Students to be taken out of school for holidays

Went on holiday for 2 weeks every year in term time as dad was not allowed school holidays off work.

finished my GCSEs, finished my A Levels, Finished my Degree. Work full time in 2 jobs I love (one is full time the second is between 20-40 hours a week), happily married, with a house and a baby. Absolutely no impact on me missing that time at school.

I moved to Australia, and we are on holiday on a school day today. I have two in primary school and I feel so smug every time I take them out that we don’t have these ridiculous fines. My children’s teachers are all lovely people who say ‘sounds lovely have fun’ if you say you are taking the dc out for a day or two!

But pupils in Ireland take term time holidays all the time and educational attainment is higher there.

@CatamaranViper without wanting to put words into that poster's mouth, I think she was saying that it was more about creating a general pro-attendance culture in schools.

Sorry, are you saying that people shouldn't have holidays because others can't have them?

I'll be taking DS out of school for a holiday soon. He'll be in yr 3 when the time comes. I'll help him catch up and I don't think he'll have a problem with it. If he does, then lesson learned and it won't happen again.

Completely dependent on the child. A child working two years ahead in Maths and English is not going to be impacted. SATS are for the school, not the pupil so I'd not be bothered about Year 6. But I wouldn't in secondary.

Also it depends on the destination. A week's all inclusive to Turkey, I wouldn't. A week sight seeing in Rome or Athens, far more beneficial. And remember a lot of private schools offer trips to these destinations as part of the curriculum. The reason state schools don't is because they can't fund it.

Not actually sure he is going to stay for year 12 tbh he might decide on college or go and work with dh where he can do on site training guess it’s more a future plan possibility. We have never actually taken the children abroad and kinda feels like times running out before his too old to want to come but cannot do 5+k for august 😅

I don't have a problem with term time holidays as a teacher but just wanted to point out this is a very old-fashioned method. We used to do this but now most schools now do weeks and weeks of place value, then weeks and weeks of addition & subtractions, then multiplication & division etc. This is the way the most popular schemes like White Rose are structured. Either way, missing a week is rarely that problematic. The issue is it's often children who already have a lot of random days off and are behind who take term time holidays.

I've taken my own children out for odd days because I know they're academic and it'll not make any difference. Even as they get older, if they miss learning about the Rosetta Stone or whatever - which won't be recapped - I can live with that. The curriculum is a essentially an arbitrary list of objectives. Within subjects like history, different schools can cover different things anyway so children at some schools won't cover the Ancient Egyptians at all and therefore I'm not going to worry if my child misses one lesson from that unit.

Please forgive if I am worried unnecessarily

I don't really understand what is worrying you. It sounds like you won't take your child out during term time, so there's nothing to worry about.

How will this kid be examined at at school test in this "lost" knowledge at a later day?For example, if they learn about the rivers of the UK or about decimals in maths or a historic event

What tests do you mean? Nothing that will come up on an important test will only be taught once during a week at primary school.

I've never taken my DD out of school during term time for a holiday, and I don't see a situation where I would. But I also don't think that it poses a huge problem for the individual child.

As a teacher I find all these posts saying ‘we went to Portugal for a week had a lovely time, and my child has 98% attendance anyway’ are totally missing the point.
I’m glad you had a lovely time in Portugal doing lots of middle class things and I am glad that you were able to understand the school syllabus enough and had enough motivation to help your children catch up.
It’s not really about you. It’s about that kid down the kid down the road from a more deprived background for whom going to Portugal is a non starter. However they see their classmates missing school and maybe their parents don’t really care much anyway and suddenly their attendance is more like 60% and they’re not spending their free time in Portugal but in the park and are vulnerable.
It pisses me off when middle class parents say ‘but skiing is such an important experience they can miss a week of school.’ That’s not really the point is it. That’s not what the desire to improve attendance is about. We’re not trying to stop little Arabella’s skiing holidays. We’re trying to stop little Tommy from failing his education.

I don’t normally but I am looking at it for September 2025. So year 5/9/12.

Hmm. Not sure missing a week in year 12 is a good idea. While it isn't an exam year, the volume of work ramps up considerably for A level. And if you DC is studying sciences or maths they could miss out on some of the "building block" work.

