Will Missing Three Months of Prep Be OK/Disastrous?

[fionas]

Ooooooooh, thanks for that!

DP liked the idea of enrolling her into my old primary school and leaving her with her grandparents for a few days here and there but I think we'd want to travel for longer spells than a few days so that wouldn't really work. But it would be cool if she went to my old primary school. I'd need to take an enormous box of tissues mind you.

[nickle730]

When my DD1 was in Prep we took her out of school for six weeks and travelled around Europe. In retrospect, it was not the right thing for us to do. We found that her literacy really suffered. I did take readers away with us and we (as a PP mentioned) taught our kids words and phrases in the language of the countries we visited. However, whilst we were away (mmmm... beginning of term 2 from memory) the other children took off in terms of their reading and writing, whilst DD stagnated at best. It was very difficult for her to catch up on the literacy she had missed and it really wasn't until the end of Grade 1 that I felt confident that she had caught up. I should say, DD's school and her teacher were excellent in offering the support she needed to improve her reading and writing. DD is now in Grade 4 and is an excellent reader and loves to write - but that 18 months of knowing she was lagging well behind her peers was stressful for both DD and I.

Honestly, DD is my eldest child and I didn't have a very good understanding of the learning prep entails. I thought it was a 'preparatory' year for school! It is not - it is the first year of school and a great deal of foundation learning occurs in prep.

If you do decide to take your DD out of prep for a prolonged period, I would suggest that you consult with her teacher (I did this!) for advice about what work she will be missing and how you can best assist her to maintain her learning whilst you are away. And then, you need to be very committed to doing the activities! It's very easy, on holidays, to think 'aaahhh, we'll do it tomorrow!'.

Good luck! Despite the difficulties we faced when we returned, some of my happiest memories are of that holiday!