To take my 6th for daughter out of school for a month this winter?

[CondeNastTraveller]

My dd17 has struggled with the school environment since secondary. Now in a small independent 6th form, but social issues. She has ADHD and ASD. We went on holiday last year to a warm country where she has relatives. Suddenly she was swimming daily, sleeping on time, waking refreshed and able to read! She has A Level mocks in Feb 2027. WIBU to take her back to the sunny place for, say 4 weeks from late Dec to late Jan, so she can study, then come back to do the mocks in Feb? She struggles with winter at the best of times. Has anyone done this? Should I ask school for permission and see what they say?

YABU: don't take her out of school in term time
YANBU:she is not CSA, so take her out, it will do her more good than harm

Edit: I mean 6th form in the title!

nope, dd is year 13 so I know the pressure but taking her out will increase that. I’d aim for Easter holidays instead. Will it work the same if she’s having to study? Unless she’s already getting straight A*s I might consider it. Year 13 is very very short so minus 4 weeks from that is a big percentage.

I teach sixth form and agree with this.

I had a student a while back go on an extended trip to see family over Christmas. They missed several weeks of school. It brought them down at least two grades in my subject. It was simply too much catching up to do.

School will not authorise it.

Compulsory School Age (how I read it)

Your daughter needs a pair of these:
https://myluminette.com/en-gb/products/luminette-3

My DD has quite bad seasonal affective disorder and these glasses made more difference than anything else she has tried. They are pricey but a lot less pricey than going halfway round the world for a month. And your daughter won't need to miss school.

But if when she gets back she has to catch up on the work that she's missed, whilst simultaneously working for mocks, her mental health is likely to tank again pretty quickly.
The period before mocks is not like the period before public exams where any teaching is just revision focussed. My DC's school was teaching new material in the week of mock exams in the lessons between exams.

If your aim is to keep her from having a breakdown but you both accept that she will be quite likely to do less well in her A Levels (unless she is genuinely a good independent learner and studies a lot while away) then do it.

If you think that she can miss weeks of school because it’ll just be revision with mocks coming up, you’ll get a nasty shock. There is no space in the curriculum, generally, and therefore she’ll be missing a lot of new content. (The exception might be if she does international A Levels at her independent school - in my subject the content is substantially less for these than for the standard A Levels, but I couldn’t speak for the other subjects.)

The problem is the syllabus is so large for A levels, chances are they’ll still be covering new content in the run up to mocks. If she genuinely studies so much better abroad, then the time to go would be in the few weeks before the real exams, when most of the lessons are revision. But you’d need to ensure there was good air con if it was going to be really hot.

Regarding vitamin D, she can take supplements.

I think you could take her for three weeks over the Christmas period without missing more than a couple of days of school. That would be far preferable than missing two weeks at a crucial time.

The other thing is that mocks are just mocks. I think I would focus on her not worrying about them too much, and instead take her away over Easter so that she is in the best possible headspace for the actual exams.

Ahh thank you, of course!

I’d be less concerned about her mocks and more concerned about the fact she’ll be missing 4 weeks of new content that she will need for the actual exams.

I used to teach a level maths.

a month of teaching is a lot.

if a student has missed whole topics then it’s really hard to catch up once back in school. It’s not so bad if it’s linked in any way to previous learning but so much isn’t by this stage.

take her away in holiday time. October half term, Christmas.

I'm not sure the compulsory school age point is correct either. Yes she is post 16 but students are required to be in education, employment or training until 18. She's enrolled on a course of study that will have attendance expectations.

This sounds like a slightly crazy idea. Missing 4 weeks of A level content is easily a grade, if not 2, dropped. She'd come back, have to catch up with the missed content and be doing mocks.

You absolutely cannot expect teachers to set any work for while you are away either.

I think you should have this conversation with the school. See if they allow it, and if they think it would be good for your child.

If it affects her attendance (which I am assuming it will), check that doesn’t affect what she wants to do next.

You're a lovely mum for wanting the best for your child anyway. I know most of us do, but not all. And we’re not all in the position to offer this anyway. Good luck with whatever happens. Actually I’d be interested to hear what the school say.

As it's an independent school they can grant the leave if they wish (I'd missed that part), but it's worth bearing in mind that due to the shorter terms and longer holidays, teaching can be even more pressured in terms of fitting everything in, partially mitigated by longer school days.

I personally find it much easier to finish the A-level syllabus in a timely fashion in a state sixth form (I have taught in state and independent).

It’s definitely something I’d consider for autistic DS. He learns very little in the classroom as the other kids are disruptive and he’s mostly self taught.

We’re in Ireland so it’s the Leaving Cert here but I can definitely see the benefits of taking an extended break in the sunshine for that type of student.

You can miss an entire topic by missing a few days with A levels. It is then up to the student to catch up. 4 weeks would be impossible. My son dosrnt even like to miss one day.

You can’t have a very high opinion of her school if you think she can miss a month's teaching and just read instead, without any problem. Surely they will still be covering new parts of the curriculum.

In any case, what will happen before the real exams? Mocks are meant to be like a dummy run.

Ok, interesting.

Fair enough. This is all good advice. I needed my head wobbled.

A-levels are a completely different kettle of fish to GCSE's you can miss some of GCSE's or not do hardly any revision or learn a lot from study books and if you're clever still do really well. That is just not the case with A-levels, missing content is IMO a complete disaster and once you get behind everything is much, much harder.

I'm all for taking kids out of school on holiday when they're younger, just not at this stage. Go away for the holidays by all means but I'd really advise against her missing content.

Why don’t you go mid 7th ish dec, most private schoools have 3 weeks holiday and break up around them and you’ll only miss first few days back.

Yes, I could do that. Will cost an absolute fortune though....

If you ever expect her to work, then she won’t be able to just swan off to top up her vitamins.

You'd be best showing her how to just cope with life. ‘

Op so it you know and love your DD and what she needs to thrive.
On the other side is an inflexible institution.