To be scared about unauthorised absence?

[lakeful]

We currently live abroad but will be moving back to England in the next year, have two DCs who are in primary school. I sometimes have to do foreign travel with my job my DH (who is self-employed and very flexible) and DCs have occasionally come with me. I'm talking a period of maybe 4 weeks in total over the past two years. Where we live now, schools do encourage attendance but things are more relaxed than in England and there has not been any problem with me taking them out of school. I have been reading up on the English system and am a bit alarmed! Would I really have to get a Head Teacher's permission to take my own children abroad? Would I really be fined if I did this without their "authorisation"? And is it possible that they authorise children to miss school for reasons such as mine?

A little bit of work won't make up for a week off, of around 6 hours of education a day. That seems obvious to me.

Maybe you will just have to compromise with DH and kids joining you only during term-time - or risking the odd week tacked onto longer hols.

Schools are really under huge pressure here at the moment. Seriously under the kosh in terms of attendance as well as attainment. Thus, so are parents. There isn't a whole legal process, you ask, you will be turned down, you go anyway and may be fined (increasingly likely especially for more than 5 consecutive days) .

There are probably many people who agree with you but good luck getting the government to change their minds on this one. You will have to work with the system if you want to use a state school here.

Just to clarify its not really a "whole legal process" , no one will stop you taking your child out of school, they will just issue you with a fine for doing so and its not the school that issues the fine it's the LEA.

The thing is that in England the curriculum is quite incremental , each week builds on the previous week etc .Of course children are absent or I'll etc but the assumption is that for 39 weeks of the year the children will be in School.

Mind you... The new curriculum is much harder (I prefer the challenge to my DC but that's another thread) so missing school now as opposed to three years ago is a big issue.

That's the joy of devolution.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-35304279

There is no such thing as a UK education system. Nicky Morgan has no influence on Welsh schools, thank fuck.

In your situation you could do 2 things:

1. Register your children as partially home educated if your work abroad is semi regular

Or

1. Register yourself and your children as travellers.

There are legal implications of both options which you would need to research.

I actually agree with you. I think education goes far beyond the school walls and the UK education system fails to recognise that.

lakeful maybe consider moving back to Scotland where education system although far from perfect seems less rule-bound and inflexible?

We're abroad, and I wouldn't consider returning to England until the kids have left school. Short, infrequent absences are not an issue for most children, and the current approach to absences penalises the law-abiding majority without necessarily addressing serious absenteeism.

Come live in Scotland we don't have the ridiculous fine system
obviously not encouraged to take kids outwith standard holidays but many parents like myself often cannot take leave during the school holidays. I think those that can have no idea how detrimental it is not to have at least a week or 2 off with their child in a year.
Having lived in Australia our school absolutely supported leave in term time.

Sadly you are highly likely to be fined if they are in and English state school. It's a fairly new law but has swept the country and now everyone believes that missing the odd week here and there automatically dooms your child to failure and indicates that you don't care. It's nonsense. Children are not taught things once, learning, especially at primary school is all about repetition and practice. Teachers do not spend hours helping children to catch up, they just muddle along and pick it up unless they have serious special needs. There is evidence that attendance at secondary school has an effect on grades but we are talking about repeated absences. I'm with you, travel abroad can be fantastic!

I've been flamed a bit on here already, so in for a penny... do parents ever lie about the reason for absence? How do they know if you've been away or if your child has been sick for example? (I'm not saying I would do this and the DCs would of course open their mouths and out me immediately but just wondering).

Hi OP, Im not a teacher but I occasionally do roleplay work for recruitment for head teachers.
This scenario, or versions of it, come up a lot. I used to think the same as you, it seemed very OTT, but apparently the curriculum is so tied down and inflexible that missing a week would mean that your children would need extra help, probably via teaching assistants, to catch up - which would also take them away from kids who needed extra help normally.

Thanks Disappointedone I am seriously out of touch and need to do some proper research about this stuff!

