Annoyed at parents thinking missed work can just be sent home

[Macaroni46]

Work in an independent school where term time holidays are sort of tolerated.
Parents asking for work missed due to their essential term time holiday (goodness knows the holidays for pupils are long enough) to be sent home.
Irritates me cos they're wanting their cake and eat it plus they're thinking all I do is set work. No recognition of the fact I teach!! If only all I did was set work!
Child in question is key stage 1 so very much dependent on teacher input.
Head is supportive and saying no but it's made me grumpy

[MidniteScribbler]

Yup, I hear you. I had one that pulled their child out of the all but three days of this term to travel overseas, then complained when I said that he had made no progress this term.

[DazzlingMilton]

If the school allow time off in term time then it’s the management team you should be targeting your frustration at, not the parents.

At least the parents are asking for work and not just assuming you’ll catch up the children when they’re back whereas if school let them go away it’s them who seem to worry less about the teaching?

[DazzlingMilton]

I see in this case the head is supportive but if time off in term time is tolerated then it’s the policy that’s the problem, you can’t blame the parents for asking. I don’t really think there should be any time off except in special circumstances personally. It’s not a good habit for children to get into and like you say terms fairly are short anyway so there is plenty of opportunity to still get cheaper holidays.

[Roseandharry]

Surely the most common reason for parents taking kids on term time holidays is that it's cheaper. If families can afford private school fees, they can afford to pay the price of holidays in the school holidays !!!!

[coffeehasgonecoldagain]

Roseandharry Not true! We go without any holidays etc in order to pay for private schooling.

[GoatYoga]

Bollocks RoseandHarry - we go without plenty to be able to afford private school (we also don’t take out of school for holidays). As for the ‘Brain dead idiots’ comment - is that the best you can do?

[LadyGAgain]

What would be the policy if the child was off sick for a week or two? How would they 'catch up' then?
Are independent schools always private or is this an academy?
I can actually see educational benefits of travelling (holiday) and not every family can afford to do so in peak holiday season which is a real shame. So do those kids always miss out on the great fun, family time, care free, learning about language, food, culture and religions of other lands? I know it's not easy on teachers who are already doing such a tremendous job in very challenging circumstances. I am conflicted on what's the right thing to do. I've not taken DC's out of school (fear of the wrath of the head!) but I'm not sure whether that will always be the case. It's actually a tricky one.

[MunchausensLovelyHorse]

I think it would be reasonable to email the parents with a summary list of the things covered in class during their child's absence - might make them think twice about term time holidays in the future.

[Strictly1]

We have the same in state where holidays during term time are not allowed. I will not send work home as parents have made a choice to remove their children from lessons so the consequence is learning is missed. Staff are too busy trying to keep up as it is!

[mmmccccccxxx]

If the child is in key stage 1 does it really matter !
There offering to be polite they don't want you to send it home they really couldn't give a shit this child's just had a holiday with their family and when you look at the child emotional well being this well help them just as much as week in education.

Really don't think the rules should apply in infants or primary regarding holidays
And teachers need to look at the overall needs for the child ffs !

[grasspigeons]

I think parents only ask for work to make themselves look good. I don't think they'd actually do it really.

[DustyMaiden]

I would have thought that asking for work was better than not. I would have thought that most parents would be able to help a child in year 1.

[SofiaAmes]

Is the work different for each child? Is it really that difficult to send home the list of pages read, or the worksheets done? I can't imagine what about school work for key stage 1 children could be so difficult that you couldn't send it home. Is this student so problematic that his parents couldn't figure out how to help him/her with the work missed? Perhaps things are different in private school in England, but my dc's who are teenagers have yet to have any school work that I couldn't have helped them with if they missed a few weeks of school. (And since ds has a chronic disease and missed weeks to months of school every semester, I often did have to help him with missed schoolwork.) I am so surprised that some of the posters seem to have recognized this student from your post and know that the family don't actually care about the school work missed.

[cricketmum84]

@Roseandharry I'm just gonna play devils advocate and say that cheaper holidays isn't always the main reason for wanting to take kids out of school in term time. It can be down to work holiday restrictions. Where my DH used to work there was a mad rush for school holidays booked as annual leave, only 2 employees off at once, it got to the point where people would be going in at 3.30am (shift started at 6) just for get school hols booked!

[Candyflip]

Why don’t you just set work from now on? Most of the teachers I know in independent schools do that for the same reason as you stated, it is all the parents see so if the work is “adequate” they think they are getting a good education for their children.

[Nooblynoo]

You weren't the one to authorise the absence so speak to management and get them to sort it. Do you know the reason for taking a term time break? It could be a whole manner of things not just a whim.

[user546425732]

*Work in an independent school where term time holidays are sort of tolerated.

[user546425732]

Work in an independent school where term time holidays are sort of tolerated.

Why are they tolerated? The long holidays are long enough and they start when holidays are still cheaper.

[jcsp]

If work done was just worksheet based then it’d be possible to send a package home - snail mail or email. However it’d be just one more task to be added to a long list of tasks.

It’s surprisingly hard and time consuming task for a secondary school form teacher to coordinate work to be sent home to a child from all that child’s teachers.

But education isn’t work sheet based, it’s the explanations, the interactions, learning from ones own mistakes and those of others.

Before taking termtime out for holidays was banned ( I was in state education) my school had a policy of not sending work home for holidaying pupils. It’d been done in the past but vv rarely completed by pupils.

For those who were off due illness I think we acted according to the illness, time off, severity etc.

[Roseandharry]

I think there's an assumption by a few that setting work is just a case of printing off a few worksheets. Not true. If done properly it is very time consuming, looking into the planning that's coming up, preparing the resources (which you may not have done yet as the rest of the class aren't there yet), considering misconceptions. Then explaining how to deliver this to a non teacher. Why should the OP waste their precious time doing this?

[SumerisIcumenin]

Give them a few generic tasks. KS1, all number bonds to 20 and the inverse, appropriate x tables for the child. Keep a daily diary, spelling, punctuation, conjunctions, adverbs. CEW.
I sent my planning to a couple of tricky parents...

[SumerisIcumenin]

I’d be very pissed off if my KS1 child was in Sophia’s class. In most good schools, worksheets are rare or nonexistent in the infants.

[LucyFox]

If this was GCSE physics I’d totally get your point but most educated parents would be able to help a child understand KS1 material... i’m Not suggesting that you don’t teach the class or that your job isn’t really important but perhaps a reality check on whether a parent could perhaps teach their child 1:1 a tiny bit of curriculum is needed ...
(I taught a child what a perimeter was a few days ago & helped them learn how to calculate it for various shapes because they’d missed that but of school for a critical medical appointment)

[Roseandharry]

@LucyFox that's assuming that the pedagogy needed to teach at ks1 is lesser than those to teach GCSE physics, and undermining the skills and experience of primary teachers . I teach Physics to A-Level. Yes of course the subject knowledge is more difficult, however I wouldn't have a clue how to PROPERLY teach number bonds or phonics or whatever else to a 6 year old ???!!!