Will attending his dad's wedding on a school day count as absence and result in a fine?

[Saralocky28]

My sons dad is getting married in a month and it falls on a school day. If I send an absence form into school I'm guessing it will be authorized but does this still count as a day they use against you if you've taken them out for family holidays?

We've just returned from holiday and DS had 2 missed school days unauthorized but they were aware it was for a holiday.

Do I just say he's sick as it's one day? We are planning taking him out 2 days in October too for a family trip. So if we include all of these he will have missed 10 sessions. Likely will result in a fine.....

Not sure whether to be fully honest or not as I feel you have to work the school system these days!

I’m in Ireland and these posts blow my mind!

Here, I think you get a letter if they miss 20 days. If my dc won’t be in school I send an email saying x won’t be in today, they are at an event. No one raises an eyebrow. (I don’t take the piss, we don’t take weeks for holidays, but days or half days here and there happen)

Yet somehow we still have well educated and successful graduates entering the workforce.

Different systems, different ways of doing things, but the difference in the education systems always amazes me.

A parents wedding would be an authorised absence.

Teacher days are not an extra day off for teachers! When they were introduced they were taken out of the holidays - so children have the same number of days in school as they did before teacher training days were a thing and teachers now work on those 5 extra days. There are lots of things people can legitimately moan about schools - teacher training days meaning children have to have extra days off school isn’t one of them as it is factually incorrect.

I have taken mine out of school for the week before the holidays for part of a two week holiday. I don't care if people don't agree with it - the justification isn't any different from your justification for what you do.

You're stuck with the wedding, but just stop taking him out for holidays - he shouldn't be missing school.

No you are totally right! It was your wording of it resetting in September I was querying. A lot of parents think it does actually reset in September, so absences from June/July ‘don’t count’ as everything resets from Sept.
I can see from your explanation that you don’t mean this!

It’s not and each to their own, I just personally feel 1-2 weeks missed could be a whole topic in maths whereas 1-2 days is easier to catch up. I do believe everyone had the right to their own decisions on this, this is purely my opinion! It’s not a criticism of your choice at all.

Probably arranged it on a school day for the same reason people take holidays during school days

Yes I think we mean the same thing!

The bit I find quite opaque is whether or not it is actually a ten week rolling period? Every single newsletter that comes from DC’s schools has the absence policy at the bottom but they just say you will get fined if you miss ten sessions.

I don’t actually have any plans to take DC out, but as an inquisitive soul, I feel it’s a gap in my knowledge.

Does it. It sounds like exactly what it is to me. A question about how the absence will be treated by the school.

The 'official' guidelines are 10 absences in a rolling 10 week school period. So an absence on the last day in July would trigger the start of the ten week period, but the summer holidays would be ignored, so the second day of the 10 week period would be first day back in September.

Hopefully that makes sense!

Probably it was cheaper. But weddings don't have to be expensive. You can consider the needs of working adults and school age children when you plan.

But they don’t train on those days?!? They are at the cinema with their own children, or shopping in town 🤷🏻‍♀️
The kids at sat in the school watching films while teachers go off training in the school day!

They don’t work on those days!

They don’t work on those days! They just tell you they do.

Re-read 🤷🏻‍♀️

whether teacher’s work or not on those days, it makes no difference. Your children’s mandated teaching time is not included in them.

I’m a teacher. I work on those days.
It’s actually quite offensive that people who have no actual first hand knowledge feel they have the right to criticise.
On the rare occasion that we have used a teacher day as “a day off”, it’s been because we’ve done extra unpaid work on other evenings/ times throughout the year, so essentially time in lieu, and more of a token as the additional time spent (on residentials, school discos…always equals way more.)

But then fine parents for taking them away on holiday … so bothered about kids education but let’s waste 5 days a year!

Ours don’t … seen them out and about on those days! Most people that work in a profession do extra … it’s no different, they just don’t get 13 weeks off a year!

But they are just school holidays essentially. Just renamed inset days as a school can in effect, place when anywhere in the term rather then just added on to a holiday. I don’t understand the issue with this.

Parent’s should be fined for taking their kids out of school. Everytime a a child misses a day, the teacher has to reteach the whole class a topic in order to teach that one child what they missed. An odd day can be absorbed relatively easily but a whole week is a large amount to catch up on and when you have multiple children doing it then it just holds back the ones who were already there. My children already hated how much the would do lessons recapping what had been taught previously when they got it the first time. School ended up being very frustrating and boring at times. .

The issue is they have enough holidays … don’t need a further 5 days. Don’t call them training days … call them what they are. And don’t have these days off and then attend training during school days … it’s not that hard to understand.

To be honest - it’s kind of irrelevant either way. If teacher days weren’t a thing, the children still wouldn’t be in school for any extra days because they came out of school holidays, not term times.
The “13 weeks holiday” is also a pointless argument. We’re paid to work 39 weeks of the year, this salary is divided into 12 equal monthly installments, making it look to people who can’t be bothered to find out the actual facts as though we are paid during the holidays. If people want teachers to work more days, so children have fewer holidays, then teachers salaries will have to rise. Which is exactly what happened when teacher days became a thing - teachers lost 5 days of “holiday” and salaries were increased to pa them to work those additional days.
I really don’t understand the hatred people seem to feel about teachers perceived working hours.

Don't lie. Just tell the truth. It likely they will know anyway as DS will tell his teacher before or after. And it's teaching you DS to lie in certain circumstances which I wouldn't want.

My DS school would authorise 1 day for a wedding of immediate family (we got 3 authorised for a wedding abroad). Which wouldn't then count towards the 10 missed session - these are unauthorised sessions.

Stop taking your child out regularly for holidays. Regularly missing school is detriment to your child and their education. This is exactly the sort of situation the fines are aimed at hitting and stopping.

Probably the fact teachers insist on moaning about how over worked and underpaid they are. Martyrs to the cause.