Op- you can absolutely take your children out of school. I agree with you that trips you describe are benificial. But you can/will be fined depending on your area. Headteachers don't really have any powers anymore-they have to abide by the rules. However the worst that would happen is a fine and that is not guaranteed, it is likely just to go down as unauthorised absence.

I take mine out occasionally. I alternate between phoning them in with a sick bug and just telling the truth. Education is not all in the classroom!

I actually felt rather hard done by as a parent when dd's school struggled to accept that her frequent absences were due to health issues beyond our control. I felt they should have had empathy with a sick child who clearly had not asked for her illness and should have sucked up the extra work this caused (just as I do myself in a similar situation at work).

But one thing I never doubted was that it did cause extra work- having to explain things all over again because she had been absent and wouldn't be able to get on with her work, having to juggle where she was compared to where the other children were.

I would not have felt justified in causing them that extra trouble if it could have been avoided.

OP, you can perfectly legally home educate your children in this country: that means you take responsibility for their education and then you won't be fined.

Thanks Nancery that is helping to clarify it, the system I think is less structured where we are.

Lakeful this has come up on the role-play stuff too (basically I have to argue the case as an irate parent) and yes, parents do lie about it!
Sorry you are getting flamed, I can see your point entirely (but can now also understand the other view due to my job!)

OP, the party line on MN is rabid about this particular subject. It doesn't reflect RL. No one I know thinks like this. Yes people get fined, we know this because we read about it in The Mail , but to my certain knowledge our school has never recommended a fine be issued (the HT told me) because they don't believe it to be conducive to good parent/school relationships.

Sensible schools and Head Teachers take the bigger picture into account when considering requests for term time holidays. They look at general attendance and punctuality etc. I've taken my child for an annual holiday since reception and only ever been told "ok, but we can't authorise it", and that's fine by me. Next year will be the last year I do it - year 5. We do complete homework while away (it's issued half termly with a weekly amount to do) and dd has never been behind on her return.

As long as you're not taking the piss and have a sensible HT, you should be fine.

I think it is very structured and hence your child really can miss something. The scenario I am often given is one to take them out of school two weeks before the summer holidays and the candidates have to explain why i can't

corythatwas that sounds tough, is there pressure for your DCs to attend even if they are unwell? I remember when my DCs were in nursery and they used any excuse to ban them from attending (any rash, temperature etc).

Hmm, I have taken my DC's out of school for things that I believe are important and educational that they wouldn't get to do in holidays as would not be able to afford it. A week a year. I put in my absence request form, it gets refused. HT gives me letter saying it can't be authorised, hope you have a lovely time. I haven't been fined yet. Though my DC's are young still - 6 and 8. We do reading, if any worksheets have already been prepared by teacher, we take those and they do a diary of our week away. In SATS year and senior school, I probably won't be taking them out. Their attendance is usually around 95%.

As somebody outside of England, the idea that schools fine parents for taking their children out of school during term-time, is alien to me. The idea, however, does make me glad that I live in a country that allows me parent my child, and decide what is best for them, without fear of bureaucratic repercussions. There's a lot to be said for having a constitution that identifies the family as a child's primary educator.

This was a big problem in a primary school I used to teach in, children would disappear abroad for long stretches of time usually with no warning and it does become really disruptive to the class and has a negative impact on attendance data. As well as being fined children can also be taken off role and lose their school place if gone for more than 20 days which is something my head used to do to families who used to really take the pee with attendance. Not saying I agree with that but something to be mindful of.

Thanks Nickifury that gives me hope! This is clearly an area people have very strong views about, I didn't fully grasp what I was walking into but the responses have been very interesting.

In the area where I used to live, the council have taken quite a common sense view, and absence is classed as unauthorised but they don't always fine. A friend took her children out for nearly 3 weeks for a once in a lifetime trip and was not fined.

I'm quite torn on this, as ds2 is autistic and would really benefit from going on holiday when it's less busy, but the pace of learning in ds1's class (year 4) is so fast now that I think he would struggle to catch up, and it would upset him.

I did consider telling a little white lie to take one extra day at the end of half term (going away Monday to Monday) but I'm pretty sure both kids would give me away in seconds so have just booked Monday to Friday.