Taking kids out of school for a term

[Whenthechipshitthefan]

Possibly the wrong place to post- if so sorry!
Has anyone had any success in taking their kids (legally!) out of school for a term or even a half term. I want to take 2 x DDs (Yr 4, Reception) to my mums country for a long stay. They don't know the culture and I'm aware that we are all losing that connection. The flights are expensive, and it takes at least 24hrs to get there. Its a big country so that if we go over I want them to see a lot, experience a lot and see everyone.

Has anyone applied and been successful? Is it just headteacher opinion that matters? What can I promise to keep their place and not get taken to court. Happy to pay a fine!

I’ve done it for a term. The school head thought it was a great idea. My children were primarily school age. I had to pay their school fees as if they were here (some schools where I live are partly state funded partly fee paying) then their place was kept. Of course it meant paying 2 schools - and two rents- for those three months, but the cultural experience, the bilingualism and the being close to their cousins for months are worth every penny.

Just to add all the school head required was independent proof that my children were registered in a school abroad, ie this wasn’t an extended holiday. An email from the school abroad sufficed. Do it. You will never regret it.

I know two families who have had authorised absences agreed with their primary schools - one to the far east as they were planning to relocate there (they changed their minds) so school place was kept for them for agreed amount of time another to do a trip of a lifetime and they had to do a lots of agreed educational work. Hope this helps.

I hope you can do it.
Could you afford private school fees for the remainder if primary in worst case scenario?

Do your children even want to go. Can't understand why you would disrupt thier education and lives in such a way for something they will barely remember and in your own words will never happen again. What's the point.

Yes I took my two children, aged 11 and 9 years at the time, out of school for 2 terms. They were at a private school so presumably we weren’t reported. We took them traveling around Asia, the best thing we ever did.

I am thinking somewhere really remote in the Southern Hemisphere if the weather is bad enough to be cut off during our summer months. I would go if it is your only opportunity. Maybe the school could set them some work. My grandson's school gave him a project to do when I took him to Australia, and I also arranged for him to visit a local school for a day. They wanted him to stay longer!

@Whenthechipshitthefan we took our son out for 4 months when he was 6 to travel Australia . We made sure school knew it was educational, and we had to write to the council , head teacher needing convincing so we promised a blog !!!! And he saved our space and all was well .

The rules applied in the LEA I work for are: if attendance is less than 92% and you take 5 or more school days, school can request an FPN be issued, if more than 10 days are taken an FPN will automatically be issued. If more than 20 days are taken then the pupil will lose their school place. You can reapply for a place at the school on return, it’s worth checking how many places are available in your child’s year group. No term time absences are authorised in our LEA. The HT cannot authorise any term time holidays for any reason.

Don't do it, go next summer holidays.

Did you miss the (repeated) part about summer not being suitable as travel then is very hard/ impossible?

I was speaking to a friend yesterday who removed her son from school and home-schooled for a term. Apparently there are many options out there now for online teaching, so this might support your case with the school but as others say it would likely be at the discretion of the school whether you were able to return after your absence.

Children can be off rolled after 20 school days. You would then have to reapply to the council to see which schools have spaces.
Why not use the summer holidays as that is plenty of time to visit another country.

I think if you are going to be away for a few months and not just really for a holiday it's a different system and routine. DH used to regularly attend a term of school when visiting his GM in a different country and his school were fine with that. I've also worked with nomadic kids whether that be family employment reasons or cultural ones such as Romany, or Irish Travellers, for example. Whether you can keep your place at the current school I don't know. I think it sounds like a great opportunity and you could officially homeschool for those months so I'd definitely go for it.

Headteachers operate within a very strict set of regulations around attendance and there really isn’t anything you could say in your application in support that would be acceptable and allow them to grant this. You would lose your places at that school and unless significantly undersubscribed those places will fill fairly quickly.
I think I would arrange to see the Headteacher to talk this through, as they will have a steer on the demand for places and likelihood of getting a place when you have to reapply via in-year admissions when you return. Also maybe a bit of research on other schools nearby and how under or oversubscribed they are, and whether you would be happy if you need to go there instead.

We're lucky. Our eldest is ahead of expected standards and loves learning. Youngest is very keen to learn to read but I haven't pushed it as I think its fun to learn alongside friends. But I do believe that if I home schooled them they would be further along than their peers rather than behind.

