To think we can’t take the children out of school just to spend Christmas with DHs family

[ansieone]

My DH is Serbian, he is Orthodox Christian and celebrates Christmas on January 7th. We have 2 DC our eldest is 4 and will start school in the summer. We are flying out tomorrow for his family Christmas and I was packing, I mentioned casually that it was a bit sad this would be our last year going for a while, he seemed totally shocked and asked why. I mentioned that most of the time school will be back by the 7th so we won’t have a choice. He said that he figured we’d just take the kids out of school for the first week back, we will likely go private so fines shouldn’t be an issue but he said even if we went state he’d rather pay the fines than miss Christmas with his family. He believes that it is really important they get time with his family and not just his parents who will visit but his siblings, cousins etc. and Christmas is the only time everyone is reliably together. I do understand this but I’m not sure I agree that we can just pull them out for the first week of term year after year, maybe I’d feel differently if it was one day, or the last day of term, but 5 whole days at the start of term where I expect they will be refreshing last terms learning and starting new topics feels damaging.

AIBU to say we can’t just take them out of school? DH seems really upset and annoyed at the prospect of missing Christmas with his family.

You can definitely take them out for a religious celebration. Depending when it falls relative to term dates, they might not approve all 5 days, but the 7th and time either side for travel should be authorised.

If your 15 year old is school refusing there’s more at play than observing your father’s family Christmas every January.

You seem a little short of vocabulary to explain your point of view.

Im not trying to.
Im commenting on the rediculousness of the posts.
How i respond is my business..
HTH.

School attendance officer here.
These are experiences of a lifetime and understandably very important to your husband. As long as your children normally attend well, you must go. As others say, most years you wouldn't have to miss a full week anyway and there's likely to be a teacher training day thrown in.

Again. -the head teacher can authorise the absence and no such criminality has occurred.

it happens all the time and is necessary to observe diverse religious deity’s given the UK time tables written around Church of England Christianity only.

I’d take them out of school for this (and I’m a never take them out of school person!). I think you’ll find that as they get older things change a bit, by the time they get to GCSE and it’s more important they don’t miss lessons they’re more able to express what they want to do and have some input. But while they’re tiny - absolutely go for it.

my DD is private school, they are measured on absences too now (rules just changed). She’s not back until 6/1 and I know there will be kids who come back the following week because of family holidays.

It will be fine in infant school at least and probably for longer

My son's always missed loads of school due to illness and has consistently been top of his year . Effort is more important than attendance. Make sure they value education and enjoy learning and reading outside school as well as in school

Not necessarily. We had the odd holiday, day missed, early finish etc. DD has 100% at secondary. In fact, she wasn’t feeling well at the end of term and I said she could stay home, but she took a paracetamol and went in. There’s a balance to be had.

Oh yes. That trip to Disney land when DD was 7 means that she totally thinks that school was unnecessary. Or that ski trip. Or the authorised absences for representing UK Scouts abroad...

Or in reality... she appreciates the value of attending as many lessons as possible and has gone to school on days she didn't have to (as they will give her travel days... but she has been at school at 10.30 after getting back at 3am)

Lol. That's far too simplistic.
I took my son out once to go to Legoland in year 1. And in year 4 just to see his cousins who are here from abroad. He does lots of extra learning for fun on top of his school work and at 15 went back to school the day after a bad fracture because he didn't want to miss key lessons

I’m not one for pulling kids out of school for no reason but for this I 100% would

Some years you get lucky, I know school has gone back as late as the 9th next year it’s the 5th though. Schools will allow a day potentially 2 for religious observance but I don’t think they will authorise a whole week generally, there is no reason why you need to travel overseas to observe a religious holiday in theory. There is compromise to have time before with them so you won’t find them agreeable every year

Certainly next year no viital learning will be missed as it is mostly play based so not too difficult to catch up on the shorter carpet times.

