Mumsnet Talk

I wish the authorities would change the school holiday system so we weren't all forced to pay stupid money for our annual jollies. I know it's an age old problem that we have all moaned about for years, so why does it never get fully addressed?

My proposal would be to shorten the summer holidays to four weeks and allow each pupil to have ten Lieu days a year, the form teacher would have to authorise the lieu days to ensure that the holidays were not taken during exam time for example, but otherwise they'd be able to use the holidays when needed through-out the terms, maybe for the odd day out here and there or used all at once for a two week holiday.

Well I think it's a good idea....what do you think?

Err, what about all the work they miss while away - especially in something like maths. The poor teacher would then be continually having to help children catch up the work they have missed so they can understand last weeks topic before moving on to this weeks.

shorten the hols,yes!

but no to teachers authorising days off for 10 days in lieu....i have 4 dc in 3 different schools,all doing exams separate times. what if some teachers said no to chosen dates??

Not a good idea. Sorry. They'd all spend their time catching up with what they'd missed, and the teachers would be driven to distraction.

If we want to grumble about paying stupid money, I'll grumble about paying stupid money for mine to go to school, only for them to have 21 weeks off every year!!

As a result of the frightful fees scenario, we don't go on holiday, so paying extra for holidays is one less thing to worry about. Now there's a silver lining.

What do I think?
Make sure that your children don't take days off willy-nilly and then if you need a holiday in term time put in a request form. Most reasonable schools will authorise it and for those that don't, listen to their objections, decide if they are reasonable and if you think not take the holiday anyway.

Bearing in mind that the travel companies claim that holidays aren't more expensive during school holidays, just cheaper during term-time, I suspect that they would just use this system as an excuse to charge higher prices all year round...

Greenshadow....so many parents I know already take their kids out of school for their holidays anyway, the way the current systems works means the parents a) have to have a really good reason to get authorisation to take their kids out of school, or b) lie and pretend they have very good reasons for taking their kids out of school in order to get the required authorisation. Or if they fail to do either of those, the holiday will be recorded as an unauthorised abscence and will reflect badly on the school. I think Lieu days would cover that, and remember that they would only have 4 weeks summer holidays..so wouldn't actually lose any school days.

and I'm sure most parents wouldn't book their holidays during their kids exams would they?

Well said RustyBear There's no way that prices would drop.

Well I think

6 terms each 6 weeks long
Christmas & Spring holidays @ 2.5 weeks
Plus 3 half terms @ 2weeks
Plus summer @ 4 weeks
plus bank holidays & Easter etc.

Sorted

Would teachers get the lieu days?

Surely if the school holidays were changed, then the holiday companies would just adjust their peak times to correspond.

I agree with Katymac. Much better for the children to learn in regular blocks, with regular breaks in between.

Holidays are too expensive for us to go every year so we go every few years and have a holiday at home the other years. I'd rather do that than have schooling suffer.

and what about the teachers own holidays?? those teachers with children that is.....

You'd still get peak times with Katymac idea though.

I'd use my lieu days here and there just to enjoy a nice day out with my kids every so often.

Ah well, I still like my idea...even if no one else does, lol

In France the school holidays are staggered - actually they are a bit here, because Scotland and Ireland have different dates. But how it works over there is that, say, the South starts hols mid June and goes back end of July, middle starts end June goes back mid August, north starts mid July goes back end August IYSWIM.

It means that holidays are staggered so you don't get the huge peaks in demand that push up the prices in the school hols. Yes, they go up, but not quite as much.

Surely that's more to do with the weather?

Could be but it's not as simple as South first, Middle next. It's more of a patchwork IIRC.

Probably not then

When/where I was a child we went to school for 37 weeks. DC go to school for 39 weeks. I'd like to see them lose 2 weeks of school (really spent doing Nativity play practice and watching DVDs). I don't care when.

Some of us don't do "annual jollies", so OP's gripe not something we can relate to.

i don't think the OP's idea would work, but think they should still agree the 10 days like they used to.

As a teacher I have no choice in when I take my holidays. We do not have a right to take a holiday -it is our choice if we wish to take one abroad or at home. The holiday companies are trying to make a profit - you do not have to take a holiday with them. It would be good though if all schools would agree when the holidays were - it is difficult if you have children in different schools who have different holidays.

