Holidays during Term Time?

[BrainLikeASeive]

What's the scoop on taking children out of class during term time?

In England you're allowed to take them out but only for 4 days in a row.
PERFECT for a quick trip to a certain woodland holiday parc!

But... what's the general feel in the Lothians?

I'd love to take them out for 3.5 days. They have 100% attendance but should I try and accrue time first?!!!

We don't go away often - maybe twice a year - and it's only ever a long weekend... or in this instance a mid-week break using the teacher training day on Monday...

Normally I only take them out for a day! But I always write a letter or email saying "I appreciate this will go down as an unauthorised holiday" and never hear a thing back.

It's fine. People do it all the time. We do it about 4 times a year for 1-2 days at a time. You don't get fined or anything. I just tell the school we are on holiday in advance. No comment from them.

The school /council are not worried about children missing a day or three here or there throughout the year. If you were not making your children attend school regularly then that's a different matter.

HTs won't admit to this, but they can authorise up to 2 weeks term time holiday. I took DS out for 3 weeks once - I had to write to the council in that instance, but they did actually authorise it.

If your work cannot give you school holidays and will only authorise your holidays in term time, get your line manager to write a letter and then hand it in to the school and it can be authorised in this case.

Are you sure there's a training day on any Monday coming up? I can only think of one more this session, and it's a Thursday.
Agree with pp there are no fines etc, though once you've done it once you might want to do it every year...