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.

@WindyTums I don't know what the new laws are?
It seems very sledge hammer to me.

My family totally prioritised education and in the very very few times they were out for a few days here and there they came on far more with some 1:1 work than in class esp when younger.

This really hit home during covid when in just 30 mins x 2 a day I was able to teach a failed phonics test child to read and bring her on massively and teach other things as a non teacher.

My other dd was totally abandoned by her school during covid and had power points put up but no verbal screen interactions with a teacher and the teachers didn't get back to anyone in a meaningful time period by email.

So that was nealry two years of substandard education and we moved her to a school that had got on line properly within days of lock down ie better attitude to their children.
She's got 8 and 9 at gcse.

In your shoes op I would always prioritise holidays and family time over education in this way.
Without a doubt.

I took my secondary school dc out of school for 2 days to go on a long weekend away with family for a GP milestone birthday.
However we've celebrated other birthdays in school holidays or at weekends.

If the school holiday break is double the price, surely you'd be paying the same by going twice in termtime.

Apart from anything else, I'd have found it much more difficult to cover childcare over school holidays (when DC were younger) if I'd used up a few weeks holiday in termtime

@SuziQuinto work at a college. Staff have the option to choose term time work or normal annual leave. Annual leave is granted but cover must be arranged for teaching before request submitted (teachers all have differing timetables to allow sick cover).

My job isn't teaching though so doesn't affect others.

@PaperTyger - you don’t know what the rules are but give the advice to ignore them 🙈

I didn't agree with the fines. Firstly it penalises parents of kids with additional needs or mh issues who have enough to deal with. And secondly a child with 100% attendance (or near) under the age of 11 taking a week out to enjoy a family holiday shouldn't be considered criminal.

Schools would do better working with families to improve relationships with school and education rather than creating this them and us situation.

At my son's school if you ask for a holiday form you have to have a meeting with the head or executive head to explain why you want the form. Then they will explain to you why you shouldn't do it. Then if you take a form it will be rejected anyway.

It's really not a tragedy that you don't get to go to Centre Parcs twice in one year.

1st time- fine 160
2nd time- fine £320
3rd time - court appearance £2500 fine

@autienotnaughty thanks is that for one school year?

No sorry within 3 consecutive years

3 consecutive years!!
Wow!!
How utterly draconian.

Hopefully people will just lie... Unfortunately we don't have the money for long holidays anyway but if a relative was paying for my dc to go away and spend quality time with family I'd just take the hits if we could afford too and the court appearance.. But my dc are doing well education wise and that's inspite of our hideous outdated education system.
And I've lost all my close family members forever so I also know that is extremely important.

If we did have to take some days here and there then we would do sick days.

Not making two shits of difference to us. We nick a couple of days on the side of a holiday if it suits us and the deal is good, and that won't be changing. The idea that this is going to have any real impact on my DCs schooling or education is for the birds, and the ND one tends to struggle at the end of term anyway.

Now I took the precaution of becoming a parent governor at DC school, so I know how their enforcement works (and when it doesn't!) and I know it won't be an issue. But even if it was, it's not a system that deserves any cooperation and one can often get a long way simply by bare faced lying.

I feel bad for schools being expected to participate in this stupidity without being given extra resources to help. They just end up as targets for people's legitimate but wrongly directed anger.

The thing is, given the hugely packed curriculum for both primary and secondary schools, even close to holidays there really isn’t a time when children can miss school and not miss out on something. The time and resources available to teachers to fill gaps are basically zero.

if you have a class of 33 and each takes a weeks holiday in term time, plus a bit of sickness, basically you don’t have a week when everyone is there. How are you meant to fill those gaps? There’s no TA most of the time and you always have to be moving on to the next thing, kids who miss stuff just have to be left to figure it out. If it’s just a day or two because of illness it’s fair enough, but missing whole weeks means missing a huge chunk of learning, and it’s next to impossible to catch that up easily.

I wouldn’t take my DC out of school if it could be avoided, even in primary. I’ve seen first hand how poor attendance hampers even young children.

