Will Missing Three Months of Prep Be OK/Disastrous?

[fionas]

DD1 will start primary school next year. DP also has three months of long service leave next year. Not exactly sure of when he's eligible.

Anyhow, we've been talking for ages about going to Europe for three months. My parents/sister/niece/nephew are in the UK.

DD1 is a very sociable child who makes friends easily. I'm not worried about her settling into primary school or resettling in. We're in a small town and she knows a lot of the kids she'll be going to school with already.

I feel a bit torn about her missing so much of primary school but it's not like she'll be in Year 10.

So if we decide to go, would you go sooner or later in the school year?

Did anyone else do similar?

[~Raven~]

Delay her for a year!

[Sopdet]

We took 4 (ages 11, 10, 8 & 6) to Europe for 4 months.

Not a problem at all with them being away. When they got back they were leaps and bounds ahead of a lot of their classmates in subjects such as english (we were teaching them simple phrases in local languages, so they were learning about sentence structure & what words were verbs etc), geography, art, history, even maths (exchange rates etc). They also had schoolwork supplied by their teachers. I love travelling with young ones, just their wonder when they see something new.

[~me~]

Yep, delay her for a year or if you do not want to do that, go in the middle of the year when the weather is nicer in Europe
My SIL goes pretty much every year for at least 6wks (over there now), her DD is in Prep this year and her older DD is in Grade 3, if your DD is confident and picking up work pretty quickly, she will not miss much in prep.
SIL does some work with her while on holidays, just basics like Golden Words and basic reading and writing and maths to keep her up to speed.
As Sopdet has mentioned, it's pretty educational as well for them to be OS, if she was home schooled, it would be part of the curriculum

[Phteven]

DS1 was homeschooled for the first 3 months of kindy (the first year of compulsory education in the ACT) because we were OS so he was way behind and he had caught up in English by the end of the year and Italian by mid-way through the next year.

[fionas]

I don't really want to delay her for a year - that would mean when she got back she would be repeating kinder at the same kinder but with different children. I'd rather her be a little bit behind in prep than bored to tears at kinder and wondering why all her old friends weren't there any more.

Hmmm, I've got a meeting with her kinder teacher next week - not about this but just a general chat.

[Phteven]

Distance Education Centre Victoria

Distance education is an option - they provide materials and curriculum and you deliver it.
It is a public school run by the state education authority. Each state has one.

[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!

[aussienic]

I would go and organize some work for when you are away. Yes 3 months is a long time but it can work

I wouldn't delay for the year.. She will learn heaps going on a holiday.

(ps super jealous. have a great time)

[YoYo]

I wouldn't delay for another year either.

I'm in a similar situation, but only for 3 weeks, not 3 months. My DS starts reception in September and were coming home for a holiday/wedding in October. We're only 'allowed' to have 10 days off during term time and any longer I think we'd be expected to follow the curriculum on our trip. Which I wouldn't have any issue doing to avoid DS being left behind. He's already an outsider so don't need any more attention drawn to him in a negative way. He's also really self conscious, so wouldn't want him to not be able to read when everyone else can.

I really think 3 months wouldn't impact too greatly depending on the child and how much time you're willing to put in on a holiday.

Hope you have a great time! Sunny in the UK today.... Top of 19!! LOL

[fionas]

Thanks for all the feedback guys - particularly nickle - I need to hear warts and all.

I think what we may do is time it around Xmas holidays so that she'd miss some time at the end of the school year and at the start of the next one. We could reduce our holiday to two months and have her miss two weeks of the end/start of the school years. Yes, the weather will be foul but I'm used to it and DP lived in Colorado for 10 years so he's used to sub-zero temps too. Plus it would be pretty awesome for the girls to see snow.

We're more than happy to take schoolwork with us and my cousins in the UK are both primary school teachers so I guess I could ask their advice if we're having any issues too.

Still thinking. Will be good to get feedback from her kindy teacher as to how she's going generally at this point. I really have no idea. She's much more advanced than I was at her age in terms of writing/reading but ...