To think we can’t take the children out of school just to spend Christmas with DHs family

But attendance at religious occasions with family
members in a foreign country isn’t learning?

As someone working in education, I'd say do it now and maybe even for the next 2-5 years (assuming attendance is up in the late 90's usually) but make it clear it can't happen towards secondary school.

My father is South African and his sisters live in Australia. We used to all meet up in Cape Town over the winter holidays for a month when the school holidays were 3 weeks, also private school. Albeit it wasn’t every year, more like every other and we stopped going when I was about 9 as my grandparents who lived there passed away. Bu it made no noticeable difference to my schooling. I would definitely continue to go.

That's my point though. It's not attendance per se. It's learning. Attendance is learning.

Being so preoccupied with attendance that you consistently miss out on important family events is absolutely presenteeism.

'Presenteeism' . Attending school is now presenteeism ? Oh, come on. That really is a stretch.

I would take them out. I see p problem with a few days at he start of the school year. Especially when they’re in primary school.

Go and visit relatives that you have no relationship with and learn about the culture you've got no connection to because you've missed the main family occasion every year due to presenteeism at school? No thanks, OP go and enjoy. Maybe not every year, but a few days of school every other year is really not the end of the world.

Ha. Fair enough. 😂

I’m not sure you can comment on other people’s typos 😬

Im sure they do.
Not me though.
Any teacher i found patronising thought they were amazing also.

Actually, I was a dedicated teacher, who really cared about kids developing skills and knowledge to the best ofvtheircability. I'mnot patronising. There do seem to be some people on here who come up with the stereotype of the 'patronising teacher ' as a kind of knee jerk.

Firstly, are you sure it would be a whole week missed? My DC are at private prep school and don’t go back until Jan 8th this year.

But in any case I would be happy for my young DC to miss a bit of school for this reason. It’s unlikely to have any long-term detrimental impact on their education at early primary school age, and if you are really concerned you could always get a tutor during the holidays to keep them up to speed.

However I think your DH will need to acknowledge that as the children get older it may become more problematic - exams years etc.

I would go with a compromise- the first couple of years in school won’t really matter especially if you do some reading with them when you’re away.
After that maybe do every other year, or years where they aren’t going to miss as many days. For example my DD isn’t back until the 6th this year so would only end up missing a couple of days.

When they get to secondary age you won’t be able to from year 10 onwards because they have exams after Christmas.

Do it - other language and culture and family is so important. Only time you might have to reconsider is if mock exams are straight after Xmas.

Which part are you struggling with?

Interestingly, despite draconian absence policies and a pervading culture of presenteeism England has some of the lowest productivity metrics in the developed world.
Thankfully my trilingual kids will have the option to work and bring up their families elsewhere!

Oh no. So ashamed. Back to my cave

Its funny how some people are obsessed that the odd day off will ruin chuldrens education

But the same concern isn't shown for children not in school as despite following the correct procedures their parents can't find a school place for them.

My eldest missed a whole half term waiting for a school place. (Before the appeal board found in our favour in less than 5 minutes for the school our younger DD has been allocated as it clearly said she should have been offered one as well).

Yes, because spelling and grammar aren't at all important, are they. We wouldn't want to do anything as crass as make ourselves understood on paper. God. Perish the thought.

Or those of us who went to English schools 20 years ago where this wasn’t a ‘thing’! It’s a very recent and random policy that has no scientific basis (the evidence is that absence is correlated with low attendance not that absence of otherwise typical kids going on a family holiday causes low attainment. It’s more to do with unmet SEN and other social ills). I just can’t see it still being in place in 10 years. It’s so unpopular it’s amazing no government hasn’t scrapped it for pure democratic reasons already. But Labour is rather determined to shoot itself in the foot by continuing all the most unpopular Tory policies…

Following her petty jibe about us ‘forcing ourselves’ on our family, are you surprised? You know someone has lost an argument when they resort to personal insults.

Pretty low road to take, criticising spelling and grammar.

No, but it makes you prone to creating terrible typos and not checking your writing properly. Perhaps you should have spent more time in the classroom.😂

It’s the beginning primary school OP is talking about how much education seriously are they about to miss. There is a world of information on line. You can miss school due to illness more than this. Nothing will happen. I can’t believe how some people think about school.