Term time holidays

Buying leave saves tax by reducing your gross pay. It doesn’t cost a week of your gross income.

it’s not always about the cost though, sometimes it’s about timing.

If it is about cost though - I’m abroad at the moment. The place we are staying in plus flights cost us 6500. With ds starting school soon we’ve priced up to take the next one in school hols and the house alone is 8000 to 10000 for a fortnight, I expect flights to be in the region of 2000 for the 4 of us so for some buying an extra week of leave, or paying for holiday clubs in school hols is worth it.

My child has the opportunity to go on a weeks skiing trip with the school. A trip we could do as a family. A trip that if we did it as a family during term time we would be fined for. Yet I can pay for them to go away on a similar trip with the school. No maths or English lessons. No history. No PSHE. Baffling.

I have one child at school and one at nursery. Reality is that we can’t afford holidays in school holidays while we are paying around £1k per month for nursery. Once youngest is at school things will be different for us. We are going in October for 2 weeks and will just pay the fine

Yanbu. I feel the price increase is ridiculous but unfortunately its too much hassle to go on case by case absence so I do understand it.

I've taken my child on two term time holidays this year as the price difference is insane, they're only in reception with perfect attendance otherwise and got fined both times and paid happily. I won't do it in future and combine for a school holiday break instead.
There should be more legislation preventing the massive hike increase instead of fining parents more!

1. No individuals won't care. But nationally they might.

2. Homeschooling is NOT fucking up your child's education. I'm more educated and intelligent than most teachers and quite capable of educating my child. My DD thrives on 1:1 which she'd get at home. When teachers can't spell, do basic maths or know basic facts and spend more time worrying about uniform and other mundane things, i'd argue sending them to school is more likely to fuck up their education.

3. I find it highly offensive you claim I don't know what is best for my child. No I do not own my child. She is her own person. But schools also do not own my child and the way they treat parents and children is likely not in anyones best interests.

4. Homeschooling or travel offers greater outside influences. Dear me your view of life is very narrow. I pity your children if you have any.

Im so pleased i dont have to deal with schools any more.
The day my last left school for good i became stress free.

But surely buying the leave would cost your more anyway? If my husband and I both bought leave to go away, it would cost us probably £1500 a week (if have to pay cost before tax) so doesn't save anything vs taking a holiday in the school holidays.

I know it was a different time but I was at primary school in the late 90s/ early 00s and I used to take months off at a time to go travelling with my family. I’d get set token work like - make a holiday scrap book and my school didn’t blink an eye. I still got top grades and into medical school.

@AllyCart you can spend as much time outdoors as you like it still wouldn't equate to the amount the Med countries get. Also look at playtime duration during school days. You can give lessons outdoors all day if you like and it still wouldn't amount to what is missing. Yes I appreciate it's not the local authorities fault that we are located in a small island covered in rain and spend daylight covered in thick clouds but let's not penalise grown adults who work and pay these bastards wages making policies that will affect parents' pockets, children's health and mental health. A week during the whole school year isn't lifeline unless exams of course.

I come from a med country which makes it worse as I crave it more and was fortunate enough to fly back to my home country every summer holiday. My grandparents used to wash my face with seawater in the sea and tell me clear out the dirt and absorb the sun as it will keep me healthy during the winter months ahead when I flew back home knowing I was returning back to months of dark, grey and wet misery.

I'm taking mine for a term time holiday this year. There is no special school places in our LA or the neighbouring LA, so.Im having to HE the one.child They've also stopped any SEN transport for over 16s (even though you have to be in education untill 18) so.im also spending hours each day driving a different child to their specialist placement. This means I can't work.
I.know.Ill get fined for my other child but frankly, I can't get behind the idea of a holiday being so detrimental to education when the government and local authorities cannot provide enough specialist school places for those that need them.

Yep, which is why parent and school discretion is important.

We will take term time holidays as we see fit. I’m not going to be dictated to. If there’s a fine I don’t care. It’s pennies in the grand scheme of things.

They should do more to tackle to underachieving kids with useless families and leave the rest of us alone to parent. But they won’t.

