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?

So, the only argument you have for taking your kids out of school is that it's beneficial for them to experience other cultures.

That's no doubt true, but absolutely irrelevant, since you already get 13 weeks every year, plus every weekend, to do this.

Said argument can only be trotted out if kids were forced to go to school 365 days of the year.

Princess this is why I do it. I have two with autism and holidays are near on impossible when hot and busy and full of queues. So we go off season, when cooler and empty.

IME plenty of parents phone in sick for children from holiday destinations. I also knew one who told the school in advance they were going to be sick all one week - not quite sure how she got away with that one tbh!

I hate the UK school absence system now - it's mad. I understand it comes from a safeguarding and pro-education stance, but I think it's misguided. When DS1 (now 14) started his primary school, parents were allowed to take 2wks off in term time, for the main family holiday - and all you needed was a letter from the parents, Ofsted kicked their arses at some point - and now it's a no-go. No term time holidays, except exceptional circumstances. Exceptional circumstances would be a funeral of a close family member abroad - that sort of thing.

I'm not aware of anyone at our school actually being fined - but I know other schools in the area have fined parents (and I overheard people talking about it while I was having my nails done, and listing people they knew who had been fined - it was a long list).

The current rules under the Government means state schools can't authorize what you've described, especially on what sounds like a regular basis. You will be fined. And if attendance drops below a certain percentage point, I believe social services can become involved.

Have you considered private schools? Home-schooling?

I'm somewhat confused about certain aspects of this. The OP says that home ed is not a possibility because of financial considerations, as well as others. But I would have thought that private schooling would botentialky be expensive too and I'm afraid it does come across to some extent as though formal schooling is fairly unimportant.

The impact of the absence of a child on the rest of the class is that, when the child returns to school, additional resource- time, TA, etc, has to be put in so that child is able to recover what has been missed. Of course it's inevitable that here will be absences, but they can be very disruptive, however unintentional.

OP, you say that you are genuinely baffled. However, I'm afraid that you will have to accept that it s what it is in England and either try to restrict the trips to school holiday ime, if you wish thexwholexfamily to participate, or to go on your own for at least some of the term time ones.

what will they learn in school?

all sorts including making friends (hopefully) with a broad mix of pupils from a wide variety of backgrounds and incomes. Friends that may be friends for life. Not to mention the other people they will meet authors, athletes. Our school recently had a holocaust survivor come in to do a talk with the children. This is on top of regular learning.

There are so many things you just cannot learn from a book or from a parent. Sorry to say it but as much as we parents think we know what's right for our kids our world views are limited to what we see and know and we certainly don't see or know everything! kids need input from more than just one source.

you have 13 weeks a year to take your children away for these 'enriching experiences' fitting those work related travels into these holiday times will not be difficult at all. Plane fares more expensive - yup. But if you really believe they are important you will make it work.

I have my own gripes with the current system (medical related) and I am being penalised because other parents think its OK to take kids out of school for weeks at a time.

and yes, it does affect the other kids esp when teachers are having to get those who have been on a 2 week holiday caught up.

I know how hard it is because my own DC had 2 weeks off due to illness and the level of work missed is huge. I requested some of it to catch up with over Easter. its not 'little bits here and there'

That's a fair point arethereanyleft its just for the specific trips I have taken them on, the dates were dictated by work not the school calendar. I wasn't doing it to avoid higher prices etc. and we do take trips during the actual school holidays. I'm just trying to gauge here what people have experienced if they have chosen to take DCs out of school during term.

Lol, no generally not granted time off during school time and you will see that genuinely sick kids get letters sent home because of poor attendance. Yip true. And travel prices go up during school holidays so you have to pay more money to take your family away. All true.

Oh and we did try and take kids out for a few days before end of term to attend something overseas but permission was not granted.

Our local authority in Scotland only authorises holiday if the line manager of the parent sends a letter to say that a parent is unable to take school holiday leave. For example huge summit taking place in central Scotland meant all the parents who were police officers had their summer leave cancelled. They were given alternative dates which schools authorised. Or when a forces family has a parent back for a short period of leave they would authorise it. All others goes down as unauthorised.

I've taken my children out on the last day off school a couple of years ago. They missed 3 hours 10 minutes of school. I said it my letter than I appreciated it would be unauthorised leave.

Foxy private education would be a serious stretch for us and is unlikely to be a feasible option. We could not afford for me to give up my job and I would have to do that to home educate my DC, I couldn't do both at once.

Because teachers aren't stupid.

xenapants is name calling actually necessary here? That's just pathetic.

It's only name-calling if it's not true. You are being a prima donna. You believe that taking your little "trips" is more important than your kids' education, and you want people to tell you it's OK to do it? Well, it isn't. In this country if we don't home educate we send our kids to school according to the law, and if you don't like that, perhaps you shouldn't move here.

I asked my friend who is a teacher about resources and time spent having to help the child catch up on their return thing and she told me that she differentiates work for her class anyway so if a child came back clueless she would go down a level in the work she allocates to them, until they catch up. She also said she doesn't care if children go on holiday in term time but just please don't ask her to prepare work for completion while away!

lakeful as you'll have seen there is a big cultural element to this debate ;)

It's similar to the uniform debate which comes up regularly, and where people who have kids in schools in other countries simply don't understand the terms of the debate.

Parents in the UK are generally more passive than in many other countries, and less likely to question authority (and for some reason this is particuarly true on MN - I am not sure why this is).

I hate the UK school absence system now

There is NO UK system.

Yes xenapants in every way, you are putting me off moving back.

Ok fine - I hate the absence system enforced in my local area. Why so angry?

I'm really going to stick my neck out and say that this policy actually grew out of a racist agenda. As Bonnie says, there was 'concern' over primary aged children being taken abroad for several weeks at a time. These were normally Asian children being taken to see family and there was a lot of nonsense about the extra work it caused teachers and the effect it had on other children as well as the children who missed school. Since Asian children statistically tend to do better in schools anyway it kind of shows what nonsense the idea of missing a couple of weeks is. Even if it caused problems, surely there could have been other solutions, rather than stopping what must have been hugely important family events and highly beneficial to the children and families involved? Our view of education is so narrow in England.

Mistigri I completely agree with you, this is really highlighting that for me! In other countries, this authorisation/ fines issue is a completely alien concept and I believe in many countries they would not accept it so willingly. And its not as if England scores highly on international league tables for how their schools perform in the first place.

Don't worry OP, there's some posters, especially here in AIBU who just love the opportunity to lay into ransoms with no comeback. Report posts with name calling, personal attacks are against the rules and MN are pretty good about deleting them.

Clare1971 a brave post there and a very interesting perspective!

Randoms!

Thank you NickiFury I have no issue with people having strong views but personal attack is completely unnecessary.

British kids are some of the most miserable in the world. They leave school with a string of qualifications that don't mean they are fit for work, with poor communication skills, poorer still critical reasoning skills and few prospects. Other countries manage to have higher PISA scores and happier kids with much less rigid school systems than here.

My daughter is 5 and in reception class at a Welsh medium primary school. She's ahead with everything, so the head has had no issue with trips to Barcelona, Iceland, Paris (including Disneyland), to visit extended family elsewhere in the UK in the 19 months since she started there.

Learning doesn't only happen at school.