I think if the summer holidays were shortened then holidays during that time would become even more expensive. It's just basic supply and demand.

It would also mean that more parents would not be able to get time off work during the school holidays.

What annoys me is teacher training days and the fact that each school has different ones. So when you have children at different schools they have different random days off.

I don't understand why teachers have been allowed to get away with taking 12-13 weeks paid holidays every year for more than 50 years. No other so called profession gets anywhere near as many holidays and there are a lot more occupations that are far more stressful than being a teacher. e.g. armed forces, ambulance service, police, nurses etc.

It's about time the so called teaching profession was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. But no doubt they would threaten to go on strike (very professional) if anyone dared to mess about with their terms and conditions. I for one would like to see them go on strike as I am reasonably sure they wouldn't have the public on their side.

Agent we'd be a lot more expensive if you didn't let us have the holidays! A lot of our work is done then.

agent4change, change the record please
we don't get paid for our holidays
etc
etc
etc

It never gets fully adressed because private companies are free to charge whatever someone will pay, whether wholly willingly or not. So there has to be a better reason to bugger about with school terms than trying to escape the natural workings of a capitalist socuety.

The system does need a review as if was created in a bygone age - autumn half term to help with harvest etc. Unfortunately whatever they come up with won't suit all.

I think the only way to reduce prices would be to stagger, although if could also just increase prices year round!

It could do with a review but not primarily so that people can get cheaper hols.

As a teacher i can assure you that my class, i and other teachers fully desrve the 13 weeks holiday. I love my job but i and other teachers i know am in work daily from 7am to 6pm, i then work at home for say 2 hrs almost every evening and spend most of my weekends marking / planning. Not forgetting it's 5 years full time training to earn under 30k.

Walk a mile i would say and respect each others professions, My mum is a nurse, she says she couldn't be a teacher as there are no shifts, we are constantly judged and forget time off sick. For some unknown reason, teachers are incredibly undervalued particularly in the public school arena. Yes there are other professions that are as undervalued as teachers (social workers, firemen etc.) but that doesn't make it ok just means that overall there is a problem.

I can tell you that we are one week away from half term now and my class are exhausted, they need their half term, to spend time with their parents and have a break. It's so incredibly pressurised for them. Further, i have to say as a parent and a teacher that school is not there to provide childcare for parents. That said i agree that the times could change 7 week terms are too long, especially for little ones (this is when imost commonly see behaviour issues and tears) and 6 week holidays are too. Same number of weeks but shorter terms i say.

The answer is to move to Scotland - their summer holidays start earlier and they go back in August. I would then book my holiday in the first part of the summer holidays (before the English/Welsh schools break up and the prices rocket).

Hmm, Scotland here i come!

Surely the issue here is the holiday companies exploiting us because they know they can.....

I had heard rumour of a website that linked holiday providers that had undertaken not to increase prices in holiday times, but haven't been able to find it.

Does anyone know of this?

Iam glad that non of this will effect me, dd will be educated at home so we can go where we like when we like. I must say when i was at school at leat 1/2 the kids took time off every year to go on holliday and no one made a big deal about it. it is only in the past 10-15 years that its been seen as a problem, all to do with the standadisation of children.

As a teacher, I have no beef with parents taking holidays; I just resent their expecting me to run around designing special work for their child.

On the other hand, for the first time in more than thirty years of teaching, I had such holiday homework actually done a couple of weeks ago, and done well.

My daughter's school in Oz has the right idea; take your child out by all means, but don't ask for work, because you won't get it.

If a child misses an external exam (coursework), they can only sit for a pass, and get no mark.

Fair enough, I'd say; and puts the responsibility back where it belongs.

We should stop taking potshots at teachers. The point of OP's post is about costs.

