Would you take your child out of school for a holiday?

[Nomorellama]

If they were in reception in the term they turn 5?

so for instance my child turns 5 in November and compulsory education would be from jan 25, would you take them out of school for a cheap holiday in the winter term?

im leaning towards yes but then I’m a bit worried about overall attendance if we need one or two days sickness or one of two days for a holiday either side of the half terms when they are in compulsory education

@hby9628 to be honest I had no problem with it. All of my class were shattered last week and emotions were flying.

Absolutely yes but I'm not in the UK where school attendance seems to be militant. I took my then 5 year old out of school and to Australia for nearly a month and got nothing but well wishes from the teacher and requests to bring back some interesting stories to share with the class.

Nope never.

Yep, my parents took me on about 3-4 big holidays a year, and I learned so much from them.

My parents used to ask the teachers what they'd be covering so I could be 'hotel-schooled' for the period, and it worked out fine.

Teacher friends of mine say "well I can't just write down what I plan on teaching you", but I think that's crap. Battle of Agincourt, parts of the heart, how to differentiate... as a one-off lesson at GCSE etc, it's pretty basic.

I learned how to count to ten in Arabic by looking at taxi licence plates in Egypt, all the states and capitals of America in the car. Worldly knowledge is just as important as taught knowledge.

Yes, we did. Discussed it with reception teacher at the time and she said it was good for kids to go on holiday, although that obviously wasn't the school policy. Didn't do it further up the school.

If you do take your child on holiday during term time, just be honest with the school and don’t bring your child up to think that lying is OK. Also, not that it will apply in your case, but if you get a fixed penalty notice just pay it and not make up some bull*hit reason why the rules shouldn’t apply to you. From September, FPN will be going up to £80 per parent per child…

No. Someone might die and you'll want to take them out then.

Yes I absolutely would... And did. Like you say, education is not compulsory at that age. Most of it is just learning through fun. They aren't going to miss anything essential at that age.
I wouldn't now mine are at secondary as the school is more strict, they're older, and if they miss a week of stuff I absolutely no way can help them catch up and it would be disruptive to them and to the teacher...I could probably go through a missed letter of the alphabet ok with my level of intellect... But not anything at GCSE level :)

Eh?

Really!

But that’s completely separate and I’d still do it then

Yes absolutely. They’re not compulsory school age so it’s completely fine. Be warned they’ll probably get loads of bugs though as they circulate between the class so you might end up on holiday with a sick child (memories of driving to the south of France when one then the other DC started 🤮).

Though I’ve just booked a holiday for my compulsory school age DC that takes them out of school for 2 days so I’m not particularly rule following.

Not first term, no.

I think some of the state school rules are draconian and arbitrary so we’ll have to agree to disagree there. I would home educate if it were viable financially

They’ve been in nursery since 1, so praying that’s not the case lol

What? Have I misunderstood? They denied you permission for a preschooler to miss preschool? They have no right to do that? I mean if you were never attending they have the right to offer the place to someone else but not for a week or two! They don’t get to ‘not allow’ it.

Yes, I would do it.

We do it every year on the 2nd week of September to have a holiday abroad. So much cheaper and it's not the end of the world if the kids miss a few days off school.

The school have always been great about it and told me to have a nice time. It's never been a problem for us.

Yeah exactly… to let the school know we filled in a Leave of absence form and when he came back we were told the absence request was rejected and the absence unauthorised. Dc is 4 and in nursery school on funded hrs

We won a holiday to go away the week after half term when DS was in reception. He was not of statutory school age, so we went.

I doubt I would have booked a term time holiday and we've not gone away in term time since, but I wasn't going to pass up a free week away.

I would

I'd do it! I might ask which phonics sounds they were learning that week to clear my conscience entirely.....

Yes I would and have. But am also on top of all their academic studies. Missing a day will not impact education in anyway .

But they were never going to approve it. That doesn’t matter. You can still go.

Do people not realise until a child is CSA you can send your child in whenever you please just like nursery,and you cannot loose your place or be fined or any consequences at all. There is a different absence code for non CSA children. You could miss a day a week, two days a week. 3 weeks holiday. It's completely up to the parent. Also your attend percentage is only relevant once you become CSA so it won't make a difference how often your child is sick afterwards.

There is no such thing as unauthorised absence for any child below CSA either in preschool or reception.

Yes I have I try tag it at the end or beginning of term so that they just missed 2-3 days