Regularly missing school for holidays?

[loverofhol]

Parents, I’d love to hear some real-life experiences.
Our daughter is about to start at a private school, and I’m curious what actually happens in practice if children occasionally miss school for family travel. For example, if you give the school plenty of notice and take a week away in June and perhaps another week at a different point in the year.
I’m not talking about illness here – obviously children get sick from time to time. I’m specifically asking about family holidays and travel.
How do schools tend to react? Has anyone experienced warnings, fines, pushback from the school, or any other consequences?

I don’t really want to pretend a child is ill when they aren’t. Firstly, children have a habit of returning to school and enthusiastically telling everyone about their wonderful trip to Italy while they were supposedly “off with a stomach bug” 😅. Secondly, I don’t love the idea of teaching children to lie about these things.

I’d be really interested to hear from parents whose children attend private schools and who occasionally take them out of school for travel. What has your experience been in practice?

Experience of 3 private schools over 8 years - some families regularly start the schools hols early, some do occasionally. Extremely rare for whole random weeks to be missed though.

Will you need to skip whole weeks? Our private school holidays are loads longer than state schools which helps accommodate holidays without missing school..

Why pay for school, and then take them out on their required days? I thought private school parents valued education?

We are in private and occasionally have taken the first or last day or two of term off as have others.

Whole weeks are rare though. Once you calculate what a week’s school costs it becomes less attractive!

@KnickerlessFlannelAll our existing school holidays are already accounted for, unfortunately. Summer is when we visit family, so that’s not really a holiday in the traditional sense. If we wanted a holiday that was just the immediate family (me, husband, kids), we’d probably have to squeeze it into June, which is why I’m curious how schools tend to view that in practice.

Sounds like you’ve found something out re term time holiday fines having a disparity between private and state schools op. If so, do share…

@DarragonNot really, if anything I’m trying to work out whether there actually is one in practice. Most of what I’ve found seems to focus on state schools. I’m more interested in hearing real experiences from parents with children in private schools.

What age are your dc? They may not be receptive if it clashes with in house assessments or exams and often post half term is full of events, residential and performances. Never known repercussions though.

There aren’t any fines. Just wasted fees! And the school gets pretty annoyed especially if you do it regularly.

OP, there are lots of holiday weeks outside of the summer. May half term, a 2 week Oct half term usually, 3.5 bloody weeks at Christmas and Easter. Or you could visit family for 6 weeks out of the 8/9 weeks of summer and use the other 2 weeks for a nuclear family holiday.

Private schools still have to report if attendance becomes a concern. If it hasn’t reached that level, it will probably go unpunished, but don’t expect teachers to set work or catch them up on your return.

I thought one of the reasons for private schools having longer time off is precisely so pupils can go on more holidays?

No, it is because their school days are longer so they fulfil the hours per term criteria in a shorter time frame.

@minipie It’s a bit more complicated than that in our case. Without going into too much detail, our family are on the other side of the world and spread across different places, so the summer holidays are pretty much fully taken up with family visits. We already keep those trips as short as we realistically can and wouldn’t want to skip seeing family for a year.
If we wanted a holiday that was just us as a family, it would probably need to be outside the summer holidays. The places we’d typically choose (Greece, Italy, Spain, France etc.) are also much more appealing in June than in October or even May half term, which is why I’m curious about how schools view occasional term-time travel in practice.

That's another reason, sure. But longer holidays is definitely a draw for many of the private school parents I know, so they can go to second homes, take more trips etc. I went to private school and it certainly was one of the reasons for longer holidays then as well.

As a family with two working parents they mainly annoy the hell out of me 😂

It depends on the age of your children. A week in June in reception they will probably authorise it. They’re less likely to authorise a week in June in year 10 and if your child is consistently missing school they’re likely to want to talk to you about attendance and may suggest that they won’t be encouraged to move on to the senior school or sixth form

People tacked on a day ir two but not whole weeks. People were honest with school.
June may be exam week (yes even for younger ones or sports days)

You'll get 2 weeks in October. May half term.

I would expect it comes down to your child's ability too. They're not going to want to hang on to a child that is struggling due to lack of attendance.

In ours they are strict. While they can’t fine as a state school do, it would be no prom attendance, no participation in school trips or significant extra curriculars.

All the private schools I've known retain the right to tell you that the school is not appropriate for your child - and to act on that statement. IME, no school approves of children being taken out for holiday, but how they react depends on their overall assessment of the child. I've known children who were managed out of private schools but I don't know how much any unauthorized absences affected the decisions. In the vast majority of the cases where my DC have told me that so-and-so came back from a week in Florida, there have been no visible consequences.

It’s definitely not unheard of to miss whole weeks at my children’s prep school. DD is in Y3 and her classmate started the Xmas hols a whole week early so the family could go skiing! Though it’s more common for children to start or end the holidays a couple of days early or late. But as something occasional I can’t see it being a problem.

There aren’t any fines for absence at independent schools, so I guess that’s a disparity…

Yes, this is what I have observed. If a child is doing well academically and having a term time holiday doesn’t impact upon achievement then it will probably be tolerated within reason. If the child is struggling to keep up and not achieving then it is looked upon less favourably and may be used as part of a plan to manage the child out.

Head of the junior school has been pretty relaxed but most people don’t waste their fee money unless they absolutely have to.
Head of Senior School has been known to offload families who cause him too much work, including ones whose absence records meant having to report when everyone knew they were just on holiday!

As others have said, some people tack on a few days to the start/end of term and schools are pretty OK with that. But I ahve not known anyone take a full family holiday in the middle of a term.

I can't imagine the school woudl be impressed if it was a regular thing, and your kids would always be playing catch up too. The school term is pretty intense and ramps up. A lot is expected of them academically and in terms of other commitments (sport/drama/music etc). They might find it harder when they are missing key work/matches/events etc. Honestly - I think this is a ridiculous plan.