To think billboard adverts threatening parents about removing their children for a holiday in term time are a bit well, pathetic.

[BurningBuntingFlipFlop]

Haven't the government got bigger concerns?

Sure a couple of weeks of a child experiencing a different culture once a year during term time isn't that bad?

My children aren't old enough but if they were i probably wouldn't pull them out in term time personally. But i'm shocked that this is apparently a major concern in the education sector right now? What about the parents who just don't give a shit if their kids ever go to school? Or the cuts that are happening?

I can't find a link, they're in Manchester anyway.

I have taken my DD out of school for a week so far this school year, and will take her out again in the summer term for another week.

I don't give two hoots if the school/govt don't like it. She's FOUR ffs. She won't be 5 until the summer, and IMO will benefit just as much from spending time with family and having new experiences, than she would at school.

If she was in secondary school, I don't think I would take her out in term time. There needs to be some common sense about this.

we were taken out of school for 2 weeks every year for a holiday, my dad's work meant a holiday outside of term time wasn't possible.

we never went further than france, but got taken to every castle, monument and up every mountain going.

We've all ended up with good degrees and postgraduate degrees, I wouldn't worry about taking DD out of school for a family holiday if necessary.

This topic hits a nerve with me mainly because I work in a private day care nursery, where, during the school holiday we have an out of school club which mean we have an extra 40 children.
My bosses (understandably) would much prefer we took time off during term time when work is quieter.
However, I have a 7yo at school, and we want to go on holiday once or twice a year, sl what am I supposed to do?

Should we not have holidays? Why should she miss out?

Also, several times a year, her school is shut for teacher training, they dont seem to mind her missing school when it suits them. They have enough holidays, they should do their training them IMO.

Teacher training days get put onto the end of school holidays here :) Most sensible way IMO.

Why should it be personal and private? I used to work for the EWO and there was way too much of a softly, softly approach.

Yet, I now live in a fairly affluent borough and hear of parents of children with chronic health problems receiving constant threatening letters. Where I worked, these parents didn't even register. (nor should they)

Some schools are missing their attendance targets so are clamping down on holidays, and some genuinely have a problem with parents simply not sending their children to school regularly, missing a few days here and there, then taking a holiday in term time on top, generally disruptive.

When I talk to other parents I get this idea that people feel they are entitled to (amongst many many other things) 2 weeks holiday whenever they want, but if every parent in the class did that there would be at least one child on holiday most of the school year - how can that be conducive to good education?

I don't see any easy answer to this - I really want to take my children to USA in February, good weather, much cheaper etc, I want to do it whilst they are young enough to get child fare, but I'm not entitled to it, its just what I want to do!! How can I then still be critical of other parents who take holidays in term time? If anyone knows how I can go to America and retain the moral high ground do let me know!!

Cheffess, TTD are taken from holidays. There used to be an extra week of school hols, now 5 day (1wk) is given over to training days which most schools tag onto the end of the remaining holidays.

Actually, I think a very good answer would be to just have 4wks in summer, two in May/June and 2 in Oct. This would give families far greater scope for holidays.

Definitely with you on the more evenly distributed holidays Doris. Would be better teaching wise as well I think. I'm sure working with ewo was pretty frustrating with some families but I do think in many cases there are serious issues behind poor attendance and they are not going to be solved by a tough approach without consideration for individual circs. Of course the situation where parents of children with health issues are hassled is just ridiculous and reeks of a la with nothing better to do!

You can't cap holiday prices. Supply and demand innit, hardly a legislative matter.

Yes, the frustrating thing was how much of it was purely parents who couldn't be arsed to get up in the morning. There was something called 'round-up duty' where you'd get a call from schools to say child X hadn't turned up again. You'd go round the house and the kid would answer the door in their pyjamas. They'd be playing in the lounge having fed themselves and the parents would still be in bed. This was usually about 10.30. It's not a job I could do now I have my own 3kids. It would break my heart.

Sorry, I can understand not wanting to take high school kids studying for exams etc out of school for the sake of a holiday but does it really matter for primary aged children? Or should we sue the schools for shutting for over a week because of a bit of snow? They don't seem keen to add an extra week to the term to make up for the "valuable" lost lessons.