The teachers won't bring them up to speed either.

I wouldn't take a child out of secondary as I don't think it's fair on them or the teachers.

But I am taking my year 6 out after SATs for a week. He has coasted all through primary school and gets fed up going through the same maths / SPAG ideas again and again and again and again so that the rest of the class can catch up with him. I'd be less inclined if the school had bothered to try and stretch him a bit. He was getting 100% on mock SATs papers he did at the end of year 5....

Our week in Spain last year was £3.7k in May and would have been over £8k in August.

We went in May. DD's education doesn't seem to have suffered.

It wasn't a particularly educational trip aside from the sense that at that age they're always learning. We swam, ate ice cream and chips and just generally relaxed together and had fun - which is worthwhile in itself.

Zero regrets, zero hassle from the school.

I think the fines in England have changed the cultural views on it.

I wouldn't do it in Y9 and above (that was when my DS's school started studying for GCSEs - but I was already home schooling by that point.....)

Prior to that, I don't think it has a dramatic impact. Yes, they might miss a particular thing, but if it's crucial they know that bit of info to pass a particular GCSE, then it will be covered in the GCSE curriculum.

If it's vital knowledge for primary, then it will get returned to.

I took DD a couple of times and she never missed much at all.
We were meant to go away just after SATS but lockdown hit, I was sure they wouldn’t be doing much after they were over anyway. (And the fact school didn’t bother to send any lockdown work I assume I was right).

Holiday companies not being allowed to charge literally whatever they feel like purely for it being a school holiday would likely do the trick for the most part.

I saw a comparison post where a haven holiday cost £900 last week of the school holidays and then reduced to £80 something the week after schools went back. Frankly it’s a ridiculous mark up and they’re all guilty of doing it. All the while they’re allowed to, nothing will change and it’s cheaper for parents to pay a fine, nothing will change.

I wouldn't take them out the first week of school becuase I think that's important socially and practically to get yourself settled in. And I wouldn't take them out during gcse years.

The rest is fair game. I don't value SATS I saw upthread someone has refused them. I may well do that for DS when he's that age.

How much of what you were taught can you remember and actually is important in your day to day lives? How much of what IS important were you actually taught in school?

I'm currently in the process of building a house, growing food and rearing animals. All of which I've had to learn from scratch right now, none of these valuable skills were taught in school. They'll teach a kid different types of rivers but not which plants you can plant with the food you're growing to protect them from pests, or how to grow food at all. I don't believe school is the most important part of a child's life.

😂😂

I don’t normally but I am looking at it for September 2025. So year 5/9/12. My thinking is September is decent weather, get the first week or two in so they learn the new class but not so far in that they should miss anything that won’t be repeated or is urgently urgent.

Let’s face it one week off school.. so what chicken pox? D&v on a mon/Tuesday which wipes out a week pretty much anyway. Any number of things could wipe out 7 days in an entire year.

I couldn’t take them for two weeks solid though and I’ve so far only ever done a one Friday and Monday off to do a long weekend.

Nor should the teachers be expected to waste time helping them miss what their parents decided they could miss, it's the parents' responsibility. I once had a Year 11 go off to Australia at the start of December and return late January, his parents couldn't understand why I would not put the class on hold for him to catch up, nor would I spend time after school or in lunchtime for that purpose. I was tempted to quote tutoring rates for after school work.

I took mine out in Primary KS1 but only when it was near the end of term so they didn’t miss much learning just some of the fun stuff . Maths and English topics are revisited multiple times .

It became apparent one of mine wasn’t particularly academic and had a hearing issue . I didn’t take them out after that as I thought he needed all the education he could get ! We just had more Cheaper UK holidays for a while

Do you think if your child misses a week with the flu they'll never catch up again?
Illness is unavoidable. The average kid probably needs 2/3 days an ac.year for illness, but add to that a 2 week avoidable holiday and you've got a significant chunck of time missed.

In my opinion taking children out of school for a holiday should be a rare event. Visiting an older or terminally ill relative, a cultural event which is only in term time, to give examples. Not just for a week in warmer weather.

How you encourage or enforce that I am not so sure. I don't think fines are the answer.

As all our kids are bright, it's not a problem for them to miss the odd week of school for a cheaper holiday.