School holidays

[gailyfletch]

Hello

Im looking for advice/comments regarding taking my child out of senior school for one week in year 8.

My daughter has the chance to go to Florida with her god parents in October 2021. The holiday will be for 15 days but will mean missing 5 days from school.

It will be a holiday in a lifetime for her. I could never afford to take her.

She will be 6 weeks into her 2nd year at high school. I know I will incur a fine and that the school won't be in a position to authorise the absense but what do people think about the effect on my daughter missing a week from school in this year? I will of course ensure that she does school work when away.

I would be very grateful for your comments.

Thank you :-)

If you can make sure she completes the weeks missing work go for it.

Secondary school teacher here, it will have no long term effect! Tell her to go and enjoy herself.

Please don't ask for the work. It's more work for teachers.

I would absolutely let her go. That’s a once in a lifetime holiday and she will remember it forever.

My children are adults now but we always used to book long haul holidays to wrap around a half term holiday right up until the oldest was in Year 8. It did their education no harm whatsoever, one is now an engineer whilst the other is a teacher.

Our main reason for doing that was because, as a family, we’re a combination of blonde/blond/pale/freckles/redhead and we don’t deal well with blazing sun (if we’d have gone during the Summer) and as we aren’t a family for lying by the pool it made sightseeing, theme parks and activities much more pleasant when slightly cooler.

My daughter has never had time off for a holiday. That is because we have not been able to afford decent holidays. If she was offered that opportunity I would definitely let her go.

Do it, and ring in sick if you think your local authority would fine you (ours don't for absences of 5 days).

I think if you are going to do it then that time of y8 is better than many other times.
Do not ring in sick. Pay the fine if levied, still way cheaper for you. That way your DD can be honest with teachers.

Definitely let her go. Once in a lifetime experience. Learning doesn’t just happen in a classroom. Life experiences shouldn’t just be for children of the wealthy.

Do it, we took Ds1 out of secondary in year 8 for 3 days for Florida, his head of year said officially I cannot condone this, unofficially have the most wonderful time.

Ds went on to achieve amazing GCSE results.

And be careful with the once in a lifetime Florida trip, we said that and have been a few more times since