My husband is only able to take his holidays at a certain time of the year and I am only able to at certain points in the month. I will be taking my daughter on fortnightly holidays abroad in May before the term finishes as this is the only time we can have a family holiday plus July/August is too hot for out daughter to be abroad.

She has been going to her 2nd home in Turkey for 5yrs, had learnt alot about the country history (visited sites etc), food, culture and language (at the age of 5 she can already speak basic Turkish and French as well as fluent English) as well as getting plenty of physical exercise. If she was at school for the fortnight she would sit and watch dvds (a regular occurance especially on a Friday), dress up and be taught stuff she already knows.

I am happy to teach my daughter on holiday. I was regulary taken out of school as a primary child due to my fathers work, it didn't stop me reaching university etc.

Totally agree that its a condesending,patronising load of rubbish to say that taking your child out of school means you have little or no value for education! As a previous poster said,its not free anyway,we pay ridiculous amount of tax for our nhs,schooling etc.. To say it means you dont have value for education if you take you child on holiday or care about it at all is beyond a joke.. Surely the people that dont bother to get there children into school each week, or have no interest in there education are worse? They clearly arent the same thing though.... My holidays as a child are memories that i will cherish and never forget,probably they occupy the majority of memories i have as a young child. Whether they would be seen to others as culturally educational or not,they were most certainly beneficial in one way or another. We always learnt a few foriegn words,used the currency,made friends from all different places and countries,learnt to swim,and do different sports,tried new foods,and had plently to come home and talk about! far more than we would have learnt or gained from in one or even two weeks of school. It makes no odds where u go,any place,country/holiday can be be educational or at the least socially and developmentally beneficial for a child. Its holiday companies that are to blame for parents ending up taking their children in school time. We simply would not have had any of those holidays abroad if we were forced to have to go in the holidays,which i think would be ridiculous. Our attendance was perfectly fine the rest of the year round one i fail to see how a week or two off is that detremental. Agree that during exams and important parts of the curriculum then it shouldnt be allowed but that doesnt occur until 13,14 anyway..our school wasnt worried when in yr ten and taking our practice gcses, that we had sub teachers for the whole year,so learnt absolute nothing as they didnt event specialise in the subject or no what we were supposed to be doing. Complete double standards! I may aswell have skipped the lesson every week... I wont think twice about taking my son on holiday for a week out of school time.

it wouldn't help those of us who can only take holidays when we are ordered allowed to. But then we shouldn't take holidays because those who can afford it in school holidays don't like it for some bizarre reason I still can't see.

I don't think you can regulate the travel industry. Much easier to change the times of school holidays. I think a 2/4/2 split would suit schools too.

Of course, you're always going to get parents like Buzz who has no control over when they can go away. Forces families for instance.

the other issue as well is that billboards and that are a giant waste of money. Your money. They aren't going to convince anyone of anything or tell them anything they don't know. If your school or authority is strict I'm sure they can let you know, and if they aren't I'm sure y'all know that too.
What is this meant to achieve?

I think there are an awful lot of responses that seem to assume it is just about the money - its not!

Many people working in factories have official 'shut down' periods when they have to take their holidays. The factories decide when these holidays are, and in my brother's factory, almost all the holidays are in term times. Men working in these factories have a choice: term time holiday or no holiday with their children. It was the same for my father and the (different) factory he worked in. His shutdown was the first two weeks of July - so if we wanted a holiday, we had to have it in term time.

Further, other people have to 'share out' the holidays between the staff. I know in my husband's department they are only allowed one member off on holiday at any one time. Now I'm not a maths teacher, but I know it is impossible for all the staff where he works to take time off in school holidays.

Also, some companies have busy times when they ban time off for staff. My husband is not allowed any time off in August, my friend works for an exam board is not allowed any time off between the exams happening in May / June and the results coming out in August! When do these people have holidays??

To just say everyone should stick to term time holidays is incredibly naive and does not recognise the fact that people often live very complicated and difficult lives these days, and we can't all just rock up and demand time off during the 12 weeks school holidays. Bosses and workplaces just do not accept that anymore. Therefore, there needs to be a degree of flexibility.