And yet there's a language barrier as the kids don't speak.your native language. Why on earth didn't you speak it to them from birth.

critisism unrelated to this question. But no, i didnt. My DH doesn't speak it and apart from my mum there is no one else to talk it to. Its not a useful language. They both understand a small amount but no they're not fluent. I have put the eldest in an afterschool club for a more useful language spoken realtively near but selfishly haven't actively taught them this rare and unused language.
Do your children speak multiple languages?

You'd be shocked how many kids don't speak their parents' or one of their parent's language, especially if only the other parent dies not speak it. It's beneficial for kids to hear it, but many people are discouraged as initially it can hamper the progress of English, most kids catch up a bit later.
I did have few friends whose primary schools advised them (wrongly) on focusing one one language as they thought their English progress was hampered. Life is life, we don't always make the decision an armchair expert on mumsnet would expect us to.

My DC don't speak my native language either. It's not likely to ever be useful for them as pretty niche. They started learning a lingua franca widely used in the area once they hit junior school - far more useful than an extreme minority language. But our priority was excellent English. They now have a decent widely-spoken second language (probably B2). Plus school languages. I have no regrets on this and personally dispute the current "wisdom" of multiple languages from birth and OPOL.

Will agree to differ here. One of my ex-boyfriends his mother only spoke to him in her native tongue. So he is fluent in his family's native language. Niche language too. It caused him no harm as he is a Doctor and a consultant at that and now he also has language skills too. His English is perfect and always was. He did well at school in it.

I think it's always important to be able to speak another language. It's difficult to learn another language. And if you have the opportunity to learn from birth so it is second nature it should be taken. But that's because I can't speak another language. And I wish I could.

Also, my old next door neighbour, the mother was German. Her children spoke fluent German and were able to do the gcse when they were about 12. They did the a level when they were about 14. And it was just an extra a star at gcse and a level to help them. And also if they ever go travelling to Germany, which they do, they can speak the language. One of the children is planning to go to university in Germany and that's an option as they speak the language.

I just don't see any negatives to learning your parents language when you have a native speaker in the house. It's not a hard thing to do.

In my area it's 20 days & the child is removed. You would then have to reapply on your return & may be allocated a different school or 2 different schools as your children are in different year groups. It used to happen alot when mine were in primary, an area with a high immigrant population & often children would be taken out for weeks on end. It was massively disruptive to all the children not just the ones who were away as the teachers were trying to teach a class were virtually no one had covered the whole curriculum. The LEA came down quite heavily & now it virtually doesn't happen.

I don't know if there would be consequences for failing to educate your child. Would you be home educating or would they be educated in the school you are visiting.

Is there no way they can learn the language & culture whilst in the UK? Most children cope well with being bi-lingual & easily switch between language for home & language for school

I don't disagree. But I had a choice of my (very niche) mother tongue, or the trading language of my geographical area (which would be a lot more useful). So I went for the trading language for my children as they are far more likely to use it, they can access books/films/music in it and have been able to join groups over the years where the language is used. I don't know anyone else in the UK who speaks my minority language apart from my mother who we have little contact with. But we can socialise with people who speak our trading language, access media, join language classes and courses... So this is the language they learned at home when they hit junior school. GCSE is a low bar - they would certainly exceed this level. Both passed a CEFR B2 assessment aged 12 and have continued to improve since then.

Where I grew up, we spoke our native language until starting school at 7. We then learnt the lingua franca, and picked up further foreign languages at 10 and 12. I leant English at 10 and speak it pretty well thanks. There was no disadvantage to learning languages at 7, 10 and 12. Most of our citizens are pretty fluent in 3/4 languages, and many accumulate more. Compare this with the state of languages in the UK. Unless you have a native speaker at home, it is very unlikely that a child will reach 18 with anything more than a cursory ability in 1 non-English language. There is a great deal of debate about the best way to learn additional languages. The example set by lots of other countries (Scandinavia for example where they often speak excellent English and/or German, or FSU with a regional language and Russian) is that a second language is better taught formally once the mother tongue is established. This facilitates the proper learning of grammar and spelling. We meet children who have learned our second language from OPOL, and my children's grammar and writing is far better.

Do it!
I did as a child and have never ever forgotten the experience.
Children who are of mixed ethnic backgrounds, especially those who do not have other family members in the Uk and not a large community of which they can feel a part, can often find it hard to connect with that side of the family. Travelling there, and spending time there is priceless.

Many posters who say that 6 weeks out of school is not worth it, don't understand what it means to not live your culture.

They'll just have to go to another school on return.

You can always go on a waiting list to transfer back?

This is completely wrong and would be considered illegal off rolling.
If the school knows where the pupil is and has a return date for them, they can't take them off roll regardless, be it 2 weeks or 2 months.