To wonder what the new laws regarding school absence will have on the tourist industry?

[LEMisdisappointed]

I really don't want this to turn into a debate on the rights and wrongs of taking one's children out of school for holidays(yeah, i know IABU and niave) , I am interested in how it will affect holiday providers, principally here, but also abroad.

At the moment, holiday companies charge a premium for school holidays - i can't see that changing, in fact, i can actually see the prices rising. I do not think that there will be a change in the numbers of folk taking holidays in school holidays as places are already full so there is no incentive for holiday companies to make reductions.

At the moment, people, for various reasons take advantage of the cheaper holidays out of school times. So now, people will either find the extra money for their holidays or not go - maybe camping will see an increase?

How are the holiday companies going to market their non-peak holidays now, considering that a large proportion of families with school age children still take these at the moment? Will they aim at a different market sector? Try and market abroad?

The discounted holidays by the Sun and that "other" paper generally only offer term time breaks, will they no longer offer them?

Will this affect you? what will you do? pay the extra or simply not go?

We went away for one night and will maybe try for another night or two away in a hotel rather than a holiday this year. DP is self employed and this makes it difficult to plan but we would possibly have taken a week in a caravan park during school time before. DD will be in year four in september so we probably wouldnt have chosen to take her out of school anyway so not necessarily affected by the change in law.

[revealall]

I don't think it'll make much difference to the holiday business. It'll still be cheaper to pay £60 then go in summer holidays if that's the reason people are going in term time. I also understand it's up to each local authority to set up their own guidelines and you can't appeal a penalty fine.
The rules on diarrhoea and vomiting at our primary are that children have to off school for 48 hours however pointless (think children throwing up after a long car trip with sweets). So if you give them lots of fruit one night have the day of after the doctors you could have 3 days off quite legitimately.


European schools have many different holidays to the UK so I wouldn't think the odd early or late booker from here makes much difference.

I should imagine skiing might be affected as the season is typically at it's best half term week rather than Christmas or Easter. However as skiing is so expensive it's not likely to worry a ski family either.

[FrancesDeLaTourCoughngIntoABin]

Sirzy but schools are 5 days a week too.
And getting a doctor appointmnt is like gold dust, you get what you're given or dont go. They did a saturdag clinic in another village for a while which I used for ds but then they stopped.

[Mrsdavidcaruso]

sheridand if you read my last post you will see that for some families it's not a case of wanting to go on fancy holidays abroad, you say that you take your children camping, but what if like a lot of people here you couldn't even do that as YOU or your partner actually have to work during all the school holidays. For some families even having your children at home with you for a few days without work or school getting in the way is a luxury, this will affect a lot of people here, the only alternatives to seasonal work here is non - tourist trade and there are not that many of them, or the dole queue.

[Chocovore]

I think it will affect our plans massively. Our boys are in the infants and up till now the Head has been happy to authorise up to 10 days absence per year. We have never taken that much - their attendance has always been 95% as I am lucky they are never ill.

We are skiiers and I just don't think we will be able to go from now on, which is a shame as the boys are so keen and really getting the hang of it. It is not the additional cost of a fine, more the fact that it will be unauthorised which I am unhappy with. The half term week is astronomical and I don't feel we can can take them out without the school's blessing, or worse still pretend they are ill.

[WorraLiberty]

So how does that mean you can no longer go Chocovore?

Surely it just means choosing a holiday within your budget

And not being able to go term time, will mean saving up for longer to add to your holiday budget.

So perhaps every other year?

[HollyBerryBush]

It wont have an effect at all - how many people do you know that habitually do this? I can only think of one family in a school of 1,000 pupils that flaunt time off. They don't give a monkeys as they are saving in the region of 2K so what is a fine of £120 in proportion to that?

In need, people will just develop Irish grannies and the need to pop home for a funeral-cum-wake.

[Chocovore]

Er no, Worra. We went this year off peak and the apartment was £725. For Feb half term next year it is over £3000! This is particularly relevant for skiiers as the season is so short, that one week in Feb is the only opportunity really and the whole of Europe has the same week off. Could never afford/justify that. The price hike is absolutely ridiculous.

[IThinkOfHappyWhenIThinkOfYou]

"Will this affect you? what will you do? pay the extra or simply not go?"

It affects me as DH can't take time off during school holidays. I have taken dcs away during school holidays a couple of times but we have only ever had one family holiday and we took the dcs out for 5 days. We can't afford the fine plus a holiday (don't tell us to save up longer, we don't have a holiday every year, or even every other year as it is, saving up longer means they will have grown up and left home) so our children won't have a family holiday again. We are talking haven/camping etc not going to florida where the fine is tiny compared to the term time savings.

