A school absence v holiday one!

[Bartlebum]

Last year both my children's grandparents died. As they were from a different country, my husband wanted to scatter their ashes there.

We went out of the way to coordinate this in school holidays but the only way we could make it work (as there are not daily flights to this small country) would mean we missed two days of school. While we were in the country we arranged to meet family members and introduce the children to their uncles, aunts and cousins. Some of these people are 80+ so it felt so important to my husband to give them the chance to meet them, especially as his parents had not reached this age.

We wrote a letter to the school to explain the importance of this trip and why - including that it was to scatter their ashes. Their immediate response was that they don't approve holidays and refused to discuss further.

It was very upsetting especially as we take school so seriously and had never taken them out before except for the funerals. It made me wonder if they considered it just a holiday if someone went to a burial or scatter of ashes of a grandparent in this country.

Next month it will be a landmark birthday for my own grandmother and she has arranged for the family to stay in a nice location in the UK for three nights. As the kids have school I said we will have to miss the Monday and we will arrive late on the Friday. But as it gets closer I am appreciating how lucky we are to still have her and how this could easily be the last chance to do something like this as a family, something my children never got to experience with their other grandparents. I don't want to be the only ones leaving early when we could be spending quality time with a family that never see each other like this.

My AIBU is, as I won't get permission, is it better to mark them as sick that day? What would the repercussions be for lying? I know it will affect the trust if they found out, but after the way they handled it last year I don't have much trust in them already.

YABU - Don't miss time off school, leave the gathering!
YANBU - Mark them as sick and stop worrying about it!

Thanks for your honest feedback. I will take it on board.

As an ex teacher that never got to go on any term time holidays, this year have booked a holiday and taking my kids out of school before half term for a few days.

As a teacher I know parents take their kids out of school a lot! It never bothered me personally. Your child's teacher probably isn't going to get annoyed or offended. Especially as it sounds like your kids are in 99% of the time...which in itself is amazing considering a lot of kids get sick often!

So take them out of school. Don't ask for permission. I bet quite a few kids from the class are out on hols at various points in the year. You wont be the only one.

The non-approving of holiday absence isn’t personal, they simply don’t have an absence code for holiday / family time that can be approved.

You won’t get fined for the two days, just say they will be absent for an important family occasion.

I think it's so sad these days that the rules are so rigidly enforced.
Many years ago when DD1 was in year 2 (she's now 23) we were able to take her out for almost half a term with no ramifications from the school or on her education.
My Dad was terminal, coming to the end of his life living overseas.
We went with the schools blessing.
I know that's an extreme example but hearing that parents are put in the position of lying or getting fined for spending a few precious days making memories with their family is infuriating and heartbreaking.
Whatever happened to 'at the Heads discretion'?

“I got lost down the trail of thought that if they were from this country it would have been approved.”

That seems quite the leap!
I’m not surprised that you had a standard form letter back. I also don’t see why time abroad to scatter ashes would be approved even if it was a personalised response - it didn’t sound like there was any cultural restriction on how quickly that should happen, so I don’t see that it had to involve missed school. Which is not to say that you shouldn’t miss school for it - I personally think that’s fine for otherwise good attendance. But I’d expect authorised to be for when you really don’t have a choice - and here, you did.

For the current request - I don’t see any harm in a day off for children with good attendance for family reasons, I’d just do it. I wouldn’t lie to anyone. But I also wouldn’t expect authorisation. In my email to school I’d probably say, “I know that you can’t authorise this, but Lucy has 99.2% attendance, and we’ll make sure that she checks with a classmate what she missed.”

“Whatever happened to 'at the Heads discretion'?”

Possibly a huge increase in the number of parents asking the Head to authorise at their discretion? (which is my cousin’s experience as a primary school head, and she says she links it to both growing entitlement in everyone for everything, and the “breakdown in social contract” that everyone is talking about re attendance generally.

Don’t lie to the school about your children being sick. They will know it’s a lie and lose any respect for you.

Just tell the truth. Your reasons are valid, it’s too little time to be referred for a fine, and it makes no difference to you or your children if they have a couple of unauthorised absences on their record.

Would you mind explaining what you have written?
Is it that Heads are being given increasingly spurious requests?
A genuine question because I'm trying to see how increasingly requests for genuine reasons are being lumped in to request's for holidays.
If it is a case of so many parents requesting time off impacts on those asking for exemptions for genuine reasons then that's so sad.
I'm not for one second blaming schools for not allowing these absences. Biut it's the lack of common sense.
To differentiate between a family taking an AI holiday to Mexico and a family prioritising family member and relationships seems to have become blurred.