A few suggestions here: 1) if you don't book packages with holiday companies but directly with airline and hotel, you will often find that they don't change prices with school term dates, if anything probably just major bank holidays like Christmas and Good Friday. Shop around. You can find so much on the web. I haven't used a travel agent in a decade. 2) Venues that cater to families on school holidays will hike prices (the CenterParcs kind, or resorts with a kids club) - try thinking outside the box and taking a different sort of holiday - I never went on that sort of holiday as a child at all, and still loved the ones my parents hose. Taking canal trips, seeing mountains, visiting monuments and museums were pretty exciting as they were a novelty. 3) A much better idea would be for different schools to stagger term dates (you already see this in independent vs state schools)....it would also help with things like traffic, crowds in shoe shops and soft play areas! Of course, GCSE, AS and A levels and SATS dates will have to be standard. You'd really only be able to stagger it by a few days or a week.

I don't think giving parents a flexible ten days is a good idea - the range of lessons missed are not really logistically possible to replicate / catch up when a child comes back, eg if they miss practical work like science experiments, or lessons in a specialist subject like music. Then you get different pupils missing different subjects...the end result is that the pupils just lose out. It's different if you are just missing the last day of term or after exams, when there aren't a lot of new topics being taught.

I think they should shorten the school holidays by 3 weeks and make the half terms 2 weeks long. The holiday companies will still grab all our money, but at least we will have more choice about when to take holiday. I don't want to go away when we have lovely weather here in August!

Moving to Scotland is not the answer - holiday prices leaving from Scottish airports shhot up at the end of June, and stay high till the schools go back in august. The flight supplements can be hundreds of pounds per person in July. It's not a school issue - it's the greed of the tour operators that's an issue.

Personally I think schools should change to reflect the modern world, most parents work and long school holidays are a childcare nightmare. I think schools should be open every week but only for half a day. Teachers could do their prep in the afternoon. I guess a Christmas Holiday still makes sense. The point is that it should be regular so parents and employers don't have to fit round school holidays. As the OP suggested kids could have an annual leave allowance that has to be approved by the school, in the same way that adults have an annual leave allowance from their employer.

If teachers says kids are exhausted by the end of term, that suggests that something is wrong with the current system and it should be reviewed.

Louisannablue2000, as in teach the kids from say 7 or 8-12 (kinda like Spain?) and then let them go home/to childcare, that would certainly make the day more reasonable for teachers and may well create more childcare jobs too! Totally agree that the holidays need to change 6 weeks in summer is too long, I'd prefer more 2-3 week holidays, a few years back west yorkshire did a trial 2 week spring break, it was great (from a parents point of view) as a working parent 6 weeks is too long to be messing about sorting childcare for, and not nice for my kids either.

Teachers themselves do not set the holidays.

in my home country summer hols were 3 months .

yep 3 months.

either shorten holidays to fall in line with the rest of the working world to 6 weeks or lengthen the working world annual leave to 12 weeks to fall in line with school

Teachers don't 'get away' with 12-13 weeks paid holdiay every year thank you! We work hard, just like lots of other people. However the difference is that I probably work damn more hours than you in a week, the difference is I have to do it at home, in what's supposed to be my time with my family. Yes, I chose to be a teacher. Yes, the regular a breaks are great and something which we all look forward to but I'm telling you now, me and every other teacher will spend hours of their holiday time preparing lessons, assessing chidren, catering for individualised learning which can be bloody difficult at times.
Teaching 30 kids every day and constantly having to change what and how we do things due to the government changing it's mind every 5 minutes makes our job very stressful thank you, as do the nitwits like you and your ignorant remarks.
Perhaps you should go and volunteet in your local school and help out, then you might see what teaching is like these days! Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Teachers salary is divided between 12 months. Teachers also do a lot of work at home in the evenings. Weekends and in the holidays and Don't . Get any extra pay. I know because DD1 is a teacher. She also went in to school in half term to run revision classes,

Woohooo - love a good bash the teacher thtread.

Not.

Holidays are for the students [who are children and entitled to holidays]. When do you think planning and stuff gets done? While your kids entertain themselves during lessons?!?!?

Anyway.... I have a plan..... so if I live in England but take my holidays in late August... but travel from Glasgow or Edinburgh????

Staggered holidays are crap. I worked part time in school and in 6th form with different holidays. Noone in local families, teachers, lovals folks in general liked it. What about local community events and stuff?

Its simple supply and demand. Flowers are more expensive at mothers day, chocolate eggs cost more per 100g than chocolate bars, you can;t buy tinsel in July....

