Home ed whilst travelling

[uhoh1973]

We are thinking of taking an extended holiday next year for 4 months. During this time we would home ed DCs.

Has anyone tried this? Reasonably straightforward? What are the pitfalls?

I work in a school with several traveller families who will take children out for months at a time. When they are going to let teachers know when they will go and be back and teachers put together packs of work the families can do with the children so when they return to school they don't have gaps in the curriculum for eg child in my class missed unit on growing plants so he was asked to grow a plant and keep a diary of it (year 1 ) speak to their teachers and ask them what you can do

Would it be a major pita for the school I'd DC1 missed SATS in year 2 or the school won't be fussed?

Main pitfall is that your children's school places will not be held for them. The school has no discretion to do this. You'll have to deregister them from school and hope there are vacancies when you return. You could check now whether their year groups are full and if not, how many spaces there are. That would help you to assess the chances of getting them back in to their current school on your return. If there is no space for them, then you'd either have to carry on HEing or send them to a different school.

Note that the school might already be over capacity now, in which case a pupil leaving doesn't create a vacancy. That means that even if there's no one waiting for a place then your child wouldn't get back in.

The situation described by tireddotcom72 does not apply to your family. There are special rules in place to promote continuity in the education of the children of seasonal migrants, including travellers. Such children can be out of school for extended periods without losing their place, may be dual registered at two schools, and should have work provided by teachers when practical. If you are lucky, the teachers at your child's school might have the time and goodwill to provide work for your children to do while they are away, but I wouldn't count on it.

Good luck! I hope you have a great time.

For only 4 months I'd give t home ed a miss and just gave a fabulous time!

I think the school place is kept open for three months, so you need to say to head you are going for three months and then extend it for some reason. Should keep your place then!

The trouble is that the head can't authorise that much holiday time. If your children remain on the roll of the school, you'll soon find yourself on the wrong end of a truancy prosecution.

Headteachers used to sometimes use the "educated off site" code in the attendance register in such cases, but that is now expressly forbidden. It's going to be unauthorised absence.

You have to deregister them.

The Head is unable to authorise such a lengthy period of absence so you will have to deregister. As someone has already said, this will mean that you lose your place and could have to change schools on your return.

As a teacher, there is no way our school would be willing to provide work for your children to take with them on holiday. You'll have to sort that yourself. The duration with the travelling community is very different and I'd be more than happy to provide work in those circumstances.

I should add we have more school places than children here at all the local schools so dereistering and getting back into the same school shouldn't be an issue.
Fair enough that the teacher won't set work.

That's fantastic. If there is little risk of your children being unable to get back into their current school, I can't think of any good reason not to go ahead with your plan!

I would do it with bells on. Buy Galore Park books - Maths, English definitely but possibly science, history and Bond non verbal/verbal reasoning. All things we used when we he'd.

The galore park books are fairly engaging and stand alone so you don't need anything else. Think about how much formal work you want to do every week and fit it in.

I don't think much of SATS personally so that wouldn't even be on my radar!

Oops just realised their age, I would just go!

Find a couple of age appropriate workbooks, maths and English.

The books we used are yr 3 onwards.

we're going to be doing this either next year or the following one. We live in the US so it's a different system, even if we had to de register the children, as a "community" family (live in the catchment area) they have to give our children places at the school when we return regardless. However, we are planning to do the 3-5month trip to incorporate the 10week summer holidays so they're not missing as much, and will travel at the end of the academic year rather than the beginning.

Ours will be either 5&8 or 6&9 so it's the eldest one we'll be most concerned about keeping on track, as the youngest might even be in formal education yet - so as long as she's continuing to read and learn basic maths that's fine with us.

Loads of travelling family blogs you can look at - most of the advocate for a set hour each day when maths is done, same for reading and writing though you can incorporate that into your travels too

Sounds awesome! where will you go/ stay?! would love to do that!

Have you looked at conquer maths. Might be good, but think only works if have internet access. If DC young then think that reading + conquer maths + maybe a brief diary should cover it as you will be seeing and chatting about loads of interesting things wherever you travel.