Term-time holidays - what's the worst that could happen?

[CallaLilli]

We're looking at holidays next summer and it's utterly infuriating how the prices get put up during school holidays.

I realised that going where we want to in August would cost about £1200 but doing it at the end of June would cost around £800.

Has anyone done this and not been fined by school or had their child penalised in some way? DD is only in reception (but it'll be after she turns 5), so I'm not sure she'd miss a huge amount. And even if we were fined, it would still work out cheaper than if we waited til August to go away!

Well said mummymeister.

I've been teaching in Reception 20 years, & cannot agree with people who say "it's only reception, they won't miss much." They learn so much during reception it's one of the most important years. However, I also don't agree with families being unable to take holidays because of the hiked up prices during school holidays. If the child has good attendance I'd say the benefits of a one off holiday would outweigh what they do miss at school....new cultural experiences & very important family time.
I'd definitely say if you are going to do it, go the last week of summer term when not much learning does take place...but beware they may miss the transition day to look at their new class & spend time with their new teacher. I'd say never take children at the beginning of the school year...it can be very hard to settle in after everyone else has learned the rules & routines in the new class.

DP recently had a case before him of a parent who didn't enforce her DD going to school. She definitely has a criminal record now.

I would seriously think that this is for a parent who never sends their child to school despite interventions put in place. Some of the families we work with have an attendance of below 40%. This will mean they will have social services involvement, school involvement and other agencies.
A holiday with a regular fine cant be compared to the scenario presented resulting in a criminal record.

You’ll get a strongly worded standard form letter. You may get a work plan (depending on school). You may get a fine. So the concequences for you aren’t that bad.
If a lot of people do it, even in reception, it’s hard for the school to manage.
Teachers have an aggressive curriculum to work to (set by central gov not the school). They have 30 mixed ability children to get to the same level by the end of the acaedemic year, if a child misses a week of planned lessons they have to catch up. With school funding cuts there aren’t TAs or teachers to work on catching children up. So the child is either bright and catches up or misses the weeks lessons. And may not follow the subsequent lessons as well. If say 5 of the 30 kids do it at some point diring the year, plus ad sickness with all children it’s lot more work for teachers. If you do do it, maybe ask for the work, so you can make sure your child has learnt what they need to for that week? The school might not have the time to prepare a pack, but at least you’ve offered.

Our council only issue fines if you go over 5 days.

What I really can't believe is how much people in the UK take education for granted. You go to India and many African countries and people who are extremely poor, will scrimp and save to pay the necessary fees to get their children to school. They would give their right arm to give their children an education that children here enjoy.

Oh FGS, there's no need to be so dramatic.

Can you go Tuesday to Sunday, you only get fined if you miss the full five days of school? School is important but Recption children in June won’t be doing much, if she doesn’t miss any school then has four days off in June doubt it will impact her education. Could also send her to school on the Monday set off Money night after school then claim she’s got S&D???

Yeah, but we aren't in India or Africa are we, so it's all relative. Get over yourself.

Not known anyone get fined at our school. We get a tut-tut official letter saying it's unauthorised and then the head just tells the kids and family to have a nice time - and that's about it.

We don't take ours out - but that's because I do supply teaching so would be missing out on days of potential work (and I'm skint), and because we're too skint to afford holidays (see the first point!)... plus with medical appointments anyway DD2's attendance is hovering just above snotty letter level currently this term (it'll go up as the number of possible attendances goes up - just appointments fallen really craply for us this year).

One thing our school does do is to block Inset days either side of a weekend in mid-May and encourage parents looking for a term time long weekend holiday to use that time to book one at hopefully term time prices but not actually missing curriculum time in school. I like that they engage in that spot of thinking about how to make a badly done law less badly done.

claim she’s got S&D

I wondered how long it would take for someone to recommend lying about illness.

If you feel that it's in their interest to take them out at least be honest about it.

Until the price discrepancy between term time and non term time holidays is addressed at government level, then kids are going to be taken out of school.

It's just abroad we are talking about, Centre Parcs and Butlins are as bad as any holiday company for this.

They use the excuse of supply and demand, and market forces. They claim that term time prices are not high, they just sell at a lower margin the rest of the time. Most people believe that's absolute bollocks.

Sadly I think the next move in this on-going farce is for the Dept of Educ. to put the fines up to a level where parents question whether it's worth taking them out.

It is a modern day dilemma. The world seems to be a smaller place than it was 25 years ago . People seem not top be satisfied with a great British holiday anymore.

It begs the question..are we becoming too materialistic and entitled when it comes to holidays?

My brother and his wife had a meeting at the school and they were told they could take my nephew on the holiday as long as they paid the fine, it was all done amicably and there was no problems. The key is to sort it before hand but I suppose it all depends on how your particular school views it.

Take mine out, never get a fine. Be prepared to listen to rich middle class people tell you that you're a selfish wanker tho cos they can afford to go term times.

Our head says she wishes she could authorise the requests and only reports the council because she has to - and knows they have so many requests they don't have the manpower to plough through them and issue fines. So yes - I just have!

f you really can't afford holidays during the school holidays then I'd suggest the last week or 2 of the summer, just before the summer break. This is probably the time when least real learning goes on - apart from the week before Christmas.

Depends on the school. At my DDs' school they move up into the next year group, meet their teacher etc during the week of 10th July. This is a vital time of the school year and I would never let DDs miss it.

I think doing it to save money, if you can afford to have a holiday (even if you might need to adjust tastes, go in a cheaper hotel, stay in UK) is wrong. I'm not a "rich middle class wanker" I don't think, but we stay in the UK as that's all we can afford while all the family meet their commitments to, and agreements with, work and school. I've also found that the parents who take their DC out for 2 weeks in September are the ones who moan about the 6 weeks holidays being too long - they'd have only had 4 weeks climbing the walls at home if they'd have had their fortnight break in the designated period!

FWIW I do think it's slightly different to miss a day or two for Uncle's wedding, or to have a week out with a mum who has set leave from the RAF. I think it's a shame that the rules are so strict but it's because people take the piss.

I also think it's wrong to say that "as long as their attendance is otherwise good" - that is absolutely luck of the draw, and actually, if a DC has (for eg) been having chemo their parents may need to fit in with a treatment schedule.

We did it a few times when the kids were v young. They were always unhappy about leaving the term early as there are typically a lot of nice end of term events which they missed out on - parties, prize giving and sports day, meet next years teacher...etc, so from that point of view we stopped doing it as DD in particular was resentful. The other thing I noticed was that there were hardly any other kids for them to play with in Resort as most were still at school.
I think the last term time break we took was skiing around aged 7, then we called it a day. They are teenagers now and would kill me or just refuse to come if we tried to do that now!

Yes, I did when he was at primary, a few times. By the back end of June, the teachers are de-mob happy, and very little, if any, work is done. It's all about end of year assembly rehearsals, sports day rehearsals, singing, dancing, music practice, trips, etc. His attendance otherwise was usually 100% each year, so it hardly impacted on the statistics and we never got any fines or hassle from the headteacher - we always applied in advance and always got approval, no questions asked, but then again, he always got top marks in tests/exams etc, so clearly didn't miss out on anything.

As long as it didn’t mess with exams we always took ours out of school