I also think the government needs to stop hiding behind the red herring of pretending that holidays are the problem. I'm a teacher (and I take holidays in term time too - I have different holidays to my children - different LEAs), and I know the good kids who work hard all year but take a week's holiday are not the problem. To think that they are is missing the point and is a massive failure on the government's side. They need to crack down on those students for whom attendance is a real problem - and that is those students who do not like friday afternoons, wednesday mornings or whatever. To focus on holidays when real truancy problems are not being dealt with properly, is a crying shame. (This is both my experience and my opinion!)

I hadn't thought about the private schools until someone else mentioned it near the start of this thread.

Basically, children in private schools get far many more weeks holiday than state kids, yet generally, the private school results are higher. Please don't tell me that the teaching is better because I'm sure it's not.
What I'm saying is that if the govt are correct about taking kids out during term time is detrimental to their education, then surely private ed kids' grades would generally be lower..........and they're not!

The lack of flexibility from the government really bugs me.

My friends DD was chronically ill a couple of years ago. I think it would have been unreasonable for the school to forbid her the time off she had for family hoidays (to spend time as a family before her expected passing) and for the celebratory holidays they had when she was given a transplant.

There are certain holidays which just can't be taken in school holidays. As others have said, we don't all want a week toasting in Europe in August!!!

And when DD was in state education (& bored rigid because they were unable to provide her with a G&T education) taking the odd holiday in termtime was all that kept her going!

Since starting indie , we haven't taken DD out of school for holidays because we struggle enough to cover all the extra school holidays anyway (we both work). But also I think we value the education much more as we have so much more say in the kind of education she is receiving!

This makes me wonder if parents would take education more seriously if they did have to pay for it! Even just a breakdown on the end of year tax form of how your taxes have been spent would surely focus the mind???

There are always exceptions to be made & surely the government can accept this?

That said, I noticed the bill board is in Manchester. So I suspect the billboard is not really about the average week to Centre Parcs type holiday, but is really a PC way of trying to say to people who take their children back to the parent's native country on "holiday" for a month or six weeks that this is not acceptable.

In which case, the bill board is understandable, although would probably be more effective if it was more directly targetted. But I know that this can be a real problem with children just disappearing for a month or so, only to find on their return that they've been on 'holiday' to XX country to visit grandparents.

Why are they any more required in Manchester than elsewhere in the country?

I haven't read past page 10 of this thread but think it is interesting that all the teachers and ex-teachers who have commented on this thread (with the possible exception of Mogwio, who if I understand correctly didn't say that she actually disagreed with pupils taking time off in term, just with her being expected to personally help them catch up afterwards) have said that they don't see a problem with it, within reason - ie near exam time or for long periods.

OP, IMHO, YANBU

To the posters ranting about the Tories this is hardly a new concept introduced by the Conservatives, seems to me that the notion of clamping down on time off school in this respect first started happening under a Labour government. I certainly don't remember it being an issue when I was at school and the Tories were in power. Find another subject to Tory bash with please, it gets tedious when they get blamed for everything.

I ask because when my eldest two were little, we lived in Didsbury where I first discovered Centerparcs after overhearing a conversation in the cheese deli!

vintageteacups - whether the teaching is better in private schools I'm sure depends on the individual teachers - what private schooling usually boils down to is the much smaller teacher/pupil ratio. Any child is likely to do better the more one-to-one time they get learning. Also,in many cases lots of homework is usually given to private school pupils and much more emphasis put on results and academic performance (this being what drives pupil numbers at the school, usually). They can probably get away with longer holidays because they pack much more into termtime, academically.

I think the comment about private school parents being able to afford to pay the prices for holidays during state school holidays was a bit too - what a generalisation. Many parents sacrifice a lot to pay for private school because, for whatever reason, they believe it is best for their children. They aren't all necessarily loaded.

The government do accept that there are exceptions. Some heads ignore that fact though - sometimes with good reason but strictly speaking they are not adhering to good practice in having a blanket 'no holiday' policy.

My particular bugbear is absence on religious grounds. Pupils are entitled to absence for their religious festivals, this is how it should be, but schools with a high percentage of non-Christian pupils are discriminated against because these days count against the school. If the pupil is entitled to the days then the school should not have to carry the absence.