When is it ok to take you child out of school?

As a teachers daughter I know the answer to this but I just want other people's views. I'm sure we can all remember back to primary school when if we were ill our parents had to either ring the school or write a note to say why we hadn't been in school.

A while ago my mother had an issue with a boy who hadn't been to school. It was around this time of year and he was only off for one day. When he returned the following day with his mother, my mum explained to the parent that she needed to provide a note to say that he had been ill and politely asked if he was feeling better, at this the mother looked surprised and said 'Oh, he wasn't ill, he wanted to come Christmas shopping with me'. Now as I'm sure you all know that is not an appropriate reason for missing school, but this parent was totally unaware and was very upset when my mother explained that unless he was ill by law he needed to be in school or she could be subject to truancy fines. Now obviously my mother was not going to report her to the truancy office for a genuine mistake that she assured her wouldn't happen again but I find it really hard to believe that a parent who a)must have gone to school herself therefore knowing the rules about a child not being in school and b)would think that shopping was more important than her child's education (I know i'm exaggerating here because it was only one day, but you get the idea).

Would any of you think its ok to allow your child to miss a day of school for any reason other than being unwell, family funerals/weddings or other events that are completely unavoidable? Were any of you unaware that a child should not miss school to go shopping?

As a teachers daughter I know the answer to this but I just want other people's views. I'm sure we can all remember back to primary school when if we were ill our parents had to either ring the school or write a note to say why we hadn't been in school.

A while ago my mother had an issue with a boy who hadn't been to school. It was around this time of year and he was only off for one day. When he returned the following day with his mother, my mum explained to the parent that she needed to provide a note to say that he had been ill and politely asked if he was feeling better, at this the mother looked surprised and said 'Oh, he wasn't ill, he wanted to come Christmas shopping with me'. Now as I'm sure you all know that is not an appropriate reason for missing school, but this parent was totally unaware and was very upset when my mother explained that unless he was ill by law he needed to be in school or she could be subject to truancy fines. Now obviously my mother was not going to report her to the truancy office for a genuine mistake that she assured her wouldn't happen again but I find it really hard to believe that a parent who a)must have gone to school herself therefore knowing the rules about a child not being in school and b)would think that shopping was more important than her child's education (I know i'm exaggerating here because it was only one day, but you get the idea).

Would any of you think its ok to allow your child to miss a day of school for any reason other than being unwell, family funerals/weddings or other events that are completely unavoidable? Were any of you unaware that a child should not miss school to go shopping?

It sounds like a wind-up to me.

I do know a couple of schools that have INSET days in late November so they can be used for Christmas shopping.

It's not a wind-up this did actually happen to my mum and if the parent knew he should have been in school she would have lied and said he'd been ill.

I've never heard of that, in my experience inset days are almost always at the beginning of term which is why most children start back on a Wednesday rather than Monday.

I think sometimes kids need a day off just because they're exhausted or stressed and for a hard working student that probably wont make a huge difference.