Ms Scipione's kids are a part of the growing number of children skipping the last week of school because families are assessing the trade-off as too great when it comes to Christmas.

"It would be just awful to be locked down during Christmas. We wouldn't get to go away to the South Coast to see family which everyone is really looking forward to after this difficult year," Ms Scipione said.

"During Eli's quarantine it crossed my mind that this wasn't going to work for us at Christmas, so once it was clear the government was still going to make unvaccinated kids spend 14 days in quarantine if exposed, we decided to make them finish a week early.

"The school was incredibly supportive. They had even changed the day all the kids move to their new classrooms for the next year from week 11 to week 10 to prevent everyone going into lockdown during Christmas if there is another case."

Ms Scipione said she was becoming increasingly frustrated by government rules for schools, saying information did not seem well-formulated for their situation.

"The most frustrating thing is the government doesn't seem to have any clear policy for schools constantly going into lockdown and there is no indication they will alter it," she said.

"When Eli went into quarantine last month he wasn't even in the same class as the person who had the COVID case - just the same building - and no one else got it because the infected student was only at school for an hour.

"All they put on the website is a list of schools that have had an exposure that day but don't follow up with the transmission. The lack of information and harshness of rules made us commit to keeping our kids home for week 11."

Janelle Kennard from the ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations had heard from a number of parents who would not be sending kids for the last week of term.

"People have looked at Christmas Day and subtracted 14 days and thought, 'It's not worth risking it'," Ms Kennard said.

"Understandably parents are taking extra precautions because everyone knows what quarantine is like and want to have a really nice family day on Christmas.

"Parents are wary this term and it's also week 11 when we usually have 10 weeks."

READ MORE:

Suzy Andrew is another parent who shares this view, saying the unusually long 11-week term made it worth taking her kids out early.

Her two younger boys Charlie, 10, and Douglas, 6, will not be attending school next week while her eldest George, 13 will be as he's vaccinated.

"I am a rule-follower and usually I will always have my kids go to school every day no matter what, but my husband and I wanted to mitigate that risk of being locked down during Christmas," Ms Andrew said.

"The school was so understanding that they even put it in their newsletter saying they knew people would be finishing up 10 December to preserve travel plans, which was what made me decide to do it because we're going to Tasmania for Christmas.

"Getting my youngest two vaccinated can't come soon enough so this risk of school outbreaks can be less likely."

Families are struggling to make the decision between holiday plans and memorable moments which has caused further disappointment during the Christmas period.

While some parents appeared to be taking the extra week, Monique Brouwer's two kids Maddy, 11 and Nick, 10 were still attending for week 11, which has completely changed travel plans.

"We did have plans for Christmas in Queensland, but because my daughter's in year 6 we wanted her to finish off the school year with graduation, so we cancelled our trip in case we got put into a 14-day quarantine," Mrs Brouwer said.

"It was really upsetting because my sister is up there and it was going to be a lovely holiday but the risk was too stressful and we didn't want to lose our money if we suddenly had a case at the school.

"It's just so disappointing. We want to have a great Christmas this year because effectively the last two it's been really tough and traumatic, so it's sad that this holiday season isn't normal."

Director of Catholic Education Ross Fox had noticed no change so far in attendance at schools.

"Attendance trends at Catholic schools have remained steady since schools returned to on-site learning. Our current data does not show any reduction in attendance trends in recent days," Mr Fox said.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: