term time school hols (yes, again!)

tonydee

Spendless wrote: »

Is it because it is 11 days? I'm sure the holiday form says something along the lines of head teachers have the discretion to authorise upto 10 days holiday.

Hi, The only reason given was that the Government discourage holidays during term time. However reading this thread it would seem anything over 10 days is an instant decline.

We'll try and prove that she'll be learning from the country we're going to and stress the fact that we're unable to have a family holiday during the summer holidays.

We're going in 2 weeks :T

amandada

I've taken my dd out for a couple of days on a couple of occasions, but the way I've dealt with it is to TELL, not ASK the school, and I write the letter in such a way that it's almost "challenge me if you dare". I've never had any comeback or feedback from the school yet, so I presume they're ok with it!

BernadetteN

Our eldest son has just started grammar school and he has against him 1 1/2 days unauthorised absence already for a holiday we are starting just before October half term (flight only leaves on a Thursday so he has to lose 1 1/2 days before half term starts). Over the previous 7 years at school, he was taken out for a total of 3 days for holidays, he was turned away from school for 5 days (still had to go there every day to drop off younger brother) because he had a broken leg and couldn't get used to crutches and was ill for around 5 days, making 13 days absence over the 7 years. So his absence record as actually rather good. Furthermore, we have not been able to go on holiday as a family together during the Spring and Summer holidays this year as his dad was working as a diplomat abroad which meant dad was not available! So we have good reasons to take our son out of school for 1 1/2 days but the school's policy is no authorised absences so unauthorised absence it will be instead.

Zziggi

If a child has to take a morning (or part of a morning) off due to a medical appointment, what is that classed as authorised or unauthorised?

My DS has ALOT of hospital appointments, we always inform the school before hand and explain they are hospital appointments. I just wondered whether these are logged as authorised or unauthorised.

I'd have a serious word with the Head if we asked for a few days off for a holiday only to find his illnesses were used against him in the decision for holiday time (discrimination??)

Mumstheword

medical appointments will be classed as authorised...as long as you inform the school in enough time to authorise them lol!

I wouldnt care so much about what it looked like to have time off both sick and hols, but I would worry that they'd already been out of school for medical reasons and try not to take any other time out. Do you help your child to catch up on missed work (for hols) at home? i dont see a problem if you do. But if you just send them back in the following week and expect teacher to play catch up with them, then that takes gives teacher extra work and takes them away from the rest of the class which isnt fair:)

My oldest spent almost a third of one year off for medical reasons. He was still learning at home with me, and I made every effort to help him so that he didnt fall behind, for his own sake. i wouldnt have dreamt of taking him out for holidays too tho, but that's my personal choice:)

Zziggi

Mumstheword wrote: »

medical appointments will be classed as authorised...as long as you inform the school in enough time to authorise them lol!

I wouldnt care so much about what it looked like to have time off both sick and hols, but I would worry that they'd already been out of school for medical reasons and try not to take any other time out. Do you help your child to catch up on missed work (for hols) at home? i dont see a problem if you do. But if you just send them back in the following week and expect teacher to play catch up with them, then that takes gives teacher extra work and takes them away from the rest of the class which isnt fair:)

My oldest spent almost a third of one year off for medical reasons. He was still learning at home with me, and I made every effort to help him so that he didnt fall behind, for his own sake. i wouldnt have dreamt of taking him out for holidays too tho, but that's my personal choice:)

Thanks mumstheword.

I always ask the teacher to let me know what DS has missed and i will make sure the work is completed at home. Last year DS was in Reception so she always told me nothing was missed. My question about illness + holidays was only a hypothetical question. DS misses a fair few half-days due to medical appointments, i wouldn't want to take him out of school for a holiday, but i was interested to know what the situation was incase i ever did.

System

in the infants school my daughter had a series of illnesses in a 2 month period all could be checked via doctors i recieved a letter from LEA raising their concerns over her abscences yet another girl had 2 wks hol every year [ still does] without any hassle. school have added 2 inset days onto the end of the xmas hols , just as well my hols run from jan 1st !

tonydee

I think the craziest thing is that the Government expect us to take our children on hols during the summer holidays yet still proceed with teacher training days during school term!?! Hypocrytical don't you think?

~daisy~_2

my children are 9 and 11 - when my eldest started school we used to take her out for the last week of summer term so we got a part cheaper holiday and said we would stop as she got older

unfortunately we havent stopped but we tag our week onto may half term now instead

its purely the price of the holidays that pushes us to do this

last may we were due to fly to portugal on the sat before half term - we were booking flights as soon as they were released from easyjet and they wanted £336 per person one way - purely down to it being half term i presume
we rang the guy who owned our apartment and managed to move it up to the thursday and paid £84 each instead

this is why parent will continue to do this

RHemmings

bylromarha wrote: »

Don't you think it's a silly system though? instead of creating ill feeling in schools, with parents and heads being pitted against each other, government should do something about this sort of unauthorised absence by regulating the travel industry's price increases?

I know in my head that it's supply and demand, but I knew families I taught that could only afford to holiday in the UK in term time. Should they be fined too?

It would be better, I think, to have school holidays at different times for different schools. There would definitely be some additional planning for individual schools, but would solve other problems as well. For example, parents who work part time wouldn't all disappear from the workplace at once. There wouldn't suddenly be large numbers of kids out and about during the day all at once, and other advantages.