Late School Start Monday

Care* for

I don’t for football but I also don’t think an hour or so at the end of term makes a huge difference. I am happy to have a random Monday lie in so long as they don’t check whether the kids actually watched the game or not!

This was my initial thought as well.

Do they assume parents all just sit at home and take their kids into school whenever?

Well if England win it it will be the biggest tournament they have won since 1966 and the first time on foreign soil ,o imagine quite a few people will be celebrating.

They aren't doing this as a treat for the kids, to help out parents, or to spite those who have to go to work.

They'd just rather have more positive attendance data than it already start tailing off right at the start of the last week of term. This way more might still come in, just later.

One of the joys of being a child is the winding down of normal school routines in the last couple of weeks of term. These are some of my best school memories and I'm glad they are still happening.

*every 2 years

Probably lots of kids are tired at this stage of the term, depending on age I suppose. Late night might just be that step too far and I think it is reasonable to let kids watch. I don't like football but I do remember 1966 and my dad's excitement. Special memory for me as he was taken ill soon after and died 3 months later. Glad I watched it with him and he wasn't even English.

Obviously I'm hoping none of the kids have that particular bittersweet memory, just made me think of it.

Why would a football match make children late the next day?

Haven't RTFT so sorry if another poster has already said it. Imagine school starts at 8am. I send them to school at 7.30am as usual. At 10am, they haven't arrived and so school marks them absent. I get the absence notification at 10am and realise my kids have been AWOL for over 2 hours. How does the school know which kids are going to arrive late?

Also not fair on the kids who arrive on time that presumably no meaningful learning will start until 10am.

Yeah the hypocrisy would annoy me but it's one day! I think its nice 🙂

It’s not even starting that late though? It’s an 8pm kick off so unless extra time/penalties it’ll be over by 10pm or just after. I don’t get why they’d need to be in later for the sake of maybe an hour or two past their usual bedtimes 🤷‍♀️

They aren't having the day off, some children will do the full day. Seems a lot of drama about nothing much.

Where I am in England next week is the last week of school before they break up for the summer. They seem to have lots of fun stuff going on, trips, activities and videos. I can't see it being much of an issue. The week before GCSE or A level exams would be very different.

If they were closing the school till 10 it would be unreasonable but if you need/want your children there at the normal time just send them in.

I'm sure my sons school did this a few years back but can't recall what for but he never slept in after a late night anyway so would have been up at 5ish regardless! I think it's a nice idea, it's end of term anyway so they won't be doing much.

I think this is the thing that would rightly annoy people. If you said "we're getting back late from a family wedding, so can my child come in a bit late" it would probably be a firm no and an unauthorised absence. But because the reason is football, it's suddenly fine.

Same with the comments about children getting back late from a school trip but then being expected in.

I'm not English, I no longer live in England, I don't particularly watch much football. But I absolutely see no issue with this.

Our school is doing the same and I’m absolutely fuming. How can school justify it for a stupid football match but when they are so stuck on rules for things that I would say are more important to myself and us as a family it’s tough.
I’m all for relaxed rules as long as it’s consistent. We just now lie to school about anything we need to do as a family. I know a friend whose kids were refused an afternoon off to attend their parents wedding. It’s just so hypocritical and inconsistent.

My guess this is much less about the children and much more about parents not being able to get their hungover selves out of bed to get their dc to school on time, so it saves on the hassle of making all those phone calls to get everyone out of bed.

My dc won’t be up watching it (none of us care about football), but I can see how it does avoid a lot of aggro for the school. Though when ours didn’t get home until nearly 11pm from a school trip, there was no option for a late start.

I haven't heard if our school is doing this yet but if they are I will be making a complaint. My DS was off sick (in hospital) and I had a report saying his absence was putting his education at risk. I have cancelled a much needed break with my parents this week rather than take more time off for the kids or risk a fine. If every minute matters goes out the window for football I will be really pissed off. If people can't get themselves and their kids out of bed on Monday that's their issue and they should get an unauthorised absence with whatever penalty that might bring. I'm sick of the pandering to football, it never used to happen, but coupled with the grief people with genuine issues get, just enough. What about people with other interests? They don't get to turn in late after an event.

Well that would be stupid - they don’t host the superbowl at a time that would be handy for all those in the U.K. to be able to watch (not me, I don’t even know what sport that is but I know it’s a big deal to some people here 😂).

I think it’s a nice thing to offer, I don’t watch football and won’t be watching on Sunday night but Dh has invited both sides of our families round to watch with him and ds on Sunday night, it will be a late night but not much later than ds usually goes to sleep anyway. Although he would definitely appreciate being allowed a later start on Monday morning. No email about it though so guessing it’s not happening for him.

Im assuming if the parents have to be at work on normal time then their kids won’t be having a lie in 😂. They’ll drop their kids in at normal time.

I wouldn't be surprised if a message comes from our school to say same thing. It's not a huge deal but it I think it's a bit unreasonable.

Not that there seems to be much interest. Only chat there's been amongst the year 3 group has been a few of us confirming to each other last night that no, we weren't letting our 8 year olds stay up late and that all of them claiming they were the only ones hard done by and sent to bed were in fact wrong.

DS is more interested in Jimmy's last test match (as are DH and I) which he's able to watch at a civilised time now!

I don't know how accurate it is because I didn't look into it - but I read that the Euros have a reasonable American audience, so the timings are to help with that as well, so the matches aren't in the morning on the West coast.