In a weeks time I will be off for two whole weeks, the first time since this time last year. half terms are spent in class preparing, revising etc, Xmas is filled with concerts and marking courseowkr, march and june the same. A few weeks inJuly belongs to me.... I suspect this is the same for everyone?

I miss teachers TV

This is a really important issue which comes up time and again. It is absolutely not anti-school, anti-education or anti-teacher. Far from it - teachers have often supported comments I have made.
Lets all work together to get this changed for the better...the key to change is for parents and teachers to work together to see if there is a better solution. I think this will involve an altering of the rules to allow term-time holidays within certain sensible limits.
To move this up the agenda, *please support my petition to the government*...click to sign up, but please forward the link to as many of your friends, colleagues as possible.
We can get this debated and make family life much better if there was moderate change.
Link here:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/6412

Thanks
Pinarollo

Nottingham LA are piloting a new holiday system, so that you have 4 weeks at summer, 2 in October and 2 in Feb iirc.

But it wont change anything. Travel companies will charge when people are not in school, they will adapt the price structure.

Aye, teachers would love to be 'dragged into the 21st century' - a limit of only 37 hours a week, no weekend working, no residentials without overtime. Many teachers would trade the longer holidays for a shorter working week and the right to switch off at 5.00.

Do you have any idea about teachers' working conditions?

TBH there is very little wrong with the holiday system we currently have. Messing about with it, changing holidays, just messes up the system even more and causes even more red tape, admin, paperwork and loads of other nonsense. Let;s just leave it be and deal with holidays as they are!

Hey and don't forgot this bit of information:

If anyone thinks teaching is such an easy profession with so many perks - well, there is nothing stopping any of you going out there, getting qualified and being a teacher yourself! Go for it.

I liked the idea of teachers working mornings only (how kind) but for EVERY week. That's a big reduction in holidays - down from 13 weeks to none at all.

Since becoming a teacher I have a standard response to the standard teacher bashing...

If its so ridiculously easy feel free to join me. I'm not stopping you. Simply get a degree, then a teaching qualification and then a job. Work the long hours, absorb the stress and the red tape, get every illness going but still come to work and then enjoy the holidays.

I have a better suggestion. Schools open all year round. But the teachers get 5 weeks holiday that they can take whenever they wish. So you could get a letter home saying 'Miss X has booked next Wednesday off, her class will be closed so please make alternative arrangements'. In theory, you'd have to arrange less childcare, but your childcare will be MUCH MUCH less predictable.
Imagine your problems if you have three children in school and each of their teachers books their leave at different times - that'd be 15 weeks a year to find childcare - more than now! Tsk!

Grrth. I would love 5 weeks holiday to be taken whenever I like. Great idea!

In answer to the OP. I honestly don't think there is an answer to your problem.

My wife is a teacher. Even ignoring the work she does at home in the holidays, she actually has much less than 13 weeks. She goes into school for 1 day each half term holiday, 1 day at xmas, 2 at Easter and probably at least 5 in the Summer holidays - putting up backing paper, sorting the classroom etc. So that brings her holidays down from 65 days to 54. Most 'professional' (I hate that word) people get 5 weeks holiday a year plus bank holidays. So basically she gets 4 more weeks holiday than most other people. Would she trade in those 4 weeks to gain the right to choose when to have her holidays, the right to leave school at 5 and not think about it/the children until she walks back in at 8.30, the right to not have to work any hours god sends, the right to expect the same basic 'dignity at work' that many of those who knock teachers take for granted? Of course she would. If the govt offerred it, she'd bite their hands off.

Would schools be able to give nearly the same level of service if teachers only worked the hours that most others work? Of course not. Lets work out what your average worker puts in: 37 hours a week over 45 weeks (25 days leave plus B/Hs) equals 1665 hours a year. Even half arsed out of the door with the kids work teachers work in excess of 1265. Any half decent teacher will be working in excess of 1900 hours. Forcing teachers to adopt 'modern' practices will effectively see them working shorter hours.

Some people have no idea.......

Let's face it, the govt would cut teachers holidays like a shot, if it was doable - it'd be a surefire vote winner. They must realise that they can't run schools like they do if teachers have similar working conditions to other employees. It's in their interests to make teachers work 60 hours a week and they couldn't do that AND reduce holidays.

grrth, I think I love you! I think I will save your post on my phone and just make people read it whenever they start with the bashing!

