What are the chances of taking son out of school in term time for our wedding next year?.

[costacoffee]

We are planning to get married next year and want to take ds on our honeymoon/holiday after the wedding.

If we applied now do you think they would give us permission?. He is only 5 so I dont think its a problem,but worried as they can be funny about taking children out in term time.

Oh, and having read some of the other Mumsnetters posts, relax. FFS! YANBU, your child will enjoy it and they will absolutely not suffer any detriment to their education.

She doesn´t have to justify she is asking about taking her child out of school.

TBH I think that there is enough non-school time available in a year, & that there has been 4yrs previous to school when it presumably could have been done.

Where I live there are no attendance targets.

And teachers still want pupils to come to school because the ones that miss time are the ones that get behind.

Are most of you English on this thread?

You guys seem to spend most of your time complaining about your shit education system, but then it turns out you think holidays are more important anyway.

I just can't relate to this at all. I've never lived anywhere where it was considered normal for children to be removed from school during term time so their parents could bring them on holidays.

Oh skidoodly I love you and your point of view but I'm afraid you might just have to walk away from this one and accept that to some people education simply isn't that important :(

Where are you Skidoodly?

Not sure if it´s true but have heard that here in Germany if you don´t have a permission slip from school, you can be stopped from boarding a plane etc.

You cannot directly correlate the two. Education is extremely importnat to us: it is why we have such a close relationship with the school as we agree with their premise that education is a 3 way partnership (child, school, parents). Ds does extra reading at home and this morning he was doing extra maths "for fun".

Lol at the thought of a disney holiday being more educational than school If you take term time hols you take them, dont try and dress it up as "educational" and that they will learn more than being at school with qualified staff.

The fun end of term things at school are done for a purpose, they help form friendships, encourage lots of social aspects etc - so many people moaning about the school making things fun yet its ok when they do it.

Sandstorm, that's simply not true.

I value my children's education very highly. I do, however, think that young children do not suffer any ill-effects from time off school in term time. Particularly those aged 7 or less.

When we travelled around the world our son was 5. We started off trying to home school him but soon gave up - he was five for goodness sake. I am not a teacher and our interactions became increasingly fraught. He returned to mainstream school 7 months later having little or no schooling during our trip. To this day he is more articulate, well read and well travelled than any of his peers.

Reminds of the day we visited Angkor Wat in Cambodia. My five year old was heard to exclaim - Wow mummy! This Temple is incredible. There is no school in this world that could impart the lessons he learned that day.

Horses for courses though.

Education is VERY important, and I work very hard at supporting DS and his school.

However, there are educational things that school is not the best place to learn / experience. And some things that can be MUCH more easily understood out in the world than they can in a classroom.

DS's school is one that he will be at from now (already done 1yr in preschool during which he missed 2 days total, one day sick, and one day trip to france, where, with his language soaking ability he managed to comprehaned that there are other languages than English, that bread is still bread no matter what the label - as a linguist, I can tell you that this is an awesome concept and one that will set his neural pathways on a useful explosion - he learnt a little about boats and transport too, and experienced non UK currency, which i took the time to explain - for one day out of school, he got a lot of education i think?) until he is 11. of course I want to support them to give him the best start educationally, but I also expect to add to that education.

We also ALWAYS provide a photo-story page for the teacher if DS goes on a trip either in term time, or at the weekend etc so that, given his issues, they can talk to him about it, and they can see the things he has done.

This actually builds up his social awareness, as his conversation can be prompted to be relevant and actually conversation rather than a list of facts.

I also always ensure that we keep very up to date with the things school expect him / us to do, such as tasks / questionnaires, and in the future, homework etc, as well as being very involved with the school committee.

I don't think that my view on takinghim out of school occasionally for trips etc is in any way in conflict with my views on the importance of education.

"To this day he is more articulate, well read and well travelled than any of his peers."

Yes, but he might not be more well travelled if you hadn´t taken him out of school to do it!.

I suppose the two things are related though - if you think school is so bad that children miss nothing if they miss 2 weeks per year, I guess it makes sense that cheap holidays seem more important.

If I had a child with an illness that made it likely they would miss 2 weeks per school year, I'd be concerned it would affect them educationally.

The idea of forcing that kind of poor attendance on a child just so we could go on holidays is utterly bizarre to me.

If I felt my children were better off not going to school I think I'd home educate rather than ever send my children there. Do people who feel this way just use it as free childcare?

PadmeHum - you'll just have to accept you are a baaaaad mum

As am I - and proud of it! :)

I know how well educated ds is and how travelling has broadened his horizons - and how involved we are with his education.

And no, we have never taken him to Disney (that I would do in the holidays).

