What do you tell your child’s school if you want to take them out a few hours early?

[Fancycrab]

My child is in reception, he’s never had a day off or missed any school at all. Next month we’re going to visit family for the weekend and due to the route we have to take the traffic is going to be horrendous if we leave after school on the Friday, so I want to pick him up and leave at lunchtime. I really don’t think missing this couple of hours on a Friday is a big deal at his age, but his school are really big on attendance. Just wondering in other people’s experience, do I have to come up with some big elaborate lie about why I need to pick him up early (which I don’t want to do cos don’t want to ask my son to lie) or shall I just tell the truth? Are they likely to be critical about it or not really care considering it’s just a couple of hours? Don’t want to cause tension with his teacher

Totally agree - just tell the truth.
Children drop you in it or their friends do at primary school as well. The worst ones are when they say. “I’m going to …… but my mum says I’m not allowed to tell you.”

Not been an issue for me as only times we took ds out we had a hospital appointment letter. I guess it goes down as unauthorised

Tell them the truth, they know anyway.
He'll get marked absent either way and unless your doing it all the time or going on long term time holidays it won't be a trigger for a fine or anything anyway.

Just tell them the truth and pick him up after the register has been taken.

Tell them. Phone and ask. If someone wants to collect a child early, I will call and ask if they can make it 1.05 instead of 1pm so they get their afternoon mark.

It's a Friday towards the end of term, I don't think they'll be that bothered! Just sent a note in saying you'll be picking him up at whatever time.

“Hello, im picking X up at Y time, thank you”

Just tell the truth. School's really don't care all that much for children that barely miss any school.
If you pick him up after afternoon register, then it won't count as an absence. Or just take the unauthorised absence for one day. It won't incur a fine or anything so doesn't really matter.

I don’t think they’ll care. Up to you really whether you stay for registration and then get at 1.30 ish or take them out at 12 ish and take the hit on a 1:2 day unauthorised.

I never understand the angst. So what if they disapprove? You are his parent, he's five, and you've decided this is the best thing. So do it. "I need to pick up DS at 12:30 on Friday as we're are away for the weekend. Thank you",

I took DD to visit family in Europe last year and had to collect early. yes, they disapproved. No, I didn't care.

No. You can just tell the truth. Get an unauthorised absence letter and put it straight in the bin.

No need for all the stress.

There's no problem being honest in situations like this. If you can, collect after afternoon registration so everyone's happy.

Dentist

You tell them when you will be collecting him and why. What’s the big worry? It’s a couple of hours not a month on the run!

Why on earth are people suggesting making up appointments. It’s absurd. Just tell the truth

I always just told them I needed to collect early to hit the roads before traffic got bad. They told me they couldn’t put it as authorised absence but they’d make sure DD was waiting in reception for me , I said that’s fine, see you at 12.

I told them the truth. They gave me a form to fill in, I had to put where we were going including my sister’s address, told me it would have to be unauthorised and said have a good time. If attendance is otherwise good, they can’t do ananything. Our school says please don’t take your child out in term time, but, if you do, tell us, don’t lie.
People asking about providing proof of appointments for schools, I have had to ask the GP during the appointment, they write or print out something confirming the appointment time.

I used to sign them out 10 mins after their pm mark, and said quite honestly that we needed the extra couple of hours incase the M6 was in a bad mood. We did that after missing the boat one time by just 10mins after hours of stressful "will we, won't we make it in time" when the 5 hours we allowed wasn't enough for what is normally a 3 hour journey

They weren't officially "absent" on the long term records other than a sign out for safety, and no fundamental learning was missed on one Friday ending the term so it was a non-issue.

Just email the school ( in my day we wrote a note )

DS will not be attending school the afternoon of date
This is due to personal reasons
fancycrab

Agree with @BogRollBOGOF if you can collect right after they have got their afternoon mark in the register then school is much less likely to care, as it won't hit their attendance stats.

If there's no proof, it would go down as an unauthorised absence.

I just say I’ll be picking Dc up at 1:00 or whatever. We’ve done it a few times for various reasons. It’s not an issue.
I’ve never had to give proof of appointment either, I wouldn’t have it in most cases and honestly my DD wouldn’t have wanted school knowing the reason some of her appointments so I wouldn’t t have shown them the letter anyway.

That’s ridiculous. There must be loads of unauthorised absences.

You just need to make sure that you have evidence and ask if necessary. My son has endless appointments and it's actually rare that there isn't a letter or text message confirming it and the few times it hasn't happened, I've asked and they just sent a letter without any issues.

He's never had an unauthorised absence because of it.

Take him out after pm registration. It won't count on the whole school attendance stats
However, each child also has an attendance record and next to the pm mark they can add an extra code for medical, unauthorised or educated elsewhere. I wouldn't advocate lying about the reason. As long as overall attendance is around 95% nobody with think it's an issue.