to want to take a child out of NURSERY to go on holiday?

[diceyreilly]

My sister in law is planning a holiday early July before the schools break up for Summer. Her eldest currently attends a nursery attached to an infant school during the afternoons only. When she informed the nursery of her plans the headteacher told her she must write a letter to the board of governers requesting permission. Does this sound right? The child is 4 years old and starts reception this coming September. I thought compulsory education started the term after their 5th birthday???

No she doesn't need to apply for permission, she should tell the head she is informing them as a courtesy.

Well I think that if you are enrolled in the school, you should try and comply with school policies. Legally, she can do as she wishes at nursery level, but I really think that it is polite to write the letter.

My child is the same age and personally it is not something I would do. That's just me, your SIL is within her rights to do it.

I thought that it wasn't compulsory until 5 but I agree with yellowcircle, you have to do what the school says or risk losing your place.

Nursery is not compulsory in the uk so asking your sil to ask permission from the govenors is ott

We use a private nursery so schools might be different but we just give keyworker a few weeks notice so they can plan materials, lunches etc

She should write a letter to the nursery, politely informing them of her plans. It is polite to let them know. It is ridiculous to apply stringent governmental regulations aimed at school-age children, to pre-schoolers.

(But then I think soem of the state school regs are ridiculous in any case.)

erm -if she is paying for the privilege she can do what the hell she wants. If it is free then you could argue she has a duty to attend as someone else has been denied a place -but how many nurseries are 100% free anyway.
We are taking our 4.5 year old out of reception on Friday and Monday for a 40th birthday weekend away. Not that worried that he may miss some painting or something. He will read more books whilst he is away. but if he fails all his exams when he is 16 no doubt I will blame myself for my bad parenting skills.

The legal position for state pre-schools is that she can only lose her place if she is absent for 28 consequetive days without notifying them

Naturally she felt she should inform them as it is only polite to do so but its the writing of a letter to the governers she wasn't expecting. It does seem a little extreme.

If the protocol was she had to fill out a holiday request form it would seem a little more reasonable and at least that could be turned around fairly quickly but how often do governers get together to discuss issues like this?

She didn't know she would have to jump through these hoops and is keen to book her holiday asap. Seems crazy to me, especially as parents are under no legal obligation to send their children to pre school.

I take on board your point Chippy about it being a free nursery place that could have gone to someone else. However we are not talking about someone who generally has poor attendance and picks and chooses the days they can be bothered to turn up. July is the end of the school year by which point the child will have almost completed a whole school year. I am sure most parents with a child of this age try to take advantage of one last cheaper holiday before their child starts school officially and the decision is taken out of their hands.

Yummy - where did you get your information from? I am just asking ot of interest as it is probably not relevant to SIL as we are talking about end of school year so losing the place is of no threat to her.

chippy47 - the point is not missing work/falling behind. The point is having due respect (and teaching your child the same thing) for the school and rules etc. In your particular case, I have no problem with your actions. HOWEVER, I know someone who just wanted to take a holiday in the middle of a term (not half term!) and just did so - there was no good reason (such as lack of money), it was just pure arrogance and disrespect for the school. The only potential damage to her DS is teaching him that he can do as he wishes regardless of any rules that are in place - which is a bad message to grow up with IMO.

Whilst in nursery a child is not of statutory school age but those attending nurseries attached to schools will find there is pressure for attendance to be at 95%+.

The school probably has the 'write a letter to the GB' policy in place in order to put parents off seeing taking holiday in term-time as being a simple case of filling in a form and the Headteacher signing it off. It makes sense from the school's point of view to impose the system in the nursery so that no mixed messages are being sent.

However, if the child is to miss the very end of term and already has a Reception place your SiL could write to the Head to inform him/her that they wish the child to be taken off the nursery register with effect from Xth July (but state that they will still be enrolling for Reception in September!) so there won't be any absence issues at all.

I took my DD out of school nursery for 3 days when I was on maternity leave and was going to stay with my parents for a few days - even though I'm a teacher (at the same school) so 'should know better' there were no problems and it will be the only time in her entire school career that she misses school due to holiday as I'm usually working.

Surely there is no way you need 'permission'?!

DD's nursery ask for a month's notice - but that is for staff planning, and in return we only pay 20% fees for days when she is on holiday, which seems to me an excellent deal (we paid come what may for DS's nursery).

