Term Time Holidays

Yes. Even our close neighbours Scotland and NI manage to run education systems without engaging in this stupidity. Weird that.

Quite. I think this is a very English problem.

All of DC’s grandparents are English, as is her dad. There’s nothing fanatical about the decision to use Welsh medium education.

But you also assumed that a school where the children are educated in a language other than their own was due to migration and started ranting about religious holidays………

I would love to see that data? It certainly doesn’t fit with what we notice in our school so it would make an interesting read!

You do you, boo. It’s absolutely thriving over here despite English attempts to destroy it. Must be incredibly annoying for you.

It’s not just the benefit of learning Welsh either. Being bilingual early makes the learning of other languages easier later on too. My teenager has been learning Japanese and Greek for fun and I anticipate will be fluent in at least 5 languages by the time she is 21. Imagine the benefits that could give her traversing the planet and being able to understand other cultures. I would suspect she’ll never have to resort to racist diatribes on internet fora in an attempt to make her point for a start……..

(You’d probably gain more respect if you didn’t think “UK” and “England” were the same thing though, not least because you might not post such ignorant statements as to be caught out.)

It’s ridiculous. As for the T&Cs in schools - people don’t really have a choice do they?! The issues around attendance and outcomes are more about the cause behind them. Data shows children who take holidays in term time do better (I’m not suggesting people do that to increase scores, as that would be as batshit as the current rationale around attendance). If parents or teachers want to take a term time holiday, it’s not Armageddon. I also don’t think the world will fall down if children or teachers are allowed (in practice) to be off when ill either, rather than causing many others to be ill (ironically illness is a factor that does impact performance). As for the attendance crisis, teacher absence has increased at the same proportion as children - this is not a surprise as covid is now in the mix along with everything else!

Yes. Her credit score will be shot before long. Hope it was worth it. 🙄

AI is inevitable but immigrants struggling with language isn’t.

Machines over people.

And BTW if you would learn French before you moved, you are an outlier. I did move country as a child and none of the Brits learned the language before they went. Some didn’t learn while they were there!

Kids learn incredibly quickly. I was pretty much fluent in six months and indiscernible in a year or two.

😳😳😳

It's the same for some religious groups getting time off for events...why is ok for a Muslim to take a week off to visit a religious site and not a family for wanting a much needed holiday. Screams of councils scared to challenge religious taboos

Bank holidays are predominantly linked to the Christian calendar. If you don’t celebrate Christian festivals then you are at an obvious disadvantage as a result.

As I said I tow my van to a regular site and I leave them all down there for the entire summer. They love it but for me it's an extra job to be with them at the weekends. 600 mile round trip after working 14 hour days. Occasionally I book a Monday off for a long weekend but by the end of the summer I need a holiday myself.

So you leave them down by themselves? There's nowhere closer you could send them?

Why are you posting?

1. you dont care
2. your dc are aging out of school terms?

Do you need a flannel to get that egg off your face?

We’re in Wales. She attends a Welsh medium school……..

Your last post speaks volumes about you and your attitudes!

People shouldn't be living in the UK if they don't speak English.

Good thing Spain doesn’t apply that to British retirees. No country in the world does in fact.

My daughter is educated in a different language. Around 80% of parents of the children at her school don’t speak the language fluently/at all. You’d be surprised how little resource there is for that (a totally normal situation in this part of the UK but too small a population for anyone to do much in terms of producing it).

I’ve never taken mine out, and they’ve both left school now. Oh I tell a lie I took the youngest out of last day of summer term 2025 where hardly anyone goes in and they do no work anyway.

I’m in Scotland where I appreciate we have a couple of weeks before English schools close, but we tended to holiday either in the UK or taking car to France rather than flying somewhere. I don’t think we have fines either.

I’ve not got particularly strong opinions on other parents taking kids out, but when I was a kid I was taken out of school a few times. My dad drove a delivery van for a food supplier and they had to take set holidays. They were often in term time. So the choice was either no holiday or term time. I must admit as a child I didn’t like it, no one else ever did it and I always felt I stood out. I did leave school with 5As in my highers so never impacted me, but I disliked it, and wouldn’t have done it to my own kids.

You migjt be in for a nasty surprise at some point, OP. A parent at one of the schools I work for had exactly the same totally unreasonable attitude as you and she refused to pay the fines for repeatedly taking her children out of school for unnecessary term time holidays. She ended up with a short custodial sentence. The local authority where I work is also looking at the possibility of applying for charges on the property of persistent offenders who refuse to pay fines.

My kids went to private school. It’s not true that you are allowed to just take them out willy nilly. I had to request a day off as I went abroad to visit family and to return to school the day if the new term I would have had to leave Easter Sunday, a big holiday for my family. It was reluctantly approved. First and last time I requested to have them miss a day.
I would not take my children out of school. My son was not disciplined enough to make up the lost work and my daughter would not want to miss the lessons.
But as long as you are not expecting the teacher to give you make up work or work to do while away and your children can catch up quickly themselves then do whatever you want. I think the policy is to try and discourage frequent skivers rather than people like you, but it has to be a blanket fine.