AIBU to feel annoyed about school authorising wedding absences when they make such a noise about attendance when children are ill?

[Crunchyautumnleaf]

My kids secondary school are pretty hot on attendance- lots of messaging around the importance of high attendance, lots of making the kids feel really like they should stay of they go to the first aid room feeling ill. Phone calls whenever a child is off sick.

So I am just really tired confused to learn from friends that the school does seem to always authorise 3 days off to attend a wedding in this country! 2 friends were successful for actual weddings (even though one was only a few hours away) and one person I know just made up a wedding (inc a little AI created invite!) and got the time authorised

I am not one to lie so won't be trying the same, but it does really rankle when there is so much messaging making people feel guilty about genuine illness

This is a very narrow viewpoint.

Typically you do consult, but that doesn't mean that the school is the most significant constraint.
Sometimes people just have a very little choice and accept that maybe not everyone will be able to come, but hope that part of the guests will manage.

Children in two different school systems can have very limited holiday overlap.
Someone might have a specific health-based timing preferences (planned big surgery, heavy pregnancy, declining health).
Someone might have on-shore/off-shore/overseas deployment patterns.

Many reasons even with pro-active planning the best choice of date might mean skipping some day of school is the best choice.

(I agree that school authorising wedding with less fuss than illness/injury which actually developed at school is riddicculous and the whole attendance pressure doesn't serve the purpose.)

They’re not allowed to be fine with holidays.

Headteachers don’t have the authority to allow holidays except in exceptional circumstances.

My kids HT has authorised a holiday as we’ve managed to (finally) get respite for DD3 and can go away and the other kids can be kids. The HT has been able to authorise it because of the circumstances. She’s not allowed to authorise other holidays even when she agrees they’d be fine (and she can’t just pretend they’re exceptional as it’s looked at).

We went away for a term time wedding once. My SIL got married in Spain, because she is Spanish. Their school holidays are different to ours, and she has specific dates she can take off work, so they chose a date that worked for them.
We took 4 days off school for the wedding. I actually don’t know if it was authorised or not, I don’t actually care because we would have gone regardless. Whether the tick was in the ‘authorised’ or ‘unauthorised’ box on the school system made no difference to our lives.