If she's already told them about a holiday in July she is being more than polite IMHO. If she does choose to write the letter, I think it should be very much phrased as informing them, rather than asking permission.

We've booked a holiday in June for a week & we're taking DD out of nursery to do so. The owner said we're entitled to one week where we can take DD out for such reasons & not have to pay. I don't know if that's across the board or just her policy though?

Personally, I would write a polite letter to the Head cc-ing in the nursery teacher, informing her/him that you will be away on X dates. She doesn't need to say why. It is really none of their business.

There is no statutory obligation for a nursery age child to be in education and although the school may have it's own policy on this, I doubt very much they will penalise her.

yellowcircle- the reason they probably wanted to take their child on holiday during termtime is that its so scandalously expensive during school holidays. I don't think a child will grow up disrespecting society's rules because of this!

Personally, I think taking your child out of nursery for a week over the course of a year is totally reasonable. Its not like they are revising for GCSEs at age 3 AND 4. We are doing this in April and I will ask for a storysack to take with us and ask if I can help cover any subjects with him whilst we are away. Since its mainly nursry rhymes and counting etc, I do this anyway.

People will stop taking their kids on holiday in term time when ABTA and ATOL stop fleecing responsible parents.

No, that doesn't sound right at all.

In fact it sounds ridiculous!!

I would imagine that the school's general policy for term time holidays is to request permission from the governors, so she is just being asked to do what the rest of the parents further up the school do. It's not absolutely necessary but it's like in our school, where parents have to fill in a request form. It's not compulsory for the parents of nursery children to do this but we ask them to do so because 1) it gets them used to the routine and 2) it makes the admin easier if all absence requests are on the same form.

I see your point about getting parents use to the school policy and how things are done in future. However the answer she got from the Head of Nursery was that they had a zero tolerance policy towards this?? Fair enough for school aged children but nursery??

I will be taking my 3 yr old twins out of nursery for two weeks in May so that we can do the last ever holiday off-peak before they start school, and I return to work (I'm a teacher) in September. I haven't yet mentioned it to the nursery, and hadn't even considered that it might be a problem. As a number of posters have stated, education is not statutory at this age, and therefore parents are at liberty to remove their children for holidays etc if they wish. I occasionally take mine out of nursery if we have visitors, or if we're visiting friends or family and the nursery have no issues with that at all.

I think that being asked to write and ask permission from the governers is ludicrous. As fas as I know (from teaching in secondary), even children in full time education are "allowed" two weeks per year for family holidays. I don't think it's appropriate, and, as secondary teacher, know what havoc it can cause to a student's progress, but we're talking about a 4 year old here FFS. I agree that writing a polite letter informing the nursery of the holiday plan is courteous, but anything else would be unnecessary IMO.

I agree! That is ott! Are you sure she hasn't misunderstood in some way? What can the school do exactly? Expel the child? I think attendence figures for under 5s are not submitted to county anyway, so why the school is using these scare tactics is slightly bizarre. Maybe they have a lot of children not turning up for weeks on end or something.

Hocuspontas - I don't know, I thought maybe she had misunderstood aswell. She said she firstly mentioned it to one of the teachers who pulled a face and said she wasn't sure and referred her to the head who told her this.

It does seem a little silly because what can they do if she goes ahead with this holiday? He won't be going back there the following term as he will be due to start Reception. She does want him to go into the Reception class of this school but those spaces are allocated by the council aren't they and not relevant to the nursery, isn't that right?

that is really over the top - you dont have to be at nursery so not sure why they need a letter

absolutely mad - attendance is not compulsory and if it is just a formality to 'get parents used' to filling in a form it doesn't say much for their opinion of parents, blimey
at our school's nursery parents just inform

Ateendance is not compulsory and the nursery attendance figures aren't counted for the DCFS stats. School will be applying a whole school policy as a way of getting nursery parents into good habits for later on.

Your SIL should be courteous, write advising them of the absence and worry about it no further.

Some (many) state nurserys do have pressure on places and if you remove your child for 20 school days without giving a reason then you may find your place given to someone else. Or if you don't return from a holiday at the given time without letting them know. It's a bit of a grey area though - schools can off roll under the Education Act but the Act only really covers compulsory children.

Yes allocation of reception places is a separate issue to nursery.