Inext year, we will probably also be taking him out of school for a day so that we can go to SA. It is not to get chepaer prices - it is for the really selfish reason that I don't want to be travelling on my 50th birthday - the reason for the trip. And seeing lions, elephants, rhinos, leopards etc from close quarters will be educational. :)

I am really interested Diddl - do you really think my son has been disadvantaged (educationally speaking) because he missed 7 months of school?

Or did I misread your last post?

Well, unless I´ve misread, he´s only well travelled because you took him out of school, so I don´t think it´s really a thing to boast about.

How odd diddl. He'd hardly go travelling on his own at aged five. Of course we took him out of school.

And I am absolutely and utterly proud of the fact that we travelled the world with our two beautiful boys. DS2 is excluded from this discussion as he was only 18 months old at the time.

You didn't answer my question though - do you really believe that DS suffered (educationally speaking) due to our travels? I am really curious to understand what your thoughts are on how it harmed him?

On our Disney Holiday, we have already identified educational opportunities.

DS, being an ASD child with a gift for reading / numbers will be able to tackle understanding where and when to board the plane by picking out our plane from the departure board.

DP will be able to talk to him about aeroplanes.

His love of time and routine will be fired by the change in time zone, and the challenges that presents, and we will have to explain to him what happened to the time.

He will have to learn the new ways of taking care outdoors, to check for snakes and alligators etc

He will have to face some BIG challenges for him in terms of crowd and queuing, and the American friendliness (this is social experience that you simply could not get in school)

He will have to learn about weddings and what they mean, and what will happen, and the social rituals therein

He will learn a LOT socially from the appearance of his friends from both USA and UK.

He will have even already learnt a lot about waiting for something and then it happening as expected (he knows he is going on an aeroplane to meet mickey mouse in october)

he will get to see and talk about various animals, both local to Florida and Safari type.

All the while there will be reading and counting opportunities (which we are always going to take as they are things that he LOVES to do anyway)

He will get lots of exercise, both swimming and walking, and will be able to swim with the reef fish.

We COULD, if he could cope with it after all the other immense learning and experiential leaps he will have to make to manage this vacation (we did not realise his Asd when we booked, and are all slowly learning the impacts of things) go into the physics / cinematography and so on behind the rides etc, since he also loves to know how machines work.

SO, yeah, Disney is educational.

Do you know I have less of an issue with people taking children out for several months to travel round the world as a couple of you have done. This kind of thing can clearly not be done (or not in the same way) in school holidays and is clealy very educational.

I think whoever it was who was trying to dress up a holiday to Disney as educational has to be having us on though. I mean ffs! If you are going to take holidays in term time at least be honest with yourself!

I still stand by my initial posts that I think school holidays are when holidays that you can control should be taken. There are clearly exceptions but expense is NOT one. I can understand the OPs reasons for choosing the wedding date she has and probably her request for time off is more valid than some. If it were me though I would defer my honeymoon until the summer holidays or just take the week of halfterm.

While I agree that the odd day (or week) off will not disadvantage your child I personally believe that supporting the school and teaching your children about having to work for / save up for things you want is an important lesson.

TBH I think taking a child out of school for 7 months is entirely different from taking them out for weeks at a time while they are still supposedly at school.

I can see the educational value in travelling the world with your parents for a few months far more than I can in a 2 week holiday.

x-posts alice, interesting that you feel the same about that :)

crossposted 3trees.

Yes those are all educational opportunities in Disney granted. But they will be the same educational opportunities during school holiday unless I am very much mistaken

3Trees, I am leaning towards the fact that this must be a fundamental difference in parenting choice.

I absolutely and utterly see where you are coming from.

It seems as if there is no middle ground though - you are either believe that travelling has fabulous educational benefits, or you don't.

I can't imagine bringing my children up without the amazing adventures we've experienced. We have backpacked through China, travelled through India and enjoyed all that LA has to offer (total Theme park extravaganza). I wouldn't change that for the world. I can't imagine term time + Costa Del Sol for 2 weeks every summer - that's not to say I think any worse of those who prefer this.

I just don't really understand it.

crosspost skidoodly great minds!

YANBU!!

I can't believe the 'uptightness' of some of the posters on this thread.

Speaking from a teachers point of view, yes the child will miss a couple of weeks and a few learning objectives, but kids need lots of repetition anyway before they are concrete on any learning concepts, so he's hardly likely to suffer any longterm effects FGS! Any child that is well supported at home, and usually attends school well will be fine, and the excitement and experience of the holiday and it's other benefits will will far outweigh the disadvantage of missing 10 days of school.

To those that say education is more important than fun- well that's debateable. If I could only choose one of these for my dd I know which it would be- luckily we can have both!

I really hope my child is never subjected to a teacher who uses jargon like "learning objectives"

PadmeHum

I doubt he´s suffered-and where did I say he should travel alone?

You are boasting about how well travelled he is compared to his peers, but you have perhaps only been able to do this because you took him out of school.