School and holidays during term time

[Undercarrigetrouble]

dd's school have refused us permission.
We are unable to go any other time as it is unaffordable to us also due to work commitments it is difficult to take leave during the school holidays.
dd has a great attendance record so i think they are being slightly unreasonable.
We are taking her regardless
So what will they do?

Dd's school (best in the area now that the local language college has become an academy ) only teaches two foreign languages (French and Spanish) and you can't do them both. I'd like her to learn German. So I'll be teaching her myself. But obviously no exchange trips.

Yes trickerg but were the annual family holidays just for his benefit ? I hope not.

"school trips really segragate those whose parents can afford for the kids to go and those who cant, the "cool" kids all go, the "nerdy" ones stay behind (according to the teenage world of both DSD and DSS anyway"

Teenagers sure are getting smarter at emotional blackmail ;)

Oddly enough my teenage daughter and her friends say only nerds go on school trips the cool kids would rather stay in school.

School hols don't add £1k to "most holidays" as lisa claims.

We are going away at a cost of £1300 for a fortnight so that £1k figure seems unlikely.

I guess my thing (apart from agreeing with seeker about the "educational" claim when really it's just about money) is that one of my DC really struggles at school, and I don't want them to miss a single bit of their education.

Mrsjammi if you really think that yr DS "learns a damn sight more when holiday than he does in a week of primary or infant school" then really, why don't you spend the whole time on holiday? Why send him to school at all if he learns more elsewhere???

OK - I accept that there are parents who regard a family holiday as an opportunity for an extended lesson on multi-culturalism combined with total immersion language teaching and an intensive course on Rennaisance Art. I still think that 2 weeks out of the classroom is a bad idea in terms of friendships and group dynamics.

But most holidays aren't like that.(Thank the Lord!) Most holidays are two weeks in a resort somewhere only distinguishable from Margate by the warmth of the sun, the efficiency of the waiters and the cost of the wine.

We took our children for an extra week out of school when we were doing a recce prior to an international move and the school were OK(ish) with it, although it did hit an assessment period, which if we had known we would not have done (we thought the week before half term would be a quiet one). But that was an exception. I guess for me that's the issue. There are parents who take children away during school time for exceptional reasons on a one time basis, or very rarely, for visiting family overseas or when there has been an illness or for an "once in a life time" experience (parental sabbatical etc). I wouldn't see most schools being too worried about that because it isn't that disruptive to have one or two children away very occasionally. Where it really hits is when lots of parents start taking term time out as a matter of course (sometimes several times every year), and then teachers planning becomes really difficult because curricula are designed to be cumulative. If many children are missing then a lot of catch up and repetition are required (of course lots of repetition is required in any case, as that's how most of us learn). That's usually the point when fierce letters are sent out.

As a working parent I too find it difficult to understand how many families can afford to go away during school time. We certainly found it very difficult (I had to save up over more than one year and dh took unpaid leave). I worked in an environment with lots of parents (how can this be a don't employ women issue - surely it is just as much of an issue for fathers of school age children?).

My children's holidays away from home generally involved them staying with my parents, otherwise prior to our move I think they were out of London for three weeks in the first five years of school. I don't to be honest think that either they or we were deprived by that. But then my parents do live in the country, so visiting them is a nice break.

I do think we take the whole concept of holidays a bit for granted in the UK. When we were in the States the usual leave was two weeks for the whole year! Most people could only go away for more than a weekend very occasionally, whether they have children or not.

dh is taking dd(6) to Australia at Christmas to visit family and friends. Because the air fares go up so ridiculously at Christmas she'll be missing the last two weeks of term.

The head is very sensible and says she'll get much more out of the experience than being at school for two weeks.

We checked with the school that it was OK before we booked the flights and Dd's attendance is almost 100% plus she's flying academically, so I can't see why anyone would have a problem with it???

I'm also taking ds2 and dd to Paris for the weekend at the end of July to visit friends - it'll mean them missing one day of video-watching school at the end of term. Which experience will be more educational - and fun?

bah - why does crossing out never work for me?

videowatching

lol - you have to do each word individually,
so video watching (with no gaps obviously for it to work video watching)

There's an article on this in the Telegraph, which I could link to but it's not particularly interesting, except it says that around a quarter of parents do this holidaying in term-time thing.

Im planning on requesting 10days Planned Leave for my Yr3 pupil at the end of the school yr. Its for a trip to celebrate a familiy members special birthday. How do I make going to disney florida sound educational to stand a better chance of the absence being accepted?!