Holiday during reception school term

[ReadyToRoll321]

DS is due to start reception in September but we have a holiday booked for January, the week he would be due to start back after the Christmas break. It’s not something I plan on doing often, but DH figured it’s the last opportunity to have a reasonably priced holiday, as it’s during school term time. I’ve read that because he won’t yet be 5, the school don’t approve time off for holidays, but can’t actually fine us. My question is, how do we politely inform the school and when. We have a home visit in the summer, or first day of school? Or later in the term.
thanks in advance

Later in the school term and enjoy it for the last time!

Doesn’t matter whether you tell them later or now, I wouldn’t fret over it, you certainly won’t be the first or last to take them out in term time

The school doesn’t fine you, the LEA fines you.

I just emailed the week before. Don't be surprised if you get a arsehole letter about the importance of regular attendance.

Do you both work? How does the cost saving compare to losing 5/10 days of annual leave that could be used to broach the summer holidays childcare gap.

Yes compulsory education at school doesn’t start till term after the child is 5 so covered.

I would just email as you break up . They don’t give permission but can’t stop you or fine you . Fines are increasing so definitely go for it.

You'll get a load of people telling you about how much you're ruining his education and some other utter nonsense.

Don't worry about it. Just let them know at some point in his first term. I doubt they'll care, but if they do they can't do anything about it anyway. Just enjoy the holiday.

Definitely a non issue in reception, and financially makes sense. Family holidays are important in children’s lives.

Enjoy it and just let them know in the week before the school breaks up.

You won’t be the only ones.

I'm a teacher and wouldn't recommend it. Every day in school is important. Go on holiday in the holidays. That's what they're there for. Ffs.
I find these attitudes mind boggling when so many children in the world still don't have access to free education.

I know many teachers that also absolutely get why people do it ..

You gain a lot educationally especially early years .. take a few books . Job done ..

I feel you have been brainwashed with the government mantra… Education doesn’t just happen in the classroom - I think secondary school I feel very differently about but reception they are 4 ..🤷‍♂️

Completely agree. Every day in school does not matter to most children. To a small and deprived subset it probably does but even then it is hard to control for confounding factors.

several EEA countries with high educational performance and educational equity do not require full-time school attendance until much later than in the UK. independent primary schools have much shorter terms than state schools, and do not typically have longer learning days, so something doesn’t add up about the ‘a missed week condemns them to a life of failure’ maxim.

Look, just do it! Your dc is 4! School might be twats about it, but they only care for ofsted purposes.
My DH and I regularly took term time holidays with our respective families when growing up. Both of us graduated university so can’t have fucked our education up too badly!

I work at a school doing clubs so it wouldn’t effect us taking days off as the school I work at starts back later than DCs. And I am off over the summer so fortunately don’t have to worry about summer child care. The cost of what we are saving makes a substantial difference

Thanks all. I know I’m not the first, and certainly won’t be the last to take time off for holidays. glad lots of people said to wait later in the term/end of term. That way we aren’t starting the school year on a negative note. Definitely agree that DS will learn more being away. He already knows his phonetics and can read a fair amount by himself, and loves activity books so I’m not worried about him missing out on school education (especially in reception). Whereas the things he will experience whilst on holiday I can’t teach him

Well independent school class sizes are on average 50% smaller than in state schools, so that's not really a relevant comment.
I think every day does matter, I'm happy to agree to disagree.but in most reception classes they learn 1-2 phonetic sounds a day on most schemes, so of course the child who isn't there misses this learning. For some, the catch up is easy, for others it isn't. That's been my experience as a primary school teacher. I also think there are some holidays worth going on, but some are just sitting on a beach watching their parents get drunk and sunburnt...

And learning one or 2 phonetic sounds each day is important to a 4 year old can can already read how,?

Often children who are self taught readers have memorised whole words by sight, which is amazing, along with gappyknowledge of individual sounds. E.g. they may be able to read "thing" as a word but not read the phonetic digraph "ng", so when they face a different, more complex word with "ng" in, if they haven't been taught the skill or decoding and blending systematically, they won't have the strategies in place to read the word.
Some children who are early readers haven't built up resilience if facing words they don't know, not all of them, but this can cause problems down the line if their gaps in learning haven't been addressed early. I see this a lot in Year 2 when suddenly faced with attempting multisyllabic words e.g. "solidly", children who have no gaps will just crack on, sound talk blend and write using grapheme mats for support, just like they did with "dog" in reception.
These reasons are why the year 1 phonics check has "alien" words in, to confirm a child has learnt all their sounds and strategies for decoding before moving into year 2.
Children who may have been incorrectly taught to read early by their parents also need everything re-teaching to ensure that they can do the harder skill of writing using the process of sounding out, blending then writing each sound.
Each new sound is taught then written in the same session, so an early reader will not usually be able to write as many things as they can read. Or they may be able to write well but not start at the right place, e.g. writing a "d" starting at the top of the ascender THEN going down and making the circular part of the d. If this can be corrected in Reception, it means later in year 2 the children are able to learn joined up writing easily, as they all start forming each written letter correctly from the line. So for a "d" you should start on the line then go into the circle THEN the ascender.
Sometimes children can form letters correctly from the right starting point, but write letters above the line .e.g. a y sitting on top rather than going through and under.

So yes, a child who can read will actually miss a lot.

But what do I know, right? I'm just a teacher.

Well I know I had a reading age of 13 by the time I was 6. Self taught apparently according to my mother. And with hearing issues so obviously phonics were not the major method of learning.

I'm really happy for you.

Proves not everyone fits into your theory.

Please when is the term/time after 5th Birthday for someone born in February. When you are fined for taking your child on holiday