My Grandson is disabled and attends a school for children with special needs. The school has a policy where they will only grant term time holiday requests if a pupil has 95% attendance. We recently put in a request for a term time holiday for my Grandson, however it was denied by the headteacher because he currently only has an attendance level of 78.5%. What really annoys me is that the 16.5% attendance that he is short of from the 95% required was mainly absences due to hospital inpatient/outpatient appointments that he has to attend because of his health issues and I think that it is wrong of the school to include these essential hospital appointments within their calculation for granting term time holiday requests. My Grandson was born without a functioning immune system and even after receiving a cord blood transplant his immunity remains poor, so it is in our best interest to take him away on holiday during the quieter weeks to limit the risk of infection to him, and obviously these quieter weeks tend to fall during school term time. I appealed to the childrens services department of my local council, however they predictably sided with the headteacher. The holiday is booked and payed for now so we will be taking our Grandson away with or without the blessing of the school, however was it really too much for the school to give their blessing for a short 1 week holiday, the only holiday he will be taking all year, personally I think it is red tape gone mad.
Any comments or views that you may have on this subject would be greatly appreciated.
