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?

@Dokushozanmai reception!

Ah reception I think the school care less tbh.

No fines at private school

friends at my kids school used to take them out early to travel to Japan so their kids could do Japanese school over the summer but obviously that was agreed with the school.

We often take a few extra days e.g. when term starts/end mid week plus the occasional Friday afternoon or Monday off to enable a long weekend. A lot of family are abroad and if we want to attend a wedding on the Saturday morning for example it means a Friday afternoon flight. It goes down as unauthorised obviously but school seem fine about it. A week is obviously longer but I can’t imagine they’d care that much about a reception age child- if they’re still 4 then they’re not even compulsory school age! The only thing is that because private schools typically break up early in July the calendar will be busy in June and you might find you miss any combination of sports day, prize giving, end of year production, parents summer drinks, moving up morning to year 1 etc. etc.

The reason I didn’t initially specify Reception is that Reception children have a habit of turning into Year 1s, then Year 2s, and so on. 😄
Family will still live where they live now and we’ll be visiting them future summer holidays for the foreseeable so this isn’t a one-off reception year problem

Reception will be fine and so possibly will be year 1 and maybe 2. But realistically as they get older a decent school will expect them to be present.

One other thing to consider is can you have a holiday near where your family family are based? A friend has family in South America so spends the summer there. Most of the time is spent catching up with family and friends but they always plan for two weeks of proper holiday which isn’t much in an eight week break.

You have a week in may and Easter holidays and February break and Christmas and October break. Why not use a couple of those weeks then you don't need to take them out. Even the early years if you miss something it can be harder to catch up and teachers don't always want to spend time on this quite rightly. I took my children out for 3 days in the whole of their 13 year school career. I go away out with the school holidays and really don't want loads of children there.
At our private school it was frowned upon to take them out.

Mmm we get such long holidays that I wouldn’t ever consider it.

Broken down over the year the fees for school per week probably rival the cost of the holiday for that week too.

We did state primary so also it’s secondary that DC would be missing so I’m also a lot less inclined to take them out now they’re in senior school.

Absolutely we always holiday when the state schools are still in to get better deals, but I’m still excited to when they’re 18 as we can have our late September holidays back!!

Private school summer holidays are usually 8+ weeks long. If you are insisting on spending all 8 of those visiting family and cant squeeze a week of a family holiday in at the beginning or end that entirely your own choice

Quite obviously you could visit family for 7 weeks and finish off with a weeks holiday at the end.

Not to mention there are loads of other weeks available for you to take holiday - the may week, probably 3 weeks at Easter.

the family next door often took their kids out of school a week early leading up to the summer holidays. There was just end of school fun activities - so not missing anything academic but my kids loved that week, which often included a trip to a theme park. It was a shame they missed out. I don’t know the schools attitude, but I guess the parents didn't care.
At another school I asked to come back ONE day late from an Easter break abroad. To get back in time for school after the Bank holiday, we would have had to leave on Easter Sunday. The head reluctantly agreed. That was the only time I’d done it.
Taking kids out during term time was definitely frowned upon. But unless it brought attendance to a low percentage I guess it was tolerated , though I would not expect the teacher to provide any work sheets or anything; it would be up to the student to make up any work. But if question why dorms all that menu to send your child to a private school only to take them out? Not sure it’s demonstrating much commitment.

DD attends private school, we have only taken her out a day or two for random breaks but a lot of the parents of kids in her class do it loads - usually around holidays (like going a week or two before/after) The school basically always says it’s unauthorised but have fun! But that may just be our school. Do you have a reason that you would need to holiday/travel so much within school term times? I ask because apparently if one parent works in a certain job (pilot etc someone who maybe wouldn’t get a lot of holiday time during summer) I think they get a bit more flexibility in missing school.

My son’s independent school head says that because the holidays are so long there is no need for parents to regularly take children out of school for holidays. Exceptions made for armed forces families where parents have been on long deployments over the summer and Christmas breaks.

I suspect it will be ok in the first couple of years but won’t be tolerated as the children get older. Having said that, tacking a few days on to the end of eg a half term break is generally ok.

It's fairly common at our school, there are some families who regularly miss the start and end of term for holidays. I don't know if the school ever has a word with them about it privately, but it hasn't stopped them! The school also sets up a chill out corner for the first day of term where dcs can nap if they arrive on a long haul flight in the morning 😁 (We always arrive back 2-3 days before so they are recovered and fully alert by the time school starts).