Actually, I think that's a pretty miserable attitude. Are we supposed to just keep noses to the grindstone, like good little capitalist slaves?

I expect this will increase the number of deregistrations from school! I for one would be handing in my deregistrstion letter on the second fine and threat of the third.

Schools/local authorities/the government seem to think they should control what grown adult parents do with their children. Sure when it comes to safety and similar I get it. But schools are not the only place you learn! If anything, with the intelligence level of some teachers I come across, kids are probably learning more out of school.

With a child attending school looming it actually fills me with anxiety that an external body is going to tell me what me and my child can do! I'm debating sending to independent school just to have a bit more freedom and say. Or even homeschooling. Schools need to back off or they risk alienating parents.

This is the last year that my DD will take two term time holidays because of one of her DC going to high school. It has just meant around six days missed. Both children have excellent attendance and we all do homework with them. My objection to fines is the lack of safeguarding towards children who are routinely absent and are from families that have had family support involvement, CP via the school etc. I know these parents, fines would work. Their children are kept off because they've been partying, generally up late, too lazy to take them, to cover physical abuse and so the children don't talk about what's gone on. Obviously thise parents don't value education and the majority aren't showing any work ethic. Then there's the children who inclusion isn't working for, who are waiting too long for assessments and who don't have the support staff and the schools haven't got the curriculum flexibility. Parents taking term time holidays aren't the reason for children who are failing, or the lowering of educational attainment.

My problem is that I think school fines should be dished out at the end of the year.

We took our DD out for 4 days in December 2022, and got fined. We weren't expecting to get a fine as it was 8 sessions, not 10, but our school implements fines from the first day. But by the end of the year, her attendance record was 97%. They were the only days off she'd had all year.

We took her out for 2 days before half term this year so we could have ten days abroad. On one of the days, it was the class treat (so they just watched a movie and wore PJs), the second day was the auditions for the school talent show - so those who didn't want to audition (like mine) would have been left literally sitting there, watching their peers and doing nothing. Yet if I copped to it, we would have had another fine, even tho by the schools own admission they weren't doing any learning on those two days.

We actually just said she had been sick overnight, and claimed the 48 hour rule... which is what I think most parents will do.

We are now in agreement that frmo now on, we won't take her out of school but I just think if you're in primary, what does it matter? She's missed far more education from strike days and lockdowns than the six days total across a three year period...

If it becomes accepted to take your children on holiday during term time then people without children will find themselves at the back of the queue for annual leave in term time as well as in the school holidays.

I never had a holiday abroad during my childhood and I don’t think it did my bones any harm. I’m 63 and my bone density is fine. I think a healthy diet is just as important. Look at the Dutch they get the same weather as we do and they are taller.

Surely lack of vitamin D and sunlight is far more likely related to the propensity for spending time indoors, online, instead of playing outside than it is on not going on holidays?

even if you can afford the extortionate rip off prices during peak season.

What do you want to happen with pricing?

If they have 1,000 weeks of holiday to sell and can fill every space at £2,000 it would be stupid to sell them at £1,000 and have double the number of potential customers as spaces.

Plus it would then be a lottery like trying to get Glastonbury tickets.

Then there's the issue of how to make up the rest of the lost revenue for the year. If you can't fill spaces at even £500 off-peak and you've already given away 50% of your peak revenue you'd just go bust.

Also, at my newborns 6 week check up just recently the Dr explained how ferocious they are with insisting all children take vitamin D supplements due to the shit weather here and how so many children are being diagnosed with bone diseases. With children's mental health issues being so rife as well, a week in the sun can do wonders to both health and mental health. The weather now seems ok but until when plus children are stuck in hot stuffy classrooms. This is again poorly thought out only penalising the poor and again children.

Above poster, have some compassion. I can afford the fines, private school if child needs to just to bypass this ridiculous policy but honestly this takes the piss now. I remember when child free and single and a close family member had a wedding and it was a nightmare trying to book leave from work in August despite booking ahead in advance because all my colleagues who had children booked leave and I was denied my leave. So it's still not guaranteed to be able to get time off work even if you can afford the extortionate rip off prices during peak season.