Please your thaughts !!Has anyone took his DC on holiday before the break up time?

[preciousmum]

Hi there.
My son started reception this year.Their last day at school for the summer holiday will be the 20th of July.And i am planing to book the summer holiday round the 14th of july.Has anyone done same thing?Will it be ok with the school?Do i have to let them before ?or wait till then?Please your taughts.THere is huge difference in the flight prices.Many thanks

If he is still under the age of five then you can take him out of school with no problems. I don't think reception is compulsory.

I have and would again. Don't ask the school's permission either, just tell them what you're doing the week before.

Depends when he turns 5 as to whether he should be in education - he should be in education from the beginning of the term after he turns 5. For some children, that will be the January spring term of reception year, for some the summer term, for some the next september.

The school are likely to disapprove; most won't approve absence for holidays. They can't stop you though, so it comes down to whether you are happy doing it.

Are you planning on doing this every year? Your son is only in reception so unless you plan on taking him out early every year, you might as well get used to the high prices which every school parent struggles with. You will probably find other parents may do the same thing although leaving a week early is quite a bit of time off. You should ask the school for authorised absence but may find that they refuse it, in which case you can still go but the days missed will go down as unauthorised absence. Some schools are stricter than others on this, our school still signs off some absences like this on an individual basis, other schools seem to have a blanket ban on authorising any absence.

In terms of what he will miss in school, probably very little in the last week of reception although he may be sad to miss end-of-term activities, maybe sports day, class party, that kind of thing?

I do this and will continue to. DD's school doesn't allow it. I always ring in and say we are visiting a sick family member, she is ill,...........
We can't afford to go on holiday otherwise and we never go abroad.

LB29, I seriously doubt that your daughter's school believes your story of an endless stream of relatives developing illnesses around holiday time. However, if you are going to go anyway, it doesn't really matter whether they believe you or not, I suppose.

Am surprised by some of the other posts above. Notts LA infant / junior schools will consider you taking up to 10 days per school year and you simply complete a request form and handing it to the Head. I've done it and I would do it again. Clearly they ask you to avoid key parts of the term and any SATs periods. I'd go for the honest approach and see what your school's policy is. Good luck!

I found out yesterday that our heads children (who attend our school) are taking next week off to go skiing with his dw. Just watch the floodgates open.

I did take my son out the week before October half term in year 1.
It was the end of a truly horrible year for the family including deaths and divorce and we all needed to get away and my mum & sister couldnt come in half term week

I felt personally that by tagging it onto the halfterm it was the minimum possible disruption, and whilst not ideal the best compromise. His HT and CT totally agreed and he learned masses and we all came back much calmer and happier.

The only thing I would say if you are going to do it is make sure he doesnt miss things like his visit to his Y1 class which can happen in the last week of school and would make him feel unsure of himself when he went back. Otherwsie I would do it. They dont do THAT much learning the last week of reception IMO

I would however ask for permission unless you want to upset the HT.

We did it last year and are doing it this year.
Meant to tell school, but forgot..
We got a phone call in Tenerife on husbands mobile

I take my DSs out of school for a week every year for a family holiday. The schools will consider 'up to 10 days' (which seems fairly normal) but also send out a general letter every year suggesting requests are increasing/parents should take hols in school holidays/reflects badly on the school/blah-di-blah. But we still all go on doing it!

I have done it the last 2 years with dd and will do it again this year.

My plan when she started school was to not take her out but the prices literally double in holidays and we just couldn't afford that. I know lots of people on mn would say that we shouldn't go but dd is only 6 (7 in June) and I don't see the problem as long as I make sure the time of year we go doesn't affect things like SATS (she has her first SATS this year )

The other things I consider when dicussing taking her out of school is that she is doing well in school and doesn't seem to struggle, if this changes then we may need to consider the impact of missing a week. But for now at 6 I really don't think it'll make a lot of difference. Also luckily for dd she doesn't have much time off for illness so really apart from the week we take her out she is pretty much at school every day.

The last 2 years I have asked for a permission form and it has been given, I will ask again this year.

I'm not sure what'll happen going forwards but for the moment I am happy to take the flack from people on mn and say that I think it's ok to take dc out of school.

I have noticed that a fair few children take holiday in term time.

We have often taken holidays in term time, we always ask for permission and are granted it. We would probably go anyway.

Some schools do fine you if they think it is an unreasonable absence (#50 per day per child for my hairdresser's kids!). At my dc's school, they will give permission if the child's attendance is above 95% for the rest of the year (or previous years I suppose if you want to take them out in the autumn term). I think that that is eminently sensible - I'd do a bit of investigation at school to see if yours has a similar policy.

No-one in DS1's school gets permission for holidays unless going with a dying relative. We're going away next week to antigua and schools not that happy but we're going anyway - its our 5th wedding anniversary during our stay and I'm 25 weeks pregnant already so can't fly over half term.
Plus he's only 4!

Look at the schools website- there should be a section explaining its policy, and most probably a request for absence form; most schools do that.
In our school the requests are normally authorised, as long as attendance has been good throughout the year.
I have done it and would do it again. Last 3 years they missed few days before easter (I do alternate the excuses on the form- so the HM doesnt get bored!!)
TBH even if it wasn't I would go if I were in your position, as they do pretty much nothing towards the end (mine seem to be doing lots of tidying up, and bringing their hundreds of reels of paper home!!).

The schools don't like it but frankly nothing much in the way of formal lessons happens in the last two weeks of summer term anyway, so any argument that it will disrupt their education is rubbish.

From what I've heard on here , it seems to depend very much upon the school. DD1 started recpetion this year at at our induction evening before she started we were told by the head that he is happy to authorise up to 10 days per year, but please could we be sensible about when we take it, avoid SATS and try to tack it onto an existing school holiday.

We haven't needed to use it yet, but it was nice to know, we may take the DDs skiing nect year, which would be cost prohibative for us in school holidays.