year that we had a genuine family celebration, but as Sports Day at that school always coincided with an INSET day at the primary school, it was a good weekend to get away for.

I'm guessing this was some time ago with you putting DS1?
My kids school you only heard something back if it wasn't ok. If it was you heard nothing.:D I was 'enlightened' by other mums who had kids/step-kids older than mine. Only in more recent years did you get an authorised/not authorised copy of the form back- probably around the time that LA's started imposing fines.

Savvy_Sue

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

I agree that you need to speak to the school in advance but you should remember that you're asking for permission to take her out of school, not just telling them that this is what's going to happen! If you try this they will be within their rights to count it as unauthorised, even if this is the only time you're taking her out this year.

True enough, but if you ask for permission to do something, you expect to be told whether you've got it or not! It was my experience that I wasn't told whether I had permission or not. If it's not a two way process, I'll do it my way!