Are the new term time holiday laws making you re think holiday plans?

[WindyTums]

Every year, my parents and in laws pay for the whole family to go on a European lodge based holiday. It’s during term time as school holiday costs more than double. DH and I are the only ones who have school aged DC (secondary).

Every year the holiday is arranged for either just before the Easter holidays or just before the October half term. We always go and it’s a great experience for everyone.

This years gathering is just before October half term and I’ve agreed to take the DC out of school for this, accepting we will be fined.
One of our elderly relatives has a milestone birthday next year and it has been agreed to book the next one for just before the Easter holidays. It’s likely this will be elderly relatives last time going.

However, for DH and I, this means our DC would need to be taken out of school again within a six month period and will result in a hefty fine as we have 3 DC. Whilst I could accept the fine, it would mean we could not take a family holiday during term time for another three years due to the new laws.

We simply can not afford school holiday prices. We are planning to decline the Easter gathering but I’m really disappointed and upset for my DC.

I suppose the new laws are clearly working if there are others like us?

Before anyone tells me that holidays are a luxury, not a right, I’m aware of this. However, you can’t tell me this affects the rich and their DC in the same way. It’s another way of separating the haves and the have nots. Nobody on their death bed ever regretted family time.

People thinking it’s ok to take children out of school for two holidays in one academic year is exactly why things have had to be tightened up!

I personally think that your family is not very respectful to you. Expecting you to take 3 children out of school each year, especially in secondary, is utterly wrong.

What year groups are they? As soon as DD hit Y9 we had test weeks and mocks either directly before or after Easter and October half term, so the dates are actually the worst anyway.

Say no and take your eldery relative away for a couple of days on your own in the holidays.

The changes to the rules are there for a reason.

Thats a good point @Sirzy and is one of the reasons we have declined to do this twice.

Yes it does make me think twice but also i think it should if you plan to take them out twice, add in the odd bit of sickness and yours could be out of school for 3-4 weeks. That does effect their education and I definitely wouldn’t do it for secondary school age children
Of course it doesn’t effect the rich; they have children in private schools who have longer holidays anyway so can easily avoid paying extra for term time holidays

It doesn’t affect the rich because their dc get longer school holidays in private school anyway.

That said, we have lovely holidays and have never been issued a fine yet. We holiday in the UK during normal holidays (definitely don’t find it to be prohibitively expensive, have never spent anywhere close to the £2-3k people seem to spend on family holidays abroad, and we stay in lovely places). Or we do city breaks. I took my youngest to Spain for 4 days (less than the 5 days that trigger a fine) during term time last year and it was wonderful.

Maybe I'm just a stickler for rules but, family emergency aside, it wouldn't occur to me to take DS out of school for a holiday.

You’ve got secondary school age DC so YABU. As a one off fair enough as big birthdays only happen occasionally but you are doing this year on year and it’s disruptive to your DCs education & for the teachers as t your kids will be missing taught content - remember it’s not only your children in the class if others are away during term time that’s lots of different knowledge gaps to fill.

That said I think it’s important to have family gatherings so maybe you can explain to the rest of the group and time it to overlap so you get a few days together or go somewhere cheaper during the actual holidays. Around Easter you can normally get cheaper European breaks as long as you are not going for ‘guaranteed sunshine’. If others in your family have school age DC they will be in the same boat anyway.

Children shouldn't be missing school for normal holidays. It's simple - get a holiday you can afford in the holidays. I managed to get my kids through school without term time holidays, you think creatively eg locations that aren't popular with British families

I think term time holidays should be banned/punished more strongly. We had plenty of years where we didn't have a holiday as we couldn't afford it, but we never took dc out of school so we could.

I have 2 primary aged children and every year I feel like the odd one out for doing holidays in the school holidays. We have now booked our 2025 holiday in June as the cost difference was insanely different. This is the only time (other than sickness) that they'll be off in the whole school year and Even if we do get the fine it's still significantly cheaper than going in August.
If my children were secondary age we wouldn't, but at 5 and 8yrs old they will gain so much more from a week in Europe than sitting in class at the end of the school year.

YABU, if you can't afford it you can't afford it. I'm not rich either. My DS has just finished secondary school and I never took him out for a holiday, it's not a life necessity.

It's people like you that have made the new rules necessary.....

No because we don't get fined where we are, we'll I've never heard of anyone getting fined anyway. We only do 1 week a year though.

Go for a shorter period in school holidays? Will the dates overlap?

We are all going to have different views on whether a term time holiday is acceptable, but for our family, it has worked until now and our DC have life long family memories which outweigh the downsides of missing a few days of school (let’s not pretend we have state of the art education in the UK, our schools are a mess). Having said that, I would not remove them beyond year 9 anyway.

My point is, that clearly the new laws are a very strong deterrent and it has certainly made us think about things going forward.

@pinkfleece I beg to differ, but thank you for your input.

@gingercat02 could not agree more

Why are your family repeatedly booking holidays that are very difficult for you to attend?

Taking secondary aged kids out of school twice in a year full deserves a fine.

And I hope you don’t judge schools by their results as if everyone did this the results would go down wouldn’t they? You can’t expect teachers/schools to get great grades if kids miss so many lessons can you?

Personally I wouldn't be taking secondary school age DC out of school for a holiday, unless it was just a day at the end of term maybe.

Primary age I think missing one week of school in a year is fine (unless SATs week/first week of the year etc).

We have one DD in secondary and one DD in primary, we haven't taken them out of school for a holiday since eldest DD was in nursery class so non compulsory.

So no it hasn't changed our plans

It has only become recently that they have been difficult to attend. Whilst we are the only ones with DC, there are other factors in the wider family that have to be considered and it has worked well up until this point.

You're very fortunate to be able to take your family on holiday every year- there are thousands of families who can't afford that and would look askance at someone complaining that they can 'only' afford their annual vacation if they go in term time. I do hope you aren't including yourself in the 'have not' group.

Too many people, like you, come up with spurious reasons as to why they 'have' to go on holiday during school terms and that is why the fines and processes are in place.

We've timed our family holiday slightly differently next year. We'd normally go the last week of summer term as it coincides with some birthdays and is cheaper. We're still going the last week but flying on the Wednesday instead of the Monday so only missing 6 (8 including inset day) sessions rather than 10.

We will probably look at similar going forwards, perhaps the week before Whitsun but flying on the Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday.

I have taken my child who is now year 6 on two term time holidays during his primary school time. It's not something I would do annually, and I think the new fines will certainly make people think twice about doing that. More than two fines in any 3 year period could lead to prosecution. This is what concerns me more than the cost of the fine.

Fines per parent will be capped to two fines within any three-year period. Once this limit has been reached, other action like a parenting order or prosecution will be considered.