Sometimes, parents plan extended holidays during the school year. Please note that for each week of absence, a child would be missing approximately 25 hours of instructional time.

We are committed to assist each of our students to develop the necessary skills to make them responsible citizens of our community and this includes punctuality and regular attendance. When a child is not at school, the learning of that child as well as the learning of the other children in the class is affected.

It is important that your child not fall behind in his/her schoolwork prior to the trip as well as upon their return to school.

Parents who choose to remove a student from school to travel are responsible for providing the learning experiences the student has missed while away. This means that you might need to hire a tutor or teach the concepts yourself if you are familiar with them.

Teachers are often asked to provide work for the time the student will be absent.  This is very difficult to do because, of course, the child will need instruction prior to being able to do the work he/she will miss.  At best, teachers can assemble some work they think the child can do independently.  This is quite time-consuming and children rarely do any of the work while on vacation.  If you want your child to do some school-related activity while on vacation, a daily journal written in French and reading a French book are good ideas.

When the child returns to school, he/she will need to “catch up” on the missed concepts taught. This, again, is the responsibility of the parents. Due dates for assignments and tests need to be respected as much as possible. Teachers work very hard to give extra help to children who have been absent due to illness or who are experiencing difficulty in some areas. Many recesses and lunch breaks are dedicated to these tasks. It is unfair to ask a teacher to put in more time for a vacation-related absence.

At times, the extended absence may lead to an area of the curriculum that may be left blank on the report card as there may be insufficient data collected by the teacher to fairly evaluate a child’s performance.

Please remember that for each week of absence, a child would be missing approximately 25 hours of instructional time. We would also like to mention that a certain number of hours of French instruction by year end is required in order for a child to be able to obtain their certificate of functional bilingualism by the end of high school.