taking year 10 kids out of School

[marv]

Hi i will be taking my Daughter to Florida in April 2006 for most of the month. Ime not sure when Easter is in 2006 but ime sure she will be taking some time out from school. Would any one have experience of problems at this time of year with Exams. We are all booked up now and are going but am a bit worried that because she will be starting year 10 in september that she may have exams or course work to get through come April 2006.

 

[vicky1bfc]

There usually is course work or exams all the way though years 10 and 11 so im sure she will miss some.

 

[Danauk]

My husband teaches year 10 and right now he is marking mock exam papers and preparing course work to send to examiners. So I think she will miss something.

 

[Camac]

Here in Wales the Easter holidays for 2006 start on Friday 14th April (Good Friday), returning to school on Tuesday 2nd May (after the May Day Bank Holiday).

Hope this helps.

My daughter is currently in Yr 10 and she has had constant examinations and course work so far this year.

Camac

 

[marv]

Hi camac if thats the Easter dates for here too ten she will have 9 school days off. Maybe i could post a letter to every teacher that she has to let them know she will be taking this time off so they will know if she is going to miss any thing important.

 

[chas]

My brother is in year 10 at the moment and he hasnt had any exams yet just a couple of pieces of coursework.

 

[alisonbestford]

School hols in Sheffield are 3rd - 17th April

 

[poohmadmum]

You will need the school's consent to take your child out of school. In Devon the Easter holidays are 7th - 25th April 2006. We're going for three weeks at end of March/beginning of April and will need to take our daughter out of school. She transfers to year 7 at senior school in September so we will need to get the school's consent, one she starts there, which will hopefully be given. Can't help you with year 10 work although it is always best to work with the teachers.

 

[marv]

I have found out that Easter in this area 31st March - 18th April which means they will have 9school days off. I better get some consent forms and get the schools permission. I had no problems last year with getting consent

 

[masterson]

Hi my son is now in year 11 from what i remember there is hardly any course work and he had plenty of notice to do it in couple of weeks for draft and then some more weeks for final copy. I was really amazed at how little course work there was for all the fuss the school made about it - the maths course work was done in the lessons the same with the science. So dont worry about it too much - they know at the beginning of Sept what they will have to do.

 

[bj-sailaway]

Our school has said that from year 10 onwards easter hols should be viewed as revision time! Also, our borough, Sutton Surrey, now fines for each unauthorised day of absence, £50 per day I am told!!! They view family holidays as unauthorised. Good luck, hope your borough is kinder than ours!

 

[wicket2005]

My son is currently in year 10, he has modular GCSE exams in March for Maths and Science, in June he has another set of exams in these subjects. These are the key months for not booking holidays.

He had to complete his Maths coursework by the beginning of the Easter holidays and also had an English piece of coursework which needed to be completed a few weeks earlier.

I think the thing to do is ascertain if there are any pieces of coursework that need to be completed by a certain date and see if this falls in to your Orlando holiday period. Your daughter will need to be aware that these pieces of work have to be handed in on time.

The other important period is when your daughter takes her mock exams in year 10. Our school uses these results to predict what grades the child will get in year 11 and to sort them in to a monitoring scheme. My son took these in March.

Year 11 has more coursework undertaken in the autumn term. My school had mock exams in the January and then revision timetables were issued end of March for exams in May/June. Children following GCSE Art courses have the real GCSE exam early in the year, March time I think so this is worth bearing in mind.

 

[Candy]

Our school has said that from year 10 onwards easter hols should be viewed as revision time! Also, our borough, Sutton Surrey, now fines for each unauthorised day of absence, £50 per day I am told!!! They view family holidays as unauthorised. Good luck, hope your borough is kinder than ours!

I also live in the borough of sutton [ small world] i have two children in high school. and their schools still allow 10 days per school year as authorised absence [holidays etc] it is still up to the headmaster of the school.the information i have is if your child has more than 5 days unauthorised absence then you can be fined £50 if payment is made within 28 days and £100 if paid after this but within 42 days.[ it sounds a bit like a parking fine]

 

[bj-sailaway]

London Borough of Sutton council will never go broke! Interesting though, the school my friends kids are at is Overton Grange, maybe she has had them out of school more than she admits!

 

[mark&sue]

You are allowed 10 days authorised a school year so you should be ok. I have taken my daughter out of school for 12 days so far this school year (to go twice to WDW!) two days were unauthorised and I have not been fined (yet!)

Stop worrying about it now you have booked up and just look forward to your holiday. If you had hit Easter the parks would be too busy anyway so you are probably much better off going outside peak times

Have a great time.



Susan

 

[cheryl.UK]

Just to say that you may have to wait until September to find out your daughter's Y10 teachers. The timetable for next year will not be written yet as the school won't be sure of it's staffing. The cut off date for teachers to resign a post isn't until 31st May. This is the busiest time of year for staff are applying for new posts.

 

[k-herm]

If you take your kids out of school for a holiday don't tell the school it's for a holiday - they then have to put it down as an unauthorised absence which they don't like.

They prefer if you lie and say it was an illness! That way the school's reputation [league tables, etc ] isn't affected.

Certainly this is the way it works in my area.

 

[patdavies]

Just to say that you may have to wait until September to find out your daughter's Y10 teachers. The timetable for next year will not be written yet as the school won't be sure of it's staffing. The cut off date for teachers to resign a post isn't until 31st May. This is the busiest time of year for staff are applying for new posts.

The timetable was written months ago - during the Autumn term. The reason for this is that the timetable feeds the staffing, which in turn feeds the budget process. The Governors must have finalised and approved the budegt in May. Also the timetable needs to be written for yr 10/11 before Yr 9 options; this is how the options are planned into groups etc.

The cutoff date for teacher resignations is a red herring. The timetable is planned on posts not persons - in other words a teacher of that subject; not a named teacher.

Holiday permissions come form the head teacher, but may be delegated to a deputy, head of year, etc. The authority is with the post, not the person.

 

[keziah]

We took ours out of school for a week after the Feb half term in 2002 when they were Y6, Y8, Y10 & Y12. We had to ask permission & the only reason they gave permission for the Y10 child (4 different schools!) was because he had a 100% attendance rate prior to then. They told us that had it been less than 93% they would have refused.

Be prepared for a fight!

 

[a_hobden]

I went to disney during my oc GCSE's in yr 11 at school at the time we booked the holiday the school hadn't set dates so when we told them about the hol they didn't mind aslong as I did the exams when I got back