Yep, but solving those would be expensive, and would also require admitting that we've done a lot of this to ourselves with the shittification of public services through austerity followed by prolonged school closures during lockdown. It's less like hard work to throw another few quid on a fining system that was already not working. Maybe we could resurrect those stupid DofE tweets about how they'll be fine in school too.

School holidays are too short and family time is insufficiently prioritised. There are so many pressures on families nowadays, spending quality time with family should be promoted by schools and the government instead of behaving like they "own" children.

Personally, I think prohibitions and fines should be in place for exam years only, and all other years should be given up to a week's "grace" each year. And parents should be provided with a rough outline of topics covered by the school during each week so they can catch up their children in the event of holiday/illness/compassionate absence. COVID has shown that schools and parents can work in partnership to educate their children, and that the government has no qualms in calling on parents to fill the gaps if schools can't open. Similarly, many children have been unwillingly home-schooled either full-time or part-time for a period of their education due to the crumbling schools scandal. It sits ill with this to then say to parents that there is absolutely no flexibility in the system when actually there is, it is just one-sided.

I realise this will be an unpopular view as many people think schools should have free reign to make as many unreasonable demands as they want of pupils and parents in terms of uniform, behaviour, punishments etc. and they just need to take it because the school system is in crisis due to a lack of pupil and parental engagement and many schools bear more than a passing resemblance to organised riots. However, more "carrot" and less "stick" needs to be part of the solution imo. After the stress of COVID, experts recommended a summer of play and a therapeutic approach to education to re-engage children and families and that was largely watered down and ignored. It's hardly surprising that many families don't think schools have their children's best interests at heart and are instead increasingly intent on forcing all sorts of shapes of pegs into round holes.

It’s not the fines that stop me taking my kids out of school for holidays. I happen to think that their education and attendance at school is more important. We take our family holidays during the school holidays. If we can’t afford to go abroad we holiday in UK.

My parents never took me out of school and yes that meant that we couldn’t afford overseas trips during the school holidays: we went camping all over the UK instead. Brilliant memories.

I’ve never taken mine out of school, but mainly because they have 13 weeks off per year and it’s a struggle covering that with annual leave, without taking any extra for term time holidays. I research the cheapest flights and get an Airbnb which isn’t too bad.

COVID has shown that schools and parents can work in partnership to educate their children, and that the government has no qualms in calling on parents to fill the gaps if schools can't open. Similarly, many children have been unwillingly home-schooled either full-time or part-time for a period of their education due to the crumbling schools scandal. It sits ill with this to then say to parents that there is absolutely no flexibility in the system when actually there is, it is just one-sided.

Yep. This is why it doesn't wash. The lesson of the pandemic was that school attendance is a nice to have, something that doesn't need to happen if there's a good enough reason. And lots of people think holidays, travel, family time are sufficiently valuable. That happens alongside other issues such as the crumbling schools, crap provision for SN etc, and the overall effect is that a lot of people ask who the fuck the government think they're kidding.

Funnily enough my children managed to have lots of family time without ever being absent from school in term time.
Just another sense of entitlement in that they ‘have to have’ a holiday abroad.

It always interests me in these discussions how often people critical of taking DC out pivot to holidays abroad. As though there's no understanding that a family might not be able to afford a UK school holidays break either. I know people who take their kids out for a Sun holiday weekday caravan park type thing, because that's the only holiday they can afford.

This isn’t about being rich or not. And the fines you pay. This is about your kids missing a week of their education. On principle I do not take my kids out of school during holidays. I’m dead against it.
The fact that your family organise an annual family trip at precisely the moment you can’t go is the bit that needs questioning here

my daughter is starting school in September and il be taking her out for holidays for sure

shes very well travelled - just back from a month in Thailand and it didn’t wonders for her confidence - she learned basic phrases in Thai, volunteered at an animal sanctuary, her swimming improved massively

We joined in a beach clean up and she spent her evenings watching hundreds of hermit crabs on on the beach

she saw pink dolphins, wild monkeys, elephants.

her speech came on amazing and she’s like a different child since we came back - her nursery can’t believe her confidence and how much she speaks since we came back.

i think travel is wonderful for children and I won’t be letting a school dictate when we can and can’t go.

School doesn't "dictate", @Fupoffyagrasshole .
That's not how it works. There are government directives which must be followed.