Absence is usually authorised for religious festivals - if you plan to go earlier and travel back at the earliest possible after the 7th you might be ok, but I'd suck up a fine if it was important to DH anyway. Certainly until KS2 (I've not hit that age with my own DC yet to know how fast paced it is)

Normally would be saying you can’t take kids out, but I think a few days at the start of term because of a religious and cultural event seems valid to me? I would expect a Head teacher to happily provide authorisation for an absence for this reason? I’d speak to HT at the school when your DC starts and work from there. Many years, school will not start until 7th, so assuming you fly back on 8th, you’d be back in school on the 9th?

Your DH may need to be more circumspect when your children are at secondary school/doing GCSEs, in which case, you may need to remain in UK with children - or his family may need to alternate and come to you for Christmas (so DC only miss the 7th, itself) - but I’d not discount something being possible with school support.

OFFS I didn't say every child who misses some school will turn out the same way!

But Aristotle wasn't wrong about habits formed before 7 years old.

This!!

haven’t voted - this YANBU to be as whole week every year does seem a lot but YABU to expect your children who are half Serbian to miss this important cultural and religious date and time with their family they often do not spend time with every year too.

Come to a compromise - either prioritise when kids are younger and then obviosuly exam years you may feel more strongly that they don’t miss school or do alternate years or just miss 2-3 days like you said in OP - go the day before and come back the day. If you’re worried the kids can make up all the work they’ve missed when they’re back.

Bit anyway, YABU that you'd just decided that as if you are the only one with any authority. It should have been a conversation not a statement.

I would be taking mine out for the first week if I were you. Especially while in the first infant years - as long as you do 10 mins of maths and 10 mins of phonics with them each day you are out you are covering most of what they learn in infant school anyway.

Not all a child’s education happens within the school building. I think it’s easy to lose sight of that when faced with attendance records and fines etc.

I think a week at the start of term is too much. I'd be willing to look for a way to do it without missing school though, eg -

Flying out during the Christmas holidays and back on 8th.

Asking family if they'd be willing to celebrate on 5th instead.

Hosting celebrations yourself in UK so dc would only miss one day of school

Finding a private school that has longer hols

Going out for Easter instead

I so agree with the PP upthread who said "I don't see why you or anyone would assume school comes first in this instance. But the english system has people in some weird chokehold i guess."
My parents lived abroad when I was young and sent me to a highly academic girls' grammar which had a boarding section, 50-odd girls were boarders out of 700.
I flew out to join my parents for the summer holidays. I hardly ever made it back to England for the start of the September term, and when I was older and booking my own flights, I made sure of it. (Flights were often only once a week).
My best time arriving back, from my point of view, was around September 21.
So, 10 GCE O levels, three A levels, one S level and a decent degree later it didn't seem to harm my education and future prospects at all as far I can see.
And it's not as if the current draconion approach is highly successful in aiding parents who may be somewhat lacking in feck to get their kids to school.
I'm not saying the old ways were better, obviously I was swinging the lead more than a little and there is also the very real problem of children who are school refusers, but the current inflexible system still fails to address the issue it was designed for.

(DS went to a good comp in the late 90s and due to work/holiday constraints we took him out of school from time to time. He too somehow managed to do very well at school and in his career. No fines then. We would have sucked it up if there were. )
It's the totalitarian mindset that I deplore.

I certainly wouldn't be worrying about this before secondary age. And by then, who knows what will be going on.

I don't think it's a big deal of they miss a week each year at the same time, for a good reason. You can all prepare for this, but you'll need the school on board ideally.

My family live in Spain and we visit every year for Reyes. My kids usually miss the first 2 days back at school after Christmas. This year they’re due back on Tuesday and we fly home on Wednesday.
It’s never been an issue.

The current rules around attendance are ridiculous.

Of course there is a relationship between attendance and results, but there are so many other factors involved as well.

There is a huge difference between absence for cultural, family, involvement at a high level in sports/Scouts/ whatever in a family where education is valued, versus absence because parents can't be bothered to get their child to school.

But the government can't measure/change parents value and support for education, they can only legislate on the externals e.g. attendance.