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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

Holiday in term time. Sorry long.

15 replies

dee0468 · 02/09/2009 18:10

My dd is 5 and starts year 1 tomorrow. Our extended family have arranged for a weeks holiday to coincicide with my brother 50th birthday. This holiday was to include my dd'd nanny who has a heart condition. Unfortunately, this is during term time. Back in May I spoke to head who was positive about it. So I duly booked the break. Towards the end of term I filled out the required holiday request form and it was declined. This was because new rules have been agreed between all the schools in the area ad the EWO. I wrote a letter explaining the situation and I was told that my reasons do not constitite special circumstances. Since than my 83 year old mum has been told she will need open heart surgery. This makes the break even more important. Do u think its worth appealing again or should I just take holiday and accept penalty notice letter?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

thecloudhopper · 02/09/2009 18:21

Just take the holiday I would some things are more important.

IotasCat · 02/09/2009 18:23

I would take the holiday without a moments hesitation

wonderingwondering · 02/09/2009 18:24

Take the holiday.

Out of interest, what do the schools do about the odd unauthorised absence, other than mark it in the child's report? Does it just show up in the LEA's overall stats for the year? I assume you'd have to take a lot of holiday/time off before any formal action was taken for truancy?

blametheparents · 02/09/2009 18:42

I would take the holiday.
The school and/or EWO won't take any action. It will just be marked as one week unauthorised absence, which is really no big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Enjoy!

Original poster

dee0468 · 02/09/2009 18:47

From the information I have it is likely that I will be issued with a penalty notice letter. This will mean that if if dd has any other period of unauthorised absence my dp and I will be fined £50 each.

OP posts:

wonderingwondering · 02/09/2009 18:55

I don't think you lose anything by appealing and asking for it to be authorised then. The school now know that you'll be on a planned holiday so there's no scope for trying to pass the absence off as illness. So if you can get it authorised, that must be better. But don't cancel the holiday!

beautifulgirls · 02/09/2009 20:30

I agree - what harm is there in appealing? Perhaps someone knows more than the rest of us on that but it seems you still have a chance of getting this signed off officially given the verbal permission given and circumstances. If your DD has had and maintains a good attendance record I can't see that they are going to be able to do too much in reality - there are far worse attendance records around the area I would imagine that need their resources more.

MissSunny · 02/09/2009 23:00

Message withdrawn

pinkteddy · 02/09/2009 23:14

dee they are not going to issue you with a penalty notice letter unless your dd's attendance has dropped below 80%. Even then they would have to demonstrate that they have tried to rectify absence levels informally first. How was your dd's attendance last year?

Btw I would definitely appeal but even if you don't get anywhere just write a polite letter stating that you plan to take your dd out of school between x and y dates.

MissSunny · 03/09/2009 11:41

Message withdrawn

Original poster

dee0468 · 04/09/2009 13:13

Her attendance last year in reception wasn't great but it was way above 8o%. mainly due to chicken pox and tummy bugs etc.

Anyway we are off on holiday today and I will just have to wait and see whether they issue notice.

Thanks for your comments everyone.

OP posts:

hayes · 04/09/2009 13:18

enjoy your holiday and forget about it for the week. If your dd has good attendance for the rest of the school year it shouldn't be an issue at all.

Cadelaide · 04/09/2009 13:21

The fifty quid fine's not great but apart from that, well, it's not going to be on her cv in 15 years time is it?

Hope the holiday goes well for you.

CatherineofMumbles · 04/09/2009 17:14

Take the holiday. If necessary, pay the fine.

pinkteddy · 04/09/2009 18:03

miss sunny I find that very surprising unless as I say the child has a very poor attendance anyway. If they really are issuing fines based on one lot of unauthorised attendance they are definitely not following local authority guidelines and it would not be upheld in court. (I work in a school and I know of cases where guidelines have been followed with very poor attendance and fines have still not been upheld in court!).

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