Northern Cyprus holiday during school time

[Sevdamehmet]

Hi, we have booked to travel to Northern Cyprus next June www.directtraveller.com/holidays/north-cyprus ..cant wait to just to totally relax on the beach there :)

We have been meaning to go there for many years now, but my husband only managed to get the time off from his busy work. Now we booked up, we realised that there maybe a problem with the school as we have to take the 6 year old out for a week. Does anyone know if this will be a major problem in the Surrey area?

Thanks
Sevda

in order to take your child out of school you need to get permission from the head teacher. the rules are that unless this is exceptional circumstances you will be refused permission. exceptional circumstances isn't well defined. but generally a holiday does not fall within this definition. if your holiday is refused and you go ahead with it anyway then the fine is £60 per parent per child. so £120 in your case.

the law is pretty clear - no holidays in term time - but it is the definition of exceptional circumstances that seems to vary from Local education authority to Local education authority.

I have had a quick look at Surrey and it seems that they take a tough line on this.

www.surreycc.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/schools/at-school/absences-from-school

you need to go in and get the form from your head teacher, fill it in saying why you are taking a holiday in June in term time and state any special circumstances like if the week is fixed by your husbands employer.

have to say that I am really surprised you didn't know this was going to be an issue as it has been all over the news and the school would definitely have sent home information about it.

Whereabouts are you going (have been several times). FWIW, I don't think you can generalise, I understand holidays won't be authorised anywhere and depends on school / LA's approach to fines.

namechangedtoday15 we have holidays authorised because we cannot due to our employment take them during school holidays. so we don't get fined. if the OP can prove that this is a fixed holiday and there are no other opportunities to go during school holidays then she might be able to prove exceptional circumstances.

just surprised she hadn't realised this with all the newspaper hype recently. and yes, she may be fined, she may not but without actually having yet put in a leave request she and we have no idea whether she will or she wont.

Mummy sorry, I meant "just going in term time holiday".

Our school takes quite a tough stance too (via our LEA has taken). It does refer to exceptional circumstances but only lists funerals of immediate family, examinations and medical appointments. Nothing else will come under exceptional circumstances and the governors are not allowed to authorise any other forms of absence even if requested.

Our policy goes on to say that if any child takes more than 5 days of unauthorised absence in any one term, they may be removed from the school register.

How did you not realise it was termtime

Depends on the school. The ones I know let you have the 5 days without the fine. You may be unlucky though. If there have been any absences before I'd say you were pushing it.
It won't be a " problem" - it's a fine. If you don't pay it it'll end in court which may be a problem but who knows.

"Our school takes quite a tough stance too (via our LEA has taken). It does refer to exceptional circumstances but only lists funerals of immediate family, examinations and medical appointments."

Same here.

Given the publicity term time holidays have had on here and in the media I'm surprised that you weren't aware of this. And surely you knew that June would be term time?