Secondary school and taking leave during term time

[sleepwouldbenice]

Hello all

my DD is in year 6. We usually take about 5-6 days (authorised) absence during term time. Something like a couple of weekends with the fri or monday (centre parks or recently a weekend away for my mums 70th) and perhaps a couple of days if going away over half term and flight times dont fit

I notice the wording around the secondary school policies is stricter than for her current primary (where they authorise leave if it doesnt clash with SATs or is excessive) and wondered if there was a "norm" to whats agreed and whats not and if schools usually authorise leave even though they say they dont

Thanks very much

Afraid there's no chance of being in private education, my OH is paid by the government like noblegiraffe, probably like noblegiraffe works 8am-7pm (often later if travelling) without a break, is on call over weekends and does a second job 20/30 hours a month to make up pay and is still under average wage, so I do understand what it's like to be under pressure, absolutely knackered and go in day after day. I'm sorry if I incorrectly assumed,,offended anyone, I didn't mean to, as I said I was replying to the original post and just wondering about whether to take a day or two out. I knew the school wouldn't authorize it and now realize from what has been said I can't expect any support from the tutors. I still think a family break is important though, just need to work it out.

I have known children be allowed some absence to travel to Australia. My DS was refused a leave for the last day of the summer term to attend his cousin's wedding. DD has had a sense approve to perform to the Queen, appear on Radio 3 and a major concert (I have a feeling that absence for another concert next year might not be approved). For multiple days off other than illness there will be fines (£50 per child, per day, per parent).

A sense=absence

I feel your dh's pain, dameenid!

Some schools are strict on this. I worked with a young person who had returned to her native country for 1 month for her grandmothers funeral. On her return she found she had lost her school place, and as it was year 11 the LEA did not find her another school place. She ended up missing a vital phase of her schooling and now, 4 years later, a bright girl who could have trained for a skilled job, is working an a factory.

I just add that experience to the thread to say that it is really important to communicate with the school. It is in no way reflecting on op's situation, just a comment on the way this conflict works out sometimes.

Teachers do find it very frustrating when pupils miss lessons for non-essential trips (obviously funerals, illness etc are unavoidable) as it is impossible to keep track of who has missed what work. All very well to get the pupils to ask for work they will miss but it isn't always possible to provide work for the pupil to take away, depending on the lesson.
I understand that some parent's cannot afford to go away during the holidays but it works both ways - my partner cannot get holidays during the school holidays so we can't go on holiday either as I am a teacher. I wouldn't dream of taking time off work so we don't go away either - it sucks but such is life! We get such good holidays compared to most that it is just tough luck that we can't go away together.

Thanks very much to everyone for their replies.

I know my reasons for going are not serious, just wanted to gauge opinion on it as it does seem that the approach varies in primary school so wondered what it was like for secondary school. From the opinions given it looks like easy times are coming to an end!

For what its worth I dont think teachers should be asked to help pupils catch up, unless the leave was for a serious reason.

One thing that does sadden me is the fact that I do have relatives in Oz - they wont want us at xmas, my work means i cant go at easter, and summer would be a wash out there, drat. But again, just starting to look at this secondary school lark and wondering how life will change!

Thanks again!

Tried this in year 7. Mum pays for Dd and myself to go on holiday with her. Did it as normal. I put in a holiday form for the last week of July and was told that it was fine as it was the last week of term etc. This was put in early. After Christmas i received a letter threatening £1000 fine and/or jail if Dd was to take the time off. Mum paid to change the holiday. The last week of term came and at least 6 children i knew from dd's year were off as holiday. One was off the week before for a 2 week holiday. I went in and spoke to the welfare person and told her that i was told it was fine and then got the letter etc. So i asked what would happen to the parents who took their children out of school. Nothing. She said nothing would happen because they can't stop it. It is just to put people off taking them out.

Who said teachers should set work for unauthorized absences?!!

I bloody Wont

I think it really depends on the school.
When dd was in year 7 I requested 4 days holiday, the last 4 days of the school year. Her grandfather had died 2 weeks before and her grandma was going home to Jamaica for 3 weeks to spend time with his family over there and wanted to take dd with her.
Even though dd had 100% attendance up to that point the school could not authorize it, because they had low attendance figures and so just put a blanket ban on any term time holiday, whatever the reason.

Just don't do it.

Use the holidays and training days to have your holidays or short breaks.

My son had 91% attendance in years 7 and 8 due to illness and culmination in an operation. His progress in 9 was sooooo much improved with attendance of 98%.

