Do a lot of parents plan a holiday for end of June when GCSEs are finished ?

[Lardlizard]

Is this a bit of a thing

I don't think it has Daisy. My DS did GCSEs in 2018 and there wasn't one then. I also understood it was introduced following Grenfell in 2017 and the Manchester bombing the year before.

I can't wait for this in a couple of years. Planning a nice holiday.

@Daisypod

I have worked in a large secondary exams office for many years. There has not been a national contingency day before 2019.

This ofqual article confirms that the contingency day was a new feature in the 2019 exam timetable.

ofqual.blog.gov.uk/2019/01/25/be-prepared-gcse-and-a-level-exam-contingency-day-2019/

Perhaps your school (s) had their own local day for their own purposes, but it was not used across the whole country on the same day, as this new contingency day is.

That's strange as I have known about the contingency days for years through various schools and the reasons have been for times of national emergency/mourning (so if the queen should die for example)
There was definitely one in 2018 as my daughter did her GCSEs then too and we made sure we went after it.

Yes. Went on a months holiday !

Daisy There wasn't one in 2018 - my DS did his GCSEs then and no mention at all. I know his school would have told us - they are very good at stuff like that.

As a retired teacher, I had never heard of the contingency date. But my understanding is that they can't technically leave school until the last Friday in June, so closer to the 30th. I can't imagine any school objecting if you went prior to that, though.

We didn't, work was busy with weddings and prom photographs and I still had one in school. We had a long holiday once the holidays started.

No we had to wait until Ds2 finished the school year.

Plus Ds had to attend his sixth form induction day which was around 10th July and this was part of the condition of them accepting you on results day.

So our holiday had to fall after the end of July and before results day by a good few days in case we needed to row across the Atlantic ocean to get back in time for results

But we can do it when Ds2 finishes his GCSEs as Ds1 will be at uni so should also finish mid June, hooray!

Yes we did, but there was a stressful moment when we thought DD would need to be in school in the middle of our week away, we were making plans for her to fly out later to join us but thankfully the school had made a mistake.