WWYD Cocked up flight dates

[RhythmNBooze]

I am such an idiot. Checked term dates on council website before booking flights to Canada. Just realised school's Easter holidays start a week earlier. Will cost £800 to change flights . Am waiting to hear back from travel insurer if they will cover charge but I'm not hopeful. Alternative is to stick to original dates and miss 4 days of school at the beginning of the summer term (the Monday is an inset day).

2 dds will be affected. dd1 is in year 10 and dd2 in year 8. Would you ask for the absence to be authorised or suck up the extra charge? Due to the mix up dds will be on holiday for a week before we are due to fly. Is it worth asking for work for them to do during this week?

I'm so annoyed with myself for not cross checking the school's dates but I still can't believe they are a week earlier.

WWYD?

I wouldn't expect this to be authorised (hardly exceptional circumstances) nor would I ask teachers for extra work.

You need to weigh up the cost both financially (possible fines) and in terms of whether your children's education will really suffer (how well are they doing? do they miss many other days?) if you don't change flights.

if you checked the dates before you booked then I am a bit confused how come they have now come up to show its a week earlier? do you think they changed the dates from when you first looked? if you do and you have some sort of proof like a screen shot then I would say it is exceptional circumstances to be authorised by them.

I am assuming that your Yr10 will have mock GCSE's around about May and if this is the case then no I wouldn't take them out. I would suck up the extra costs.

Wasn't clear. Council website shows holidays starting on 2nd April but school's website has them starting a week earlier.

Completely my fault but I haven't got the budget to pay the extra .

Get some screenshots asap so at least you have something to show them to explain how this came about.

Must admit I'm a bit confused by the local dates for holidays - although the council publishes the main term dates albeit that schools take different inset days from, this year there seem to be quite a few schools who have got very different holiday dates that seem to fall outside of the council's dates. Can academies use different dates? Might be one reason why the two are so different?

I don’t think it’s entirely your fault if the council website is showing a different date. As pp said, screenshot both pages and then go and talk to the head and see what they say. Point out that you don’t have another £800 to correct their mistake!

Academies can choose their own dates..

Isn't Easter before 2nd April. The return date must be the issue surely?

Easter hols this year are different even across the same LEA's. some schools break up as early as the 22nd March and some don't go back until the 18th April. I would be challenging this OP as you did try to book in school holidays and quite reasonably took advice from the LEA website.