We've never seen the need to do it as the holidays are long enough to fit in all our family holidays (including visiting family overseas) and my dds quite enjoy the relaxed end of term days and the intro activities at the start. It's a nice social time for the dds and there's just as much value in that as the more academic activities.

DS2’s best friend goes with his family back to his parents home country for 9 weeks over the summer every year. There has never been any consequences, from school aside from missing the end of year trip but he’d miss it anyway as he’d be away and letters talking about attendance.
This is a state school though.

I have one in a state primary and one in a private prep. The state primary is much more chilled about term time holidays. They won’t authorise it but will wish you well. The private school is very, very anti it. Their view is the term time is shorter and children should be in school. I agree to be honest. Once you’re covering extended holidays, I think you’d be crazy to add in another week within term time and if you look at the cost per week of children actually being there it is quite a persuasive factor in avoiding it.

If you have to visit family for the entire 8 weeks of the summer, can you do your family holiday in October half term? May half term? Easter?

I can only go on my experience of going to private school, not as a parent. Private schools do often break up a couple of weeks earlier than state schools, my brother and i had 8 weeks as opposed to my Mum's (teacher in state school) 6 weeks. I don't remember anyone actually going on holiday during school time. I learned in some cases, boarders who had a long flight could leave a day or two early to prepare but in most cases the staff assumed parents who would pay for their childrens education cared enough to keep their children in school and could afford to go on holiday when it's most expensive. In primary school there were one or two who would apply for term time holidays and a girl who came back late more than once. But in secondary private school it was unheard of.

You won’t get fined.

I agree with a PP that your children’s ability is likely to affect how they feel about it. Some children can miss school, keep up and still achieve well. Some can’t, and they need all the days at school they can get. Look at it from a teacher’s perspective. They have a lot of pressure on them to ensure that children learn and achieve, but they can’t make that happen when children aren’t there. It disrupts the class . The worst is when parents think they’re doing a good thing by asking the teacher to prepare work for them to do on holiday as if any teacher wants to increase their workload to help out parents that don’t value the teaching they are already paying for. What is also shit is when parents go on term time holidays and then send in souvenirs for a show and tell for the rest of the class who have been at school.

With the amount we pay in fees, the only way my kids are missing a day of school is if their leg is hanging off, or something equally as serious.

I am sure you will find a private school who don't mind about holidays in school time as long as the children's attendance is sufficient for them to make progress. It might be worth checking the school calendar before booking holidays so DC don't miss anything they think is important.

I am a teacher and we have a large number of children with family elsewhere and I do completely recognise the need and value to maintain a relationship with Grandparents and be accustomed to their home country. I can't harden my heart if they miss a week to see Granny as there is so much value to that. I feel less positive if they've been in a kids club on an all inclusive holiday whilst their parents lounge by a pool when it is cheaper.

We were once asked not to mention a child was been taken to Disney as a surprise before Christmas so this boy practised his second snowman routine never to do the nativity and cried all the way to Florida. Parents were disappointed he kept mentioning the play and his role. He was 4. Don't take your teenager away so they miss Prom would be my takeaway from that. 🤣

Private schools almost always have longer school holidays then regular school so I don't see why you'd need to take them out at other time. A friend who's kids go to our local Private school always takes them away when state schools are still in. She gets cheaper holidays.

It doesn't just have to be summer, they also get 4 weeks at Christmas and 4 weeks at Easter to. And with such short terms I'm surprised you'd want to take them out for a whole week when you are paying for school.

Private or state school, if your child misses too many days, the school is obliged to report it to the local council.

Generally it’s your own money you are wasting right until it gets to a safeguarding threshold which is not a pre planned week at the same time every year.

We have 19 weeks holiday vs state of 13. Weather being better in mid June vs last week of May is a rubbish reason for taking a whole week out. People do take a few days when they are going to visit family if it makes logistics easier at start or end of term but that is it. Plenty of the kids have family (including in some cases their fathers) in other continents.

I imagine it wouldn’t be too much of an issue in our school during the infants. School would get increasingly annoyed as the kids got older. They are clear that they report attendance statistics to the secondary schools that you apply to and will explain any low figures.

June is also the time for school performances, sports days, end of year exams and residentials. There isn’t a quiet week and my kids would be very unhappy to miss any of it given they love school and being with their friends (which is what I am paying for!)