To take the DCs out of school for a day and lie about??

[BigMomma3]

Probably am but ho hum!

DH is jumping out of a plane tomorrow from 13000 ft (got a tandem skydive as an Xmas present) and the DCs want to see it! Also if I want to watch, they have to come as we will never get back in time to pick them up (2 hour drive away).

I was going to call their schools tomorrow and say that they are unwell (may be a bit odd as 2 are at the same school)but hate lying as I'm always afraid it will come true! They are rarely off school so it won't really hurt and I would never normally condone it but it's a once in a lifetime experience for DH (hopefully he will not get a taste for it) and will be family day out for all of us.

AIBU?

[tispity]

the 4.5 days sounds like a brilliant idea - was a bit like that at one private school i attended. i really don't know where this idea has arisen from of 5 days every week being the only way to succeed - plenty of people bunked off when we were younger and those on full attendance usually had a bizarre attachment to the school or harsh parents who would send them in regardless of illness or anything else.

i'd say go for it - having a long lunch together as a family is a special occasion in itself and we have lots of precious memories of eating out with the dcs. they need to practise for when they are older, especially if they end up in banking or insurance!!

[OtterInaSkoda]

I think it works really well, tispity. And actually I think the dcs end up having more learning hours than if they had a more conventional set up. As well as the standard hours they're spending over 2 hrs a week doing things that otherwise they'd not be able to do, or that would have to be factored into normal school hours (esp. the case with swimming).

[FabIsGoingToBeFabIn2010]

tispity why not home educate as you obviously have no faith in the school.

[tispity]

i bet they do! if we could have such an arrangement (either formally or on the quiet) then ds could take up ice-skating again. the saturday classes are torture and oversubscribed. it would have to be a pretty amazing school for the headteacher to successfully argue that they were getting more out of that time being at school than doing something refreshingly different.

are your dcs at state school though? indie schools are more flexible aren't they? dd is at prep school and they have different activities on a wednesday afternoon but it is all organised by the school

[tispity]

"tispity why not home educate as you obviously have no faith in the school" - he will get another teacher in yr 1 through to end of yr2 so i am really hoping things will turn around then. i like having some time away from the dcs and i feel that it is important for them (we spend far too much time togather anyway!). HE would prob be best but i would NOT want to sign away the rest of my working life to it. ds is 4 and i would be past 40 by the time he finished his schooling - who would want to employ me then?

[FabIsGoingToBeFabIn2010]

I think you should put your child's schooling before a potential future job, but jmo.

[OtterInaSkoda]

It's a normal state school, tipsity. They've been doing it for years now - it was already well established when ds started there in Reception.

They are pretty unconventional as a school. The downside though is that sometimes they can be head-in-the-clouds and a bit too complacent - it isn't perfect. On balance I'm still glad ds goes there though.

[OtterInaSkoda]

Oh - very few dcs go home on the half-days. It's nice to have the option though of picking them up at midday and going somewhere that might be hideously busy at the weekend/holidays. Although I've only done that once in 5 years

[tispity]

otter - do you live anywhere near us (north lolndon)? any vacancies? (i like "complacent")

fab - but there is no end to doing that; i have just spent the last decade putting their pre-school years ahead of my career...though i will prob end up doing as you would

[OtterInaSkoda]

Sorry - we're a good 100 miles away.

Complacent has its good points (although I thought of it as "relaxed" when ds was in Reception) but it does mean that I think they let dcs drift along a bit too much. Nothing wrong with drifting, but bit of direction can be a good thing.

[FluffyDonkey]

"As well as the standard hours they're spending over 2 hrs a week doing things that otherwise they'd not be able to do, or that would have to be factored into normal school hours (esp. the case with swimming)."

Not sure what you mean here...I did normal school hours and up to 10 hours swimming training a week outside of school time. It's perfectly possible.

Back to the OP - prepare for a long wait for the parachute jump. Your DH won't necessarily be in the first plane that goes up, and sometimes you have to wait for the clouds to clear etc. Parachute jumps are often put back because of weather. I was lucky and did mine fairly quickly but I was in the last plane that went up that day, and I know someone else who turned up 3 weekends in a row, but never managed the jump!

[nappyaddict]

Otter If you don't mind saying, what area are you in?

[pofarced]

why don't more schools do that Otter? Makes so much sense. In Germany school is only until lunchtime anyway [with sports in afternoons] and they are ahead in literacy and numeracy rates.

[nappyaddict]

pofarced Do they do only do sports in the afternoon or do they sometimes do other stuff (like art, music, drama, crafts, cooking etc?) I'm not sure sport all afternoon every afternoon is that productive but like the idea that mornings are for "academic" work and afternoons are for the other stuff that don't do enough of in my opinion.

[pofarced]

i think it is all kinds of activities but would have to ask my German friend, nappyaddict.

[OtterInaSkoda]

nappyaddict I'm fairly sure ours is the only school in the immediate area to do this. I'll try and come up with a way of saying where we are without outing myself too much!

[OtterInaSkoda]

fluffy - what I mean is that they get to do things between 9am and 3.15pm that they wouldn't get to do otherwise, if that makes sense, because they've found a way to compress compulsory teacher-contact hours. I need to find an example...