special leave policy

Here at The International School of The Hague, we have a responsibility and a duty to provide the best possible education for your child.  We try as hard as we can to do this.  Likewise, parents have a duty to send children to school at all times, unless it is absolutely vital that they do not attend. 

A child’s absence through sickness is almost inevitable and unavoidable.  However, it can impact on the child’s learning as they may miss key concepts taught during the time of their absence.  This in itself is manageable.  However, if a child is, in addition to sickness, also absent from school for other reasons, then the negative effect on learning is more pronounced.  Teachers cannot ensure all children ‘catch up’ when they return, as they are concentrating on the rest of the class.  Equally, it is not the teacher’s responsibility to arrange work for a child who will be away from school.  We do have suggestions to offer but we will not be handing out the learning that will be done in class during the absence period, without the teaching to support it. 

Requests for Special Leave can be granted only once in a school year with a limit of 10 school days and should follow the following guidelines:

- All applications should be made a minimum of 4 weeks in advance

- Requests should be accompanied by a letter from your employer where necessary

- Requests in the first two weeks of the school year and for early withdrawal before the end of the school year cannot be considered

- If a member of the family becomes sick during a holiday period and requires additional leave, this must be accompanied by a doctor’s certificate from     the country where the sickness occurred.

In addition, leave may also be granted for other reasons, as listed below:

- Leave for legal obligations, for example a visit to the IND (immigration), court appearance etc.

- One day leave for religious festivals

- One day leave if a family is moving house

- One day leave for the wedding of close family relatives, additional days may be granted if the wedding is overseas

- Serious illness of close family relatives

- Death of a family relative (up to 4 days)

- Special wedding anniversaries of parents or grandparents (one day) – see below

Special wedding anniversaries are: 60th, 50th, 40th, 25th or 12 1/2th

The following conditions are not good reasons for leave and in normal circumstances will not be considered.

- Family visits to Netherlands

- Visits to family outside of Netherlands

- Holidays at non-peak time

- Early leave or late return because of traffic

- Sporting or cultural events

- Non availability of suitable flights etc.