Would you take your 6 year old out of school for 7 days

[KirstyJ2025]

Hi all, we really want to do a once in a lifetime holiday to Disney Florida. We plan on booking 11 nights, some of the days go in to a half term break. We do however have to take our little one out of school for 7 days. She’s in year 1. We know we will go over the unauthorised 10 occasions and will be charge £80 per parent, but we will save over £1,500.00. We have been told to ring in sick for a few days to avoid the fine, but I don’t think schools a silly and they will just work it out haha, so we are thinking honestly is the best policy? Would you agree?

Only thing I’m worried about it that if you have any other unauthorised absences within a 3 year period, I believe we can be prosecuted. Tbh, we aren’t planning on doing it again. We also don’t want our school giving us a hard time over it. It’s actually our honeymoon trip too.

just wondering what others have done in this situation.

:-)

Be truthful, take the fine. If you lie then your child won’t be able to talk about the holiday.

This absolutely does happen and my child was in nursery or reception at that aswell i can't remember, absolutely couldn't believe it. Answered the door and said what do you want to see them, said no its fine.. obviously checking if we went on holiday 🙄

This

they also don’t have to trust that you are sick (DD old high school would not authorise anything in the 3 days before and 3 days after holidays) and they can retrospectively change it from authorised to unauthorised

Schools don’t have control over the fining process and you can be put straight to going to court (someone one here has done so and I know of at least 2 to 3 others who have)

what would 4 days do? under the magic 10 sessions and it resets after 10 weeks

it’s a pain though Disney didn’t used to have such deviations in ticket prices as they do now! So it was never ridiculously more expensive

@Sal820 yes they can and do

attendance rules are ridiculous post August 2024 and very prohibitive

I guarantee if you put a bit of time and effort in to your booking you would get it at the same if not less during the holidays. Surely if you have a holiday budget of say 8k you book accordingly during the holidays. We go regularly to Orlando in school holidays and always get very reasonable prices, its about booking at the right time.

I would not.

Yes, I did several times during my children’s primary and secondary years. It was fine. I haven’t read the thread because I know what the responses will be 😁

No i wouldn't take a child out of school.
It was just something I didn't do.
If you wanted to do this 'lifetime' trip, I would do it in a couple of years when she is a bit older and maybe still in primary.

we have called the police before, it doesn’t happen every time but if school cannot get in touch with parents then that’s the procedure.
The school will try other contacts and video call 1st, then do a home visit if there’s no contact after a few days because it then becomes a safeguarding issue, the child will be deemed missing.
Especially if they suspect the child may actually not be ill and you’ve taken the child away.
Remember when they call you the ring tone will be different so they’ll know you’re out of the country anyway so it’s best to just be honest.
some schools will actually be ok if the children has good attendance and there are no concerns, a few years ago I requested holiday time for my daughter and they wrote us a lovely note telling us to have a nice time on holiday. It may be different not tho since they’re clamping down on time off in term time.

Thank you because I don’t know what reason I would have just decided to pluck that information out of thin air 🙄
people also don’t realise that if you’re child is away for a certain amount of time they can be removed from roll and the school can refuse them if they re applying.
it has happened before, the worst part was the sibling remained at the school as they didn’t go away (think they stayed with a relative) so the parents ended up with 2 children in different schools.

There is so much wrong information on here about the new rules. I suggest you use the gov website on the rules and understand the rules properly for subsequent absences.

don’t ask the teacher to prep work for you that will be missed as it’s an extra burden and takes ages. Plus you’ll be on holiday and won’t do it as you’ll be busy enjoying yourselves.
follow the absence request policy of school and stop feeling guilty as you don’t want to overthink it.

Because of crappy parents who cannot bring their kids to school, normal people have to suffer these indignities.

You should be able to go on vacation with your family on a reasonable schedule. But because of chronic absenteeism of a few students, everyone is punished, basically

Children need education. Work is missed. A teacher will, however they do it, have to teach your child what is missed. Your child is being taught that their education and school attendance don’t matter. There are safeguarding procedures and fines because it is the law that children attend school, or are educated elsewhere. Parents who wilfully disrupt their child’s education for their own benefit often try to justify why they are breaking the law. It is selfish.

Memories for the parents. The 6 year old won’t remember it.

At Disneyland? I take this argument for most trips, but not Disney.

After Covid and endless school closures, it’s hard to argue that the odd family holiday has a meaningful impact on a child’s education.

I agree, there's also a whole load of school holidays in which to enjoy such experiences. There always seems a lot of whining about the amount of school holidays, yet parents are very keen to use up their own precious holidays in term time, which is unnecessary.

@KirstyJ2025 I don’t know all the rules but be very very cautious. The recent thread was absolutely shocking (about the parents taking their dc out of school to visit family in another continent then getting a court summons - not a fine. I think because it went over one week (in that case) it was logged as separate occurrences, or something like that, so you may find within a few weeks of getting back, you have a court summons landing on your doormat. I suspect they are coming down hard to reinforce the rules. You have to consider whether your career and future travel plans will be affected by getting a conviction - I think on the other thread someone mentioned what the conviction woukd be for, and it is child-related (something like child neglect or failing to safeguard a child or something similar), so depending upon what jobs you and your oh do, you will have to disclose this to them and it may well affect your employment - could you lose your job over that?

is it really worth it? I would say no, not at all.

Nonsense argument. This was to protect children and adults from the potential spread and the learning wasn't continuing, so everyone missed the same things. If you alone are on holiday then you alone will fall behind.

In 7 days? What exactly is a 6yo child going to fall behind in during 7 days? A phonic that will be repeated at least three more times? Some sandpit time?

If this is a once in a lifetime thing I would wait until 8 or so to do Florida and go for longer, use whole half term and days either side. They can’t do all the rides yet

I’d never take my child out of school for a holiday. Either work a bit harder and save up the money needed to go during the school holidays or if that’s not possible use the same money and buy a different holiday at a more appropriate time.

Me and DH took our primary school children out of school every year for a holiday and although it wasn't authorised it was never made into an issue and we were never fined.

We don’t do it now our oldest has just started secondary school though.

I absolutely would do it in your case OP.

That's funny. It's probably half a whole unit of maths and maybe most of the writing section of English. Quite a lot really.

Maybe because people can’t afford to pay an extra £2k to go in school holidays. Trips like this are expensive anyway and taking them in the holidays can nearly double the price. Would be good if the government could put something in place to stop travel agents pretty much doubling their prices. I know it’s where they make their money, but think about it, if they were reasonable prices all year round, more people would travel in prime times and they’d make their number back.

😆 You are right, that’s genuinely funny. We must have entire schools full of children who can’t write because they had flu for a week.