Taking a child out of Reception for 3 months

[Pigtailsandall]

Hi all,

My husband has been offered a fab opportunity to work in America for 3 months - October to December this year. We have a soon-to-be 4yo, who is meant to start Reception in September. We'd like to go to the States with my husband; he's very close to our child so for him, 3 months apart seems like a lifetime. It would also provide us with an opportunity for an experience of a lifetime.

Our plan atm is that he leaves late Sept and we join him at October half term. Then we all come home at New Year. My question is, can I take my child out of Reception for a half a term? I'm not from the UK but I understand that reception is actually not mandatory, but how does it work in actuality, and how do schools generally respond? I won't be working that time (or if I am, it'll be a few hours a week, up to 10) so I can do a level of homeschooling.

Has anyone done anything similar? We are excited but nervous about not having our child miss out educationally.

@Pigtailsandall sounds amazing and I don’t think you’ll ever regret family experiences like this. Have a wonderful time! 😊

Schools can be as reluctant as they like, parents have the right to defer if they want to.
The nursery may not be obliged to take the child for the first half term however.

I’m glad you’ve decided to go, amazing experience for all of you as a family

“Schools can be as reluctant as they like, parents have the right to defer if they want to.
The nursery may not be obliged to take the child for the first half term however.”

Is it a right? My county says “discuss with the school after you have a place”

Do it! Speak to the school, be honest and hope they’re accommodating. I think requesting in year admission is better than starting and pulling out personally especially if you have a look at the curriculum for excellence and introduce phonics and numbers at home.

People are wrong when they assume children need everything to be the same, identical routine day in day out

Sure some do but most will take anything in their stride if their parents do.
You are their stability and I think modelling coping in lots of situations and under different circumstances is very valuable.

But then I also took my child travelling when she would have been due to start school and no regrets it was the best decision for us

@SheilaFentiman

I think you have the right to start in January / Easter depending on month of birth.

The thing I think you don't have automatic right to is to delay for a whole year if summer born, that has to be done by agreement.

However I absolutely could be incorrect.

So glad to hear you’re going! Sounds like a wonderful experience for you all.

OP I think it’s great you have decided to go, I would too and I have DC in reception and infants classes now. At your DC’s age if you do a bit of phonics and numeracy along the way (the Collins easy learning workbooks are great, I would stock up on those and the Julia Donaldson songbird books for reading) they may well gain a lot more than they may miss from half a term out of school. I think our school would be quite supportive of this - as others have said too currently there are low birth rate years so school places in a lot of places aren’t as fought over as they were 4-5 years ago. Schools here used to be oversubscribed, all of them have improved more (were already good) and yet are having to compete and market themselves to try to get places filled

Also, my eldest missed a whole term of reception due to lockdown at same age, with next to zero input from the school during that time, it hasn’t had any obvious effects and your DC is going to gain a lot more than they did stuck at home with parents wfh at the same time!

What a great experience for you all OP! I'd go in your place too.

Yes you just need to speak to the school. You might be surprised. I spoke to DC's school about taking him out for a prolonged trip abroad. The head talked to the local authority about it and they said that they'd be willing to keep my son's school place for him up to a certain number of weeks if I had a return ticket and they were confident he'd be back in school. I think it was for 6 weeks they were willing to do that. School was also very supportive of it as they could see the educational value in the trip. As it happens, we didn't go. But I wanted to share that with you to show that school won't necessarily rule it out for you.

In your position I'd aim to send him from September so that he has that first day experience with others and that first half term when the teachers put so much focus on settling kids in, establishing routines, etc. That will make him feel less like a fish out of water when he returns in January. That said, it won't do him any harm missing the first term if that's what you end up doing. I say that as both a former teacher and a child who moved around a lot.

Good luck with it all.

5 weeks before off-roling.

I have a child who has applied to start in my class in Sept (it is likely they will get the place) who will spend half the year here and half the year elsewhere. The local authority have agreed that this can happen and their place will still be open. Speak to the local authority about this to find out what they say. Ours have agreed it will be fine.