It's a bummer when your closest family lives 8 time zones away, though, and you all suffer from terrible jetlag (don't expect to get over it in less than a week). ... And the costs (flights and hotels) are that much more atrocious in summer hols. Plus nearly all my relatives work full time and they don't have any regular gatherings in the summer. So we could easily spend many hours of driving most days to only see a few of them for a few hours each.

Else I anticipate paying £600 in fines for a 2 week holiday to see family at Easter 2014, when they do have 2 regular gatherings, of which only one week we will fully enjoy. Last week off school spent at home but completely grogged out with jetlag so them still missing school. It might be better to anticipate paying £2000 in fines but only go once every 10-15 years. Just have to mull it over. I think we'll still go for Easter, just anticipate court action & £2k in fines. Could easily spend £2k extra on summer hotel, anyway.

My dd (who is swotty serious about work) hates taking time off school. She managed to get 100% attendance last year which is she v. proud of. She want to repeat the achievement this year so certainly would not want to take time off school.

Also once the GCSE work starts, each lesson counts so missing any would mean a lot of catching up.

Lljkk, there's a two week school holiday at Easter so why wouldn't you go then?

Ds's primary certainly wouldn't have approved 5 or 6 days holiday a year. I don't actually think heads are officially allowed to, either.

When did all this start? Nobody went on holiday in term time in the 70s and 80s did they? Mind, nobody went on holiday much then anyway

Jenai I knew plenty of kids who always had two weeks off during term time back in the 70s, and that was quite a working class school.

My best friend in the 70's took a week off every year in June to go to Butlins.. always during exam time as well. I was jealous on two levels.. my parents wouldn't ever let me take term time off and wouldn't EVER go to Butlins!!

To be fair it was a long time ago, I've probably just forgotten.

Ditto remum on Butlins.

Maybe we should all go on an MN holiday to one

We always had a week skiing (well, 5 days really) in term time in the 1970s. That was our annual holiday. My mother used to let me have the odd "mental health" day off, too. Just for pottering around the house (keeping her company when she felt she needed a day off?).

@Noble: the main problem is jetlag. If we timed it so that we were there for one week, finishing on Easter Monday, then we'd probably at least manage to be sociable (stay awake long enough) for the Easter gathering (2pm-ish start). But unfortunately Easter 2014 is so late (21 April) that I think English school must start back only a few days later, so we'd have to miss school for sure after all.

I read that nearly all other MNers transit instantly to local time after long-haul flights. We don't. DH did it once when he flew without kids & just slept most of the flight. I never did that even pre-kids.

I wonder if we went over for say 13 days, then flew back (lose a day), then just call the kids in sick all the days they can't get out of bed & still recovering from Jetlag, if that would be acceptable, they'd be recorded as ill not unauthorised and we'd get one decent week out there with family.

It's okay, I don't mean to whinge. I know it's a first world problem. Just psyching myself up for £4k bill in 2014 and only going back twice in next 10 years. The worry is my dad is getting elderly, right now he can get over to see us for a few days each year but I don't know if he can keep that up for another decade. I'll feel bad for letting him down by not going back to visit. First world problems, I know.

Well what you have to remember is that statistics clearly show that pupils who drop below 95% underachieve at GCSE/AS/A2. Is any holiday worth your child's life chances? Top universities now look at the raw score as well as the grade. My youngest daughter missed a lot of school when her father died suddenly during her Year 11 but she still had better attendance than families who 'have holidays' in term time. As a teacher and parent I think it is shocking that people think this is acceptable and then I get asked to run catch-up sessions after school!

Lljkk. Is there any way you can do your visit as an educational visit, where your dc will be attending for eg: cousins school? Then the school may have a different category for this absence which may be more satisfactory to them for authorisation. Fwiw, I think that international families do have a problem with the rigidity of the system. If I want to take my dc to see their grandmother, the tickets are so expensive, and it will take them such a long time to adjust to the climate and actually start to benefit from the visit that I think it would need to be a good long spell.

Reading this thread, I think I'd better make sure we do it before 2ndary school!

To be honest, I would just take all the anti-jet lag advice, maybe try to get daytime flights (DH flys from East coast US daytime and finds that works); and just make my kids go to school when they get back to re-adjust. But then we tend to have one badish day and then having survived that get back to closer to normal quite quickly.
I have also had 10 day holidays on the West Coast US, which has worked fine for us.

If DD gets Level6s at end of KS2, as projected, do you think maybe she won't really need catch up sessions for 2 weeks of missed school in y7? I dunno, maybe KS2 Level 6s really are worthless.

DC were being such turds yesterday the idea of ever taking them on holiday anywhere became rather unappealing. I suppose £2k in fines is a pretty good excuse not to go, too.

Who says that DC should go to "top universities"? I'm fed up with MN obsession about that. There are other successful paths thru life.