What would you do about taking dd out of school for holiday?

[mosschops30]

WE have booked a holiday in May, basically because I expected to be pregnant by now, but Im not!

So we were taking dd out of school for one week anyway.

We are now thinking that its going to be too early and want to go for the first two weeks in June where it will be a bit later and probably a bit warmer too. We have looked at changing it to August but a £1700 holiday turns into a £4000 holiday

What would you do? Providing dd hasnt got any important tests or exams would you do it? The school frown on this sort of thing and the absence would be unauthorised

oh and our friends and their kids are going in the later two weeks also, which is another reason we'd like to change

bump

Dont do it

School is school and there are enough school hols without taking extra

there is another thread on this actually but I am of the school is more important than holidays crowd........

This is one of those things where 2 different strands of me make 2 completely opposing decisions. But in the end, I would say no, don't take her out for 2 weeks, and preferably not for a week either. It's bloomin hard though - I can't see when we are ever going to be able to have an actual holiday. I don't like holidays so I guess that's no issue for me, but it's v hard on dh and ds.

how old is dd?

If you can live with the unauthorised absence against your dd's name, and you can be thick-skinned about the tutting that will go on and the inconvenience it will cause the subject teachers who either a) have to set extra work for your dd or b)make concessions for her when she doesn't 'get' the work she misses, then do it.

I would think that you're going to anyway as it's already booked but don't expect the school to change its view. I'm not being arsey by the way, I just know that schools gets no end of grief from govt about their unauthorised absences and the figures are published by Ofsted and reflect badly on the school.

It's a complete pain about the price, I agree but lots of folk are in the same boat.

oh sorry -just re-read and I see you haven't yet booked.

Lots of threads on this - and lots of conflicting opinion. I am of the "no you absolutely shouldn't do it" school of thought but plenty of people on here will disagree with me.

we have booked for 2 weeks in May already (1 week half term and the week before).

I can understand the point, but sometimes when I know the kids who have endless days off to go shopping/visit relatives/because theyre tired/have the sniffles it gets on my nerves.
dd's attendance record is excellent and she never has a day off sick or taken out for other reasons.

We cannot afford to go in august and spend another 2.5k, nor do i want to spend my two week holiday in weather thats not great. Holidays are very important to us as a family and Im not sure i believe in all this 'unauthorised absence' stuff that never happened when we were of school age, the school did not dictate when you could and couldnt take your holidays.

they didnt have oftsed when we were at school for one thing. And the Govt/Ofsted do give schools lots of grief for unauthorised absences: it's a fact.

It goes down as a % and gets published in the league tables. The schools with the highest unauthorised absences are judged very harshly and told to get their numbers up.

The only way schools can do this is to be arsey and unco-opertaive with parenst, I'm afraid.

Well believe in "unauthorised absences" or not, they are a fact. Schools get judged on them but so will teenagers when applying for college places.

The dcfs aren't bothered about unauthorised absence anymore - the stick to beat us with now is absence of any sort, especially if it puts a pupil under 95%. Previously schools could keep their unauthorised figures down quite easily (just authorise everything) now we have to justify the flippin authorised ones too.

lol at uni's asking for the number of unauthorised absences a child has had

I didnt get asked for mine and went to a red brick uni at 29. They didnt ask my employers either

I said colleges, not unis - ie: 6th form colleges. I write about 200 references a year as a Head Of Year and yes, the colleges want to know absence and unauthorised absence rates for Yr 11 pupils. However, as I said, not everybody feels as strongly about this as I do and I can't be bothered to argue.

I wouldn't take a DC out of secondary school for a holiday. All holidays go down as unauthorised in my LEA.

lets not then

yes but can someone explain to me the significance of an 'unauthorised absence' apart from the school getting grief from ofsted, which doesnt bother me either way, I cant see how it matters

Okay. I just got irrationally cross at your face.

Two weeks work is an awful lot to catch up on and thats the only reason I wouldn't take my Dd out for two weeks. Can you not tag the half term week and the first week in June? When my dd was in primary they often had 2 or 3 training days in the week after the May half term and I would take that week off as well.

i have looked at that possibility but its too expensive

LAs can send you a penalty warning notice if you have more than 20 unauthorised sessions (10 days). If attendance doesn't improve you can be fined. Tis unlikely they'll do it if dd has otherwise good attendance.

Everyone else has to go with expensive!

perhaps everyone else can afford it, we cant!

Yes her absence record is probably a big fat zzero. She would be out for 10 days so would that incur a letter?

The school had no problems closing for 2 days when we had 1 inch of slush, which is another thing that annoys me

Doubt it mosschops - by that time of year her percentage won't hit the radar I'm sure. If you take 10 days in October it really hits the figures.

Not that I'm condoning it you know

What year is your DD in?