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!

In that case it's foolish to take them now - your YR 5yo will barely retain any memories at all of the trip, just a few blurry recollections of colours and crowds.

If you go in April-May when your older child is in y6 that would be the least disruption - your older child will miss SATs but that won't be much detriment and worst-case scenario if you lose the school place there will only be half a term of difficulty before starting y7, and your younger child will similarly only be half a term away from y3 at which point the infant-class-size rule relaxes so it will be easier to get her a place. However your younger child will still only retain quite vague memories of the visit at that age - but waiting any later would disrupt your older child's secondary education and that's more of a problem.

As a young child, I would have hated missing school at these ages. It would make me anxious and I would feel left out etc. That could just have been me being a nervous and insecure kid however.

Not keen on facts?

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10016/

Totally agree with this. There is so much more to educatiin than sitting in a classroom. I say this as a teacher. Travel and family connections are so important. OP, good luck with speaking to the head and putting your case forward.

If it is a no, you could wait until the eldest is in y6 and de register them for the last term of y6, (at least they will miss the hysteria of SATS!) Then you will only have the youngest to get back on roll and they are more likely to remember the trip bring a few years older.

It impacts other pupils because if the children of poster come back significantly behind where they should be, it then becomes their teacher's responsibility to help them to catch up. Depending on the cohort of their class, the teacher having to do this takes them away from helping other children. Obviously.

I remember trips from when I was 5. They may be blurry but I remember family and some of the experiences. But really I haven't been before for exactly that reason.

I need the eldest to do the 11plus- thats a hard stop around here.

OP I’d go for it! You had a fab experience as a child and odds are they will as well.

the narrow definition of education as the curriculum is nonsense. Education is way broader than that and the experiences they would gain from a term abroad at that age would be massively enriching.

re the UK school Id speak to the headteacher to understand how oversubscribed the school is. You will have to officially deregister them but maybe there’s a good chance they could rejoin when they come back?

That would completely throw your plans off course for the year because you’ve never had any refugee children turn up mid-year and needed to catch them up without risking your class data, shock horror.
Obviously.

I would suggest that you speak to the Education Welfare/"School Attendance Team in your local authority and ask them for advice in your situation and what the guidance is.
You're planning to return and can provide proof via tickets so it's not always the case that schools can remove from roll. As I say your LA will be able to provide further info.
Hope it all works out.

I know what you mean and definitely think social media SPaG from the majority of users makes the country’s educational standards seem shockingly bad 😱but as a secondary school English teacher of more than 20 years and a bit of a stickler for SPaG, please do not think we are not trying to instil high standards. 🙏 My students write well but seem to revert to poor SPaG on social media (we have discussed this) - it’s called code switching!! 😜

While I understand all the issues about schools and their attendance rules, I find it rather sad.

In the late 1960s my brother and I were taken out of school for six weeks to do a similar trip. My mother went to speak to the headmistress of our primary school. Her view was that we would learn far more than the school could teach us. We went with her blessing. We kept scrapbooks and wrote in them every day.

I remember so much about that trip, all the places we went and all the experiences we had. In contrast, I barely remember anything about much of school.

OP, while I think there are valid arguments for not going, I think it is very important to remember that school is not the only important thing in childhood.

I’m English and worked in HE for many years. We moved abroad when our son was 5 mainly because we don’t rate the English education system very highly compared to some other (EU) countries. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Children in the class are unlikely to all be at exactly the same stage in all subjects. I think one of the children is in reception, well some kids in reception are still in nappies and don't know how to sit still and listen to the teacher, others are reading chapter books and doing KS2 maths. Teachers cope.

Because of the additional input required by teaching staff to bring absent children up to date with curriculum on their return

Spot on

In my last school we had a couple of (settled) traveller families (all related), they were lovely kids, Mums were lovely but illiterate and Dads didn’t really get involved except for end of year performances and sports day. The kids did miss a lot of school but the main reason they don’t have good educational outcomes is that not a single one of them carried on formal education after year 6. They are all “home educated” once they get to secondary age. This means the boys go to work with the male family members and the girls help the female family with the younger children. It’s the way of life for them. Genuinely lovely people but they simply don’t value formal education.
None of the children were bullied and none of the children were bullies - in fact they were better behaved than some of our other families!

This. Which is why there are priority rules in place to try to keep them in schools as much as possible.

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. For me, school is brilliant because of the community aspect and learning to work alongside others. Academically primary I truly believe I could teach my kids (not that I could be a primary school teacher.. I bow down to them for the work they do!)
So perhaps it will be disruptive because they'd be ahead if anything.
I definitely think (knowing a fair amount about traveller communities through studying) that it's not comparable at all because of what is culturally valued. I value education (formal and informal) whereas traveller communities (traditionally) value their community education methods- not necessarily the mainstream education agenda.

We did it this year with our 3. We took 6 weeks out of school, our school is an oversubscribed one too.

It was fab and I would honestly do it again !

Ultimately only you can decide if the trip is worth potentially loosing your children's school places for. You know the value of the trip vs the value of their current school. Even if head says they will keep the place, if they get an application whilst you are away, the council may insist they take that child and remove 1 or both of yours from the roll, so it's up to you whether that risk is worth taking.
I strongly believe in the value of travel and of seeing extended family, and have taken our girls out for a few days to facilitate this. But their primary is fabulous and I would never in a million years risk their places to travel. You have to make the choice which is right for your family.

Personally, I think it would be a brilliant experience for your DC and you sound in a good position to teach them. I wish schools could give their blessing to these kind of trips which have a myriad of cultural and educational benefits in the wider sense of education.

But as PPs have said, the educational zeitgeist is concerned with absence rates and they cannot legally support an absence like this. You risk losing your DC’s place but from your posts, it sounds like it may be worth the risk of that to you. 🤷🏻‍♀️ How oversubscribed is your DC’s school? Is there a local independents school that may have an exodus of pupils who come to your DC’s school if the new government’s VAT rate is applied?

Fair enough. I don’t know enough about the global situation to make that assessment. I do know that we are working as hard as we can to teach to as high a standard as possible and feel pretty proud of that. 😊

They are very young still- if it’s important for you to go for a long time (1 term ) I would deregister them due to travel home ed and re registered them when you get back. They will be out of school for a long time this will probably be the best option.

I took my children out of school for 3 months, and enrolled them in a school in my home country on other side of the world. They were 7&9 at that time. I had to sort out elderly parents and it wasn’t going to be possible without having them in school for that time. I took work from their school here and they had to do a diary every day etc, I didn’t get a fine when we returned, and had a letter from the school near my parents stating they had been in school for the last 12 weeks etc. they managed to return to the school here when we came back and didn’t suffer educationally because of the long time away. They still talk really fondly of that time in school when we were away and made lots of friends when they were there, and got to spend lots of time with family still and immerse themselves in a different culture. I would go for it.