It's so sad that they are both being treated the same under the current situation

Unfortunately schools are only allowed to approve holidays in very select circumstances. I am a governor at dds school and we get attendance letters all the time because she has a chronic illness and there are certain times of the year where it would actually be a risk to life for her to attend school. My point is absence still triggers attendance warnings.

If the absence had been for the actual funeral then it ought to have been approved, ashes scattering can be arranged outside of term time however. Therefore would not be authorised.

Our school policy states that all request are reviewed by the governing board. Where parents are military or public servants like police or medical and have set holidays then we use our common sense and decline but recommend that fines are not issued where attendance is usually high. Although I appreciate not many schools work in this way.

Don't lie. You will get found out and you will almost certainly be fined. It will also trigger further investigation every time they are absent around term start/end. In the same way as saying nothing at all and just not explaining should trigger a welfare check.

Tell them the truth
They can't approve it but they also won't do anything about it.
We took DD out for a sports comp. School said it was "unauthorised but good luck"

OP just go and enjoy it. Your children will have lovely memories. I'm not in the UK so this school stuff always sounds absolutely bonkers when I read it on here. OP you sound like a really conscientious parent so I bet your children rarely miss school anyway

@drivinmecrazy “Would you mind explaining what you have written?”

OK, keep in mind that my comment is anecdotal, and is one person’s opinion that you’re getting second hand through me.
But in my cousin’s experience - she’s getting a lot more requests in recent years. Be that the obviously honest ones “it’s cheaper to go on holiday during term time” to the ones that she thinks are tall tales. She doesn’t know why there are more requests - it could be entitlement and breakdown of social contract. It could (on the holiday topic) more families hit by cost of living rises. It could be her own confirmation bias and there is no increase at all!

But as she perceives it, say she has 2 requests for a day to spend time with an elderly visiting grandma. She knows which parent is doing just that (like OP) and she also knows which parent thinks that’s a good ruse and even if they are visiting a relative, said relative will be in the lounge whilst the grandchildren are sat on their phones not interacting at all anyway! But how does the say to Parent A “authorised” and Parent B “you’re a liar”? She can’t. Plus… she’s supposed to be running a school and educating children!

So back when there weren’t that many requests, it didn’t matter if she authorised both. But say this year, she’s getting 10 requests like this. Whether you agree with targeting attendance rates or not, it’s happening. So she doesn’t want to just authorise all 10.

But as soon as she cherry picks one over the other for ostensibly the same request, she’s got an issue.

So, she doesn’t authorise any. It doesn’t stop the “genuine” parent going ahead, but it’s without authorisation.

I’m not saying there’s never authorisation. A funeral is a more clear cut case. But as soon as you get into “visiting family is important too” territory, she’s more likely to decline the lot.

People talk, and some parents in her school would be right up in her face in the playground, “why did you authorise Lucy’s day off but not my kid? How come her grandma is important but my kid’s isn’t?” She can hardly reply, “cos you know and I know that you’re taking the piss, and unless grandma mans the rides at Alton Towers, your kid isn’t seeing them” 😉

I’m not saying it’s right… like I said, one person’s second anecdotal chit chat!

@Testina

There is an authorisation code for family holidays but the authorised version (H) is rarely used - most are (G), unauthorised family holiday. All absences have to have a code or are classified as unauthorised. There is no head's discretion anymore in terms of just a money saving holiday, that went years ago. The exceptions that would be at the head's discretion include for children of serving military personnel or possibly for special circumstances requiring the family to leave the country for a long time but to keep the children on roll. Ofsted lump attendance in with the behaviour category and there are incidences of schools failing Ofsted solely due to poor attendance or because their attempts to deal with attendance weren't diligent enough. Schools don't fine, LAs do, based on information from the school. Finally, the example in the OP isn't quite how some are representing it - it wasn't to attend a funeral, it was to scatter ashes which could have been done in school holidays.

Just say they won't be in. Schools don't approve holidays because they're not allowed to, it's the Local Authority's policy. It's not because they don't want to.

