MISSING A GCSE DUE TO CHANGE OF FLIGHT TIME-HELP???

[milkybarsrus]

Please could someone give me some advice (preferably a teacher) re my dilema. We are going on holiday to Turkey this Sunday for 1 week and should have been returning Sunday 10th June in the evening, but the flight times have changed and we will now leave turkey at midnight (theretime) and land in gatwick about 3am!!!! My year 10 child has a RS gcse exam Monday morning which he has to be in school at 8.30am the latest for. What can / should we do? Someone suggested doing a sicky and getting a doctors note that day, but Im not sure whether to do that or just come clean and tell the school whats happened and see if he can sit it another time, any suggestions?

You can get flights on the Saturday for about £130-£250 each from Ankara to London, and about £150-£250 each from Istanbul to London. I would not travel on the Sunday if your DC has an exam on the Monday.

You might actually to be able to claim on your travel insurance for the extra tickets in the circumstances, as there's an exam involved.

rathlin well done/ poor you. If I was your mum I'd have been seething - how selfish and mean.

OP, by far the most objectionable thing in your post is the suggestion that you can get a doctor to collude in what is clearly a not great situation but one which is entirely of your own making. A return flight the evening before a GCSE is just self-centred.

I don't really buy into the 'I'm a grammar school mum so I'm a cut above/ know it all' routine. I have seven at a 'top' grammar (well actually three have left) and it was always notified well in advance when exams would be taken. I've certainly never chained mine to a desk, not least because I wouldn't be able to enforce it but also because it would be counter productive - time off is as critical as time on, so they spent/ spend a lot of time during the exam period just chilling out. But maybe you should buy into the general culture that these exams are something you respect, or your DS won't, or might not.

My eldest five have over 50 A* between them not because I monitored their work in the smallest way or oppressed them but possibly in part because I ring-fenced the period around the exams and indicated it's importance and that I cared.

OP - I know Mermaid was rude but you did accuse people of making their children suicidal and have I just read that right that you have written two insulting posts in a row to this Mum who is going through the terror of caring for a suicidal child?

Eurostar I can't see that mermaid was even rude. OP's response was indefensible.

All the very, very best mermaid, anyone with any empathy or imagination would say the same.

Bloody hell OP, I'm not sure I even want to post this now after seeing your earlier posts to mermaid.

But I was going to suggest checking your Ts & Cs - Ryanair's, as an example:

9.1.2 When we accept your booking, we will notify you of the scheduled flight timings in effect as of that time, and it will be shown on your Confirmation/Itinerary. It is possible we may need to change the scheduled flight timings after you have booked your flight. If you provide us with your e-mail address and an away contact number, we will endeavour to notify you of any changes by such means. In the situations not covered by Article 9.2 below, if, after you make your reservation, but before the date of travel, we change the scheduled departure time by more than three hours and this is unacceptable to you and we are unable to book you on an alternative flight which is acceptable to you, you will be entitled to a refund for all monies paid in respect of the time changed flight, without further liability.

Would've thought it was at least worth checking with the travel company and seeing what they can do.

A note to the exam board will have absolutely no effect given that the child is not in their final year and so can take the exam in a future sitting. Ditto trying to make an insurance claim (am curious as to how you would put a financial value on this other than the tenner for the future exam entry).

What I find indefensible is the idea you just nip down to your GP, who might actually be expecting to see an ill person, and just get a note to say your child was ill so never mind..... Last year my dd sat her Prep for Working Life 1/2 course GCSE in the am. It included a question on CPR. 4 months earlier she had had to attempt with me to administer CPR to her Dad who tragically died, naturally this distressed her. In the afternoon it was Paper 2 of her GCSE English as a result she did not do as well as expected. We had to fight to get that included as special consideration. Not only do I think you are deluded but what will you do when ds spends the week before finals in Magaluf? Bad, bad example.

OP your message to mermaid was foul. Shame on you.

Mermaid, hope things get a little brighter for you and your son.

What happened in the end? Did he sit the exam ?

My DS has spent all of half term revising and this is just for his rather meaningless Year 7 end of year exams. What possessed you to take your family on holiday the week before exams which are so crucial to your DC?

I know that you are after advice and/or support but I have no advice so all I can offer is criticism.

You cancel your holiday. What kind of parents take their Y10 GCSE-taking child on holiday abroad, returning the night before an exam?

I cannot understand how so many people think that a half term holiday in year 10 can have been such a bad thing? (ok, OP got a bit out of order with her replies)

It's one exam in year 10 - for which loads of revision will have been done previously and supposed to be returning in plenty of time the afternoon before. The problem is the flight change, not the holiday in itself.

Speaking from experience of three children where the youngest is now year 11, given the different items for mocks, modules, course work etc if I. 'd never Have booked a holiday when someone had something on I'd never have gone away at any half term, Christmas, or Easter for a straight 8 years.

One exam, plenty of revision before, books in the suitcase for on holiday, k,rep it in perspective.

6 weeks summer break starting in roughly 7 weeks time. I think posters are keeping it in perspective :)