Missing a week of school in May year 6 or October year 7. Which would you choose?

[Stickthatupyourdojo]

TLDR: What do you think is the better option? Our eldest missing a week of school in year 6 in late May before the half term (but post SATS), or a week of school in year 7 before October half term (so first term of secondary school)?

We’re planning a 2 week family holiday to Japan and aiming for 2028. We will time it to include a week of school holidays to minimise disruption. We have a large age gap between our children (smaller gap was the plan but we got there eventually!) and 2028 should be a sweet spot for both of them to be an age to really enjoy it, plus allow us to save up and plan properly.

Balancing the weather (summer holidays will be too humid) and aiming for at least partly school holidays has identified either May half term or October half term 2028 as the best options for us. The children will be 5 and 11 for both. I want to pick the least disruptive option for my eldest, whether that’s end of year 6 celebrations starting to ramp up, or forming friendships and adjusting to secondary school. Youngest will be either in reception or starting year 1. I’m leaning towards May, after SATs.

The 2 week Easter holiday is unlikely to be suitable for us due to pre SATS school activities. It’ll also most likely fall during the peak cherry blossom season where you need to book up a year in advance and we won’t know the school’s dates until 6 months before. Thanks for any advice.

If you are already waiting until 2028 could you not wait another 6 months and go in March 2029 by which time the oldest will bit more settled in secondary and the youngest that bit older to appreciate it.

If you know which secondary school your eldest is likely to go to, check if they have a 2 week October half term, as some do.

Agree with this.

We went to Florida at Easter during my youngest’s yr6 year and she still finished primary school with decent SATS results. Her school did do preparation for SATS but she was never called for it - it might be the same at your son’s school.
Her school also did a number of end of school activities and she got to experience all of them which I’m really grateful for as my son was a Yr6 Covid leaver and it was awful the way that he left school and I would never have wanted to take any time during those final weeks away from my daughter.

Definitely not year 7, but Easter of year 6 would be better than May.

There’s not a chance we’d be giving up holiday time for SATs preparation! Transition and leavers activities are far more fun and important imo.

I’d definitely consider Easter as agree it makes the most sense on paper. I can make an educated guess on the dates for 28 (first two weeks of April) but the risk is if I commit then school plumps for dates a week out, I won’t be able to amend the flights or stuff booked easily then it’s a week pre SATS at risk. As Easter 28 is relatively late though, maybe that makes the holidays much more likely to be the first half of April and not after Easter, which is what the local council have on their website so maybe the trust are unlikely to deviate from the council by more than a day or two?

Be warned about going in May - my son had to spend 2 weeks this doing work for moderation post exams so they didn't get to let their hair down for a while into June. It would have really affected his score if he had gone on holiday immediately after

May T6 definitely. After SATS and before all the leavers stuff really gets going. October Y7 wouldn’t be good.

Every school I’ve worked at has had the y6 residential in May/June after SATs-just double check they won’t miss that.

Have you checked your council’s website @Stickthatupyourdojo ?

The 27/28 academic year term dates are on ours already.

If they are going to a state school have you checked council website for term dates? The county we are in have dates published until summer 2029

Thanks @Muchtoomuchtodothe council have the dates on which is where I got the first two weeks of April, then back the day after Easter Monday. Going to look into how much trusts can deviate from the rest, hopefully not by much 🤞🏼 historically our school (and the secondary as also part of the same trust) used to have two weeks off on October, no schools outside of the trust did but it was brilliant as we had some good, cheap holidays in the less common week. They removed this last year though in favour of spreading inset days through the school year.

I see! We’re in Wales so we don’t have any of that shenanigans here!

I seem to be going against the grain but I'd say October. By the time it gets to half term they are often ready for a break, and it's not really in prime "settling in" period any more.
Whereas the time after SATS is often used for preparing for end of schol plays, transition to secondary school, residential trips etc, which a lot of DC would be very upset to miss (and the transition to secondary is pretty important/useful).

Can you ask your primary school what they normally do during your potential May week? That might influence.

May Year 6. Once Sats are out the way, there's not much else going on. My son was bored senseless in Year 6, especially once the Sats were finished. Year 7 will be a new school, and he will be settling in, so then taking a week out, wouldn't help that process.