Year 11 holiday plans

[Roseyposeypie]

DC1 will be going into year 11 in September and we’re wondering what this might mean in terms of planning holidays during the year. If you’ve already seen a child through GCSE exams what did you do in terms of holidaying through the year? Did you mostly stay at home so they could revise? Or are some kinds of break helpful? Did you plan celebratory trips for afterwards?

My youngest is y11 this year. We're going away a couple of days after contingency day and will be back in time for sixth form induction day.
It all depends on when mocks are throughout the year too if you want to go during other holidays. I'd find out if school have any holiday sessions. Our school had the ones doing practical coursework in the second week of the Christmas holidays and they do revision week during Easter holidays. Dcs friends who went away at February half term took work with them as they'd been given so much. Dc had 9 homeworks plus some revision for upcoming mocks. May be best to look at what has gone on this year for the current y11s and see if you can see when they definitely need to be at home. For us that would have been no holidays from Christmas onwards.

We went away for a few days during February half term for a sort of ‘last hurrah’ before settling down to focus on exams and revision. Wouldn’t have gone away at Easter, DD and I were invited on a hen weekend abroad in May just before exams would’ve started and I had to politely decline. Not worth the risk

DD’s school had Y11 mocks in January so we went away for a week’s holiday in Feb half term as a last hurrah. My friend’s schools had their mocks before Christmas holidays, so they went away over NYE.

We didn’t go away in Easter because school tend to put on extra classes. May half term was a big no-no for us, not worth the risk.

I took DD and her best friend away for a sun break after contingency day, and before schools broke up for summer. That was a wonderful week, great memories for all of us

We have one A level and one GCSE student this year so this is our second time through. As with the last time we did our normal travel abroad to see my family around Christmas but built in some time for review. I always do some remote work during these trips so that wasn't an extreme ask, and we worked with each to figure out an approach that worked for them - one did a few half-day blocks at local cafes and then took the rest of the time off and the other did short 2x per day sessions in grandpa's home office.

Then we planned a trip for just them and either DH or I for soon after exams (they got to take the lead on this, with a budget supplied and age-appropriate help). We have our big family holiday scheduled for Summer break again. Otherwise we deliberately didn't plan anything ahead of time for term breaks or Easter and made decisions for small trips based on where they were at when the time came and the invidual teen. Both have missed out on some short trips their siblings were going on but they have their special post-exams trip to look forward to, and both have still gotten plenty of breaks.

Check with the schools for mocks and review sessions that will be held during the break to help with timings but I would still make sure anything you book can be moved or rescheduled at a not-prohibitive cost.

We had a 4 day break over the long Easter weekend but otherwise didn't book holidays during that year. We played it by ear and did days out.
DD's mocks were in January, and school put on revision sessions over the Easter fortnight.

Did a week away at New Year, then it was head down.
But did do several overseas trips in the long summer holidays afterwards.

We’re in the middle of Year 11 and DS had mocks in November (immediately after half term) and again now (immediately after half term). I wish we’d whisked him away over Christmas as school actively encouraged that as a restful holiday with limited to no revision. Both half terms spent revising for mocks and as he has 11 exams in the first week it’s likely he’ll spend most of the Easter hols revising as well. May half term obviously a no-go