BUT, as far as the OP is concerned, holiday providers don't charge more during holidays, they rather (apparently) discount holidays taken during term time to increase demand. If holidays were staggered, all that would happen is that the holidays would become slightly less cheaper during August and MUCH more expensive during June July and September.

Personally, I'd just take the children out of school in June or July. What is the worst that can happen? You might get fined £100. Whoo, big deal. Just knock it off the grand or so you saved by going away 'unauthorised' in the first place.
Our local headteacher authorises up to 2 weeks in a year. She is a realist. She could take a moral stand, but her unauthoriosed absence figures would go through the roof and the LEA and OFSTED would start sniffing around.

I don't get why people "have" to go on foreign expensive holidays anyway .
We go on holiday in school holidays, we save money by going away in the UK. We rent a holiday cottage and have a £50 a day limit for entrance fees, eating out and souvenirs. We often spend far less than this, and the cottage has never cost more than £400 for a family of 4 in June/July. As for annual leave vs school holidays, I work 2days a week so between mine and DHs annual leave we can cover my work days outside term time.

I don't think that this is necessarily a home/vs foreign holidays debate but more to do with term time/school holiday times. Its the same principle whether you are well off and booking a term time holiday to Disneyworld because you can't afford to go there during the summer hols or whether you are on minimum wage and find that you can just about afford a week in a caravan but only if you go in July.

Lots of my friends are teachers. One is a school advisor. Last week she was talking to heads about absences and told them NOT to authorise ANY term time holidays - with the usual rubbish about missing learning etc. We had a major argument about it. She is on 50K a year and has NO idea about the choices made by parents in low income jobs, for some of them it is a term time holiday or NO holiday. Why should children whose parents are struggling be denied the experiences available to their more well off friends?

As for missing learning, when schools can decide to close for over a week after two inches of snow - their argument that 'every minute counts' just doesn't wash. At the end of every term, my children finish school for the day on a lunch time - doesn't that have an impact on their learning? In a primary school that's over 10 days lost - yet a parent asking to miss 10 days is irresponsible? How much 'valuable' time is spent watching videos or on dressing up days? I'm not knocking these, BTW, I'm just querying whether they are more or less educationally worthwhile than time spent with parents visiting new places and having experiences that they wouldn't otherwise have.

It might just be where my DCs go to school, but DDs friends all seem to bang on about not missing out on education, then take their kids to an all inclusive resort somewhere. I really cannot see any educational merit in those places, it's just an excuse to plonk the kids in alternative childcare and sit by the pool all day. In DSs school they usually go to costa del whatever and sit on the beach for 2 weeks, again not so educational.
There are so many great things to see and learn in the UK, surely a lot of people could trade their term time foreign holiday for a school holiday British one?
As for those who would go without a holiday altogether, there are ways and means surely without sending the DCs the message that a bit of sunshine is more important than an education.
The half term in May/June or the one in October are plenty warm enough to go away, and usually no more expensive than late June or July IME.
House swap holidays are cheap too, or going away with organisations such as church etc works out cheaper than going as a family.

No other occupations take up so much time to prep outside the woking week. And before you ask yes I have experience of a couple of those other professions you mention as well as teaching.

How many people do you know who work 60 hour weeks for their entire career?

agent4 change - some occupations may well be more stressful than being a teacher but most occupations when you go home you leave the actual work behind you but probably not the stress. My sister is a teacher and the amount of paperwork she has to fill in for weekly planning, assessments, Individual Education Plans for children who need support, reviews of IEP's on a termly basis, end of year reports is unbelievable and it is not just at her school but across the board. Teachers spend huge amounts of time completing all this paperwork and much of it is done in their so-called "free-time" i.e. couple of hours after school every day ( but not on those days when she is running an after school club or attending a meeting) and a lot of time at home (evenings and weekdays). This may explain why they have longer holidays. The school day may start at 9:00 and finish at 3:30 but teachers work before that and after that and take a lot of the paperwork home as they cannot hope to complete it in the time given at school even with PPA time out of class.

Sorry, just noticed this is an old thread.