Leave/holiday during term time in Council/Grammar school

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Looking for help
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Re: Leave/holiday during term time in Council/Grammar school

Post by Looking for help »

Just to add..I think most HTs are sympathetic to those who have family far from home, so I imagine they are likely to approve a 10 day absence for a family reason, rather than someone they think is off on a cheap family holiday, which I guess the rules were brought in to discourage.
Guest55
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Re: Leave/holiday during term time in Council/Grammar school

Post by Guest55 »

LFH - most of the schools local to us don't allow any holidays in term-time for any reason. There is so much research on the impact of missing this much time that they just won't authorise it anymore.
Looking for help
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Re: Leave/holiday during term time in Council/Grammar school

Post by Looking for help »

But that simply is discriminatory to those of us with families far away.
Amber
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Re: Leave/holiday during term time in Council/Grammar school

Post by Amber »

Looking for help wrote:But that simply is discriminatory to those of us with families far away.
I have been delighted to have an excuse to get out of a couple of family occasions recently on the grounds that I couldn't possibly take the children out of school. Cuts both ways. :D
Looking for help
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Re: Leave/holiday during term time in Council/Grammar school

Post by Looking for help »

I guess.... :lol:

But I wouldn't miss a family wedding on account of a school refusing to give me time off. And that hasn't been my experience anyway.

Also in three years of secondary schooling, we have asked twice for 2 lots of 2 days, it's not a big deal, to be honest.

The funerals - well apart from grandparents, me or OH have gone with whichever children would be able to go, taking account of school etc.
daveg
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Re: Leave/holiday during term time in Council/Grammar school

Post by daveg »

Looking for help wrote:I guess.... :lol:

But I wouldn't miss a family wedding on account of a school refusing to give me time off.
No-one's asking you to miss it. But is it vital that your children go?
Looking for help
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Re: Leave/holiday during term time in Council/Grammar school

Post by Looking for help »

daveg wrote: No-one's asking you to miss it. But is it vital that your children go?
Yes :D

Now that most of them are old enough it would be their decision, but when they were small, and all our babysitters lived the 450 miles away obviously we couldn't go without taking the children.

Look I'm not here to be vilified for taking my kids out of school about twice in the last 5 years, just saying to the Op that in my view a head will look fairly on a request for time off for family matters, and absolutely should do, and that has been my experience.

It is a crazy world we live in :roll:
Etienne
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Re: Leave/holiday during term time in Council/Grammar school

Post by Etienne »

Look I'm not here to be vilified for taking my kids out of school about twice in the last 5 years
Personally I wouldn't want to see you hanged for that, LFH. :D

But the original post was about 10 days' absence (authorised or otherwise), and the possibility of this "holiday time" being "extended by 2 weeks".

I assume the rules that we currently have were introduced (a) because it was considered very important that children should be in school, getting an education, and (b) because some parents were taking their children out of school a bit too often?
Etienne
Looking for help
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Re: Leave/holiday during term time in Council/Grammar school

Post by Looking for help »

Yes I understand that - I expect the OP would have to make do with a maximum of 10 days, and I would imagine that no matter where you are in the world, 10 days should be enough for whatever occasion is going on.
magwich2
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Re: Leave/holiday during term time in Council/Grammar school

Post by magwich2 »

I think the rules are in place because it would otherwise become only too apparent that quite prolonged periods of absence have very little effect on most children.
In primary school so much time is taken up playing, dressing up, acting and with sport that if a child were to miss 10 days they would be lucky to have missed 10 hours of actual academic learning. It seems to be fine for schools to come up with endless wheezes to come off timetable for days on end but if parents want some family life then shock horror that means their child's education is adversely affected!
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