I was in a governing body meeting last night and the Headteacher said they really wish parents wouldn't lie, because the children always come in and say where they've been, it's teaching the children at a young age to lie, and it also sometimes has an impact on resources/staffing because within their policy, it states that if they haven't heard from the family, they have to carry out a welfare check at home and if they are not home, they have to flag it as a concern with social services/police that the child is AWOL. Now if you phone in sick, that's fine, but she explained that so many parents either forget, or don't have phone signal so can't make the call they intended to etc.

It's better just to be honest. They cannot and will not approve holidays, but you're not frowned upon for taking them.

Fines are only issued if a child has an unauthorised absence of more than 10 consecutive sessions (5 days), or if their attendance falls into the persistent absence category (less than 90%, so a day off school every fortnight).

Schools are well aware of which children are vulnerable and work with them to support getting them into school. It's very rare that fines are issued, and they are issued by the Local Authority, not the school, and usually only when the 10+ sessions has been triggered where it's clear they've been on holiday.

I think I've only seen one case of a fine for persistent absence in the 15 years I've worked on governing bodies. The rest have been for term time holidays.

We are very much a rule following family and always prioritise attendance etc but, in the last couple of years there have been a few family events where we have had to take them out of school early on a Friday to travel for eg or miss a day for a mid week funeral. On each occasion I have been completely honest and signed the forms and been told it's unauthorised. That's been the end of the matter. The schools appreciate not being expected to listen to you lie and they're human so appreciate that a grandparent's funeral is going to be a priority for you.

I actually think I have been affected by covid in the way they report in the news. I am less worried about them missing a bit of school than I used to be. Prior to lockdowns I was absolutely rigid in it and I have definitely become more flexible. Interesting! (That said all of my DC have high attendance and high attainment, would be a different story maybe if not )

You need to.play the ofsted game! We went to Mallorca on a Friday. Kids attended school until 1.30 as that's just after afternoon registration. School happy, ofsted happy as they got their full attendance marks. Another time youngest had the dentist at 10am. He literally went to school for 10 mins in the morning and left. School.and ofsted happy as he got his attendance marks. Play the game and everyone is happy.

Just tell them they won't be in. I know it's controversial but we take our kids out of school most years for a week. I'm sorry but if I can save 2k on a holiday by taking them out then that's what I'm going to do.

We love to travel and the kids get so much out of it. Plus with working schedules it's important that we can all spend some quality time together.

Just tell them they won't be in and don't care what they say about it.

Yes I know it's unfair and teachers can't just go on holiday during the school year. However I work as a manager at an airport and struggle to go away during busy school holiday.

I was taken out of school every year for 2 weeks and it hasn't affected me in the slightest :)

How old are your DC?

We went out of the way to coordinate this in school holidays but the only way we could make it work (as there are not daily flights to this small country) would mean we missed two days of school.
So they only fly to this country one or 2 times over the 6 weeks of school holidays?

What happened to the head’s discretion was Ofsted, and attendance being one of the measures they use to determine a category.

All heads know the reasons that parents take holidays in term time. Infrequent events like a wedding are probably different, though may still not be authorised. All heads equally know that there are parents who don’t prioritise attendance and punctuality and those are the ones that are being targeted. If parents refuse to pay the fine, it increases and ultimately court action ensues.

Only you can decide about the holiday, but as far as schools are concerned, children get 13 weeks a year off school, events like holidays and ash scattering can be arranged then, funerals are different obviously

You certainly will get fined..I was honest and told them.my daughter wouldn't be in for one day. We had to pay £120 fine. 😡

Tell the school they have a sickness and diarrhea bug and go.

Had you already had loads of time off prior to the one day? They can't fine for one day unless you have had loads of time off leading up to that onr day.

I don't even ask, I just tell them. They are my children, they've been lucky with illness this year and so far have had no other absence. I will take them out of school to go and see family.

Not being funny, mine missed 6 days because of the strikes (which I fully support). Please don't tell me that missing the last 2 days before they finished for Christmas will ruin their education.

Just go and be honest with where there are. The teacher and head will follow the party line but personally I doubt they really care about an odd day here and there.

It’s awful your previous ash scattering trip wasn’t authorised for exceptional circumstances. Disgraceful.

In Y7 my DD had 100% attendance.
In Y8 she had 1 day off to travel to her grandmothers funeral - this was marked as unauthorised as apparently we should have travelled overnight...
Years 9-13 she was 100% (taking lockdown into account). They wanted her to attend a prize giving event as she'd had "500% attendance"

She told them to stick it - and frankly I was really bloody proud of her! Attendance is important, yes. But some things are MORE important.