Taking kids out of school for a term

I know someone who took their children out for half a term to travel and when they got back, there was still a place for one child at the school, but not for the other in a different year group. They ended up having to go to another school on the other side of town and leave their class friendship group. It was also very inconvenient for the family trying to get two primary age children to school for 8.45am in different directions.

all you can do is ask OP. It may be a non issue and they can come off roll for 6 weeks and back when you return, but I doubt they’ll be able to guarantee it. I’d imagine they’d give an honest answer.
having worked in schools and know the pressure from above on attendance, I think it would be unfair to just take them away for 6 weeks whilst on roll. I think the trip is a great idea but the price of that may be risking their place.

Max id take them out is a week either side of Easter or Christmas so you have a month.

I hope you don't expect their teachers to help them catch up.

They can go
You can keep up with some learning books paper pen local school
But they will not a school place open for them

Also this!

If you have settled status you can legally live out of the UK for a whole 5 years and still come back I think without losing your status.

Since we are guess location I’m going rural South America which becomes hard/impossible to travel due to it being winter there.

Ņothing to add school wise it has already been covered.

What a load of codswallop. What about all the Traveller children who move around and dip in and out of education.

Have you looked at the stats for kids of travellers, some of the worst educational outcomes in the whole country. Last time I looked over 60% over 16 had no qualifications (nearly 3x the rest of the population!). I’m not sure this is the model the OP should be following (and yes I know her kids are younger but if you’re saying you can just miss as much school
as you want with no consequence this is clearly not the case).

There's the theory and there's real life. OP, your family are your family and need to see your children. You want your children to know your culture and place of birth.

UK schools are working in an incredibly bureaucratic system driven by targets. You won't get any sympathy from school or teachers who again are measured against checkboxes and targets but just do it anyway - declare yourself to be homeschooling, try to keep them up to speed. Put them back in school the following year.
If your children could attend school in your country - even better.

The biggest risk, as some say, is that they end up at different schools. Would you be able to cope with that?

Why is it a once in a lifetime? Cost?

I think it's irresponsible. The teachers will have to provide extra support when they return so they catch up, if they ever do (yours are young so they could). It sends the wrong message about the importance of education. Surely the six weeks of the summer holiday is plenty of time? I think it's a shame that parents increasingly sanction absence from school as if it is optional.

Could you not go for 8 weeks, and miss the last week of summer and the start of autumn terms?

Is the country one where FGM is prevalent, and do you have a daughter? If so, the school will likely contact the police/social services if you try to leave for an extended period.

”Traveller” is a protected characteristic. We have to use a specific code for absences that we have to authorise due to this protected characteristic. Appleby Fair for instance. When they are “we’re taking them home to Ireland for a while” and it exceeds 20 days we have to report it to the LA and they are CME.

Sounds very unlikely that the head would agree.

I think you’d need to deregister them and re-apply for your place on your return but don’t be surprised if this is a bit of a pain. If relationships with the school have soured they won’t make it easy for you. If the class has filled whilst you’re away they won’t be able to go back to their old school- they’d have to start in a new school and go on the waiting list. It’s pretty easy to work out how likely this is- I’d say that if the current classes your kids are in have 25 or less kids in, likely that there is no waiting list and you’ll get a place as soon as you get back. If the classes are currently full (29/30 kids) chances are there will be a waiting list and the class will be filled by someone else once you leave.

I don’t think the school is able to hold the place legally if your kids aren’t attending- the school gets money for each child on roll so it needs its places filled.

TBH I think this is all a bit crazy, as others have said what about the lessons they’ll miss. Are you going to do schooling whilst away? And even if they get the connection again now, are you going to risk doing it every few years as exactly the same thing will happen again (what about exam years).

I agree with others who said do month over Easter which is probably less than 10 days absence and pay the fine.

You should absolutely go for it! They are not missing anything in Reception and Year 4 that they won’t gain from cultural experience.

Go for it and enrol them when you return - it might be easier to get the schools blessing even if you have to enrol them again in case they get funny about it. What an experience for your DC!

What a load of codswallop. What about all the Traveller children who move around and dip in and out of education.

Have we guessed Philippines or Indonesia yet? Not that it matters, just playing along.

@Whenthechipshitthefan

Your kids can have whatever experience you want them to have but you just need to be prepared for the fact that the school will cancel their places & there's no guarantee they'll get them back on their return. Times have changed & that's all there is to it.

This. Although OP may not realise how disadvantaged children may be by missing half a term at any age. Don't be surprised if the children are then behind the rest of the class.
I once had a conversation with a head teacher who was very concerned that just one family with children who were behind could drag down school's ofsted results. This was a school who bent over backwards to help children who needed it, but the amount of work was not reflected / understood in ofsted report.

Still being very coy re where they want to go but this does not stop me thinking that Summer hols would be the best time - if they want children to learn about the culture that could include seeing how people deal with that time of year.
Maybe relatives could visit UK at other times.

Remove them from roll and say you will home school. That will deal with the fine issue and won’t cause absence issues for them.
Then reenroll when you return and hope there are places.

We had a Y9/10 student do this last academic year for 1 term. But it was a condition that the other school send regular attendance updates. That allows the educated elsewhere mark to be confirmed.

I’m in Ireland and it’s not uncommon to do that here, especially in Primary school. Unless you live in the city where schools might be oversubscribed, you’re unlikely to lose your school place. I know a couple of parents who have done this.

I wondered something similar about taking my children out from school Our local authority won’t let families do it, however if you are part of the travelling community you can do it

We did this. Impossible to go in the summer because of mudslides and it takes 2-3 days of travelling at the best of times (3 flights and a long train journey). So we left at start of Feb half term and returned at the end of Easter holidays. Head couldn't/wouldn't keep the space for us, but fortunately we got both DC into the same school. Had to wait a week for DC2 but were confident it wouldn't be long as there were a group of travellers who used to come and go. So she had an extra week at home before they moved on. DC1 was year 4, DC2 was year 1. School didn't give us any work, but we used the time to get DC2 reading as she wasn't managing with phonics (hearing loss). She left on 2nd reading band and returned on the last one (8 or 10?). So I don't think it affected education in the slightest. There was much staff sulking before we left, but no one had any grounds to complain when we returned - there is so much timewasting at primary, that it doesn't take much effort to keep up/get ahead. Bought some maths workbooks from poundland for both DC as well. Much harder to take the time out as they children get older and school becomees more rigid, so I'm really glad we took the opportunity when we did.

You can do this in Scotland. I appreciate it's no help to you. We did this for for 10 weeks over the winter, either side of the Xmas holidays. It didn't harm the DC at all in terms of their learning. In fact, they learnt so much while we were away.