[cooeeyonlyme]

Where is this fine money going anyway? To benefit the school or to the government?
I don't like the idea of the government controlling family life. It's wrong.
Will David Camerons children be able to go on holiday? It will be interesting to see. Also this should happen in private schools too. One rule for all.

[Chocovore]

My friends won't be able to do this either - a lot of them are school governors and won't be happy with taking unauthorised leave.

Being able to take a couple of days is helpful when you live out in the sticks as the regional airports don't have so many flights, mostly weekly, mostly mid week.

And who wants to go abroad with young children in July/Aug? It's too bloody hot everywhere. Bah.

[NotAsTired]

I worked in a inner city, ethnically diverse school, in reception last academic year. Children are taken out of school to visit home countries for months at a time - we are talking around 3 months or so during the school year. 3 children in reception alone plus their older siblins.

In the last few weeks of the summer term, there were 8 children from the other reception class who were absent and 5 from my class. It's not surprising when the cost of flights shoots up at the end of term. I think absence in these kind of schools is very problematic for the head, governors, and the local authority. I don't know how it affects their stats and funding - it would be interesting to find out.

I just want to pick up a point someone made, way up thread, about private schools. Something along the lines of it would not affect the private school families because they earn more money anyway. That's not always true. Some people scrimp and save to end their children to private schools and the very act that they pay for the education means that term time absences are much more unlikely, don't you think? The one advantage that the private schools have is that their term times are much shorter, and families are likely to save money on holidays that way.

[NotAsTired]

Very fact

[VivClicquot]

I've seen many people on threads on here call for the government to clamp down on holiday companies and stop them from inflating their prices so dramatically during the school holidays. However, even if this were to happen (which it won't), the only thing that would happen would be the cost of trips in term time would rise to bring them into line with those during the school holidays.

It's exactly what happened with the car insurance. There was a legal challenge which ruled it unfair to discriminate against men by giving women cheaper insurance - but rather than lowering premiums for men to bring them into line, the cost simply increased for women.

[rosy71]

Are there really huge numbers of parents taking children out of school for holidays all the time? IME as a teacher and parent of school-aged children, most people holiday in school holidays. It has always been the case that children shouldn't be on holiday in term-time. Heads could grant up to 10 days in exceptional circumstances. That is still the case.

There are also lots of people with no children, grown-up children and pre-school children who take holidays too. Holidays are not exclusive to parents with children at school!

[sittinginthesun]

My understanding is that the law hasn't actually changed - the Head can still authorise absence in exceptional circumstances, which will of course depend on the child and family situation.

Certainly at our school, the Head has no intention of changing attitude - holiday absence will be approved, provided attendance is generally good, and there is a valid reason for the holiday.

Our local authority have not issued any other guidance so far as we know.

[revealall]

From the Dept of Education 2103 -
Amendments to the 2006 regulations remove references to family holiday and extended leave as well as the statutory threshold of ten school days. The amendments make clear that headteachers may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances. If a headteacher grants a leave request, it will be for them to determine the length of time that the child can be away from school. This leave is unlikely, however, to be granted for the purposes of a family holiday.

It goes on to state;

The local authority must publish a local code of conduct which sets out how the penalty notice scheme will work for all schools in the area.

However my local authority still has the old code of conduct on the website dated 2011. This has the bit about 10 days holiday allowed ad the old penalty fine (£50)They also have a page of disclaimer including;

("this publication") is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied. You should not assume that this publication is error-free or that it will be suitable for the particular purpose which you have in mind when using it assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in this publication or other documents which are referenced by or linked to this publication".

Er cheers then.

[Runwayqueen]

Myself and bf work in the tourist industry. He is restricted to no leave in the holidays so a term time holiday is our only hope of time away. His company are willing to provide evidence of this to the lea if needed.

Thankfully dd is a June baby only just about to start preschool so as her compulsory education doesn't begin till she starts yr1 we don't have a problem for the next 2yrs. After that though if the lea won't accept letters from our employers then I guess we'll be paying the fine. Dd's grandparents live abroad and I wish to main her relationship with them

[niceguy2]

You can't force holiday companies to fix their prices. It's the law of supply and demand. Prices are higher in the summer hols because more people want to go. So it's more expensive.

Price control has no place in our economy.

As for holidays during term time. Personally I think the laws are too draconian now. Most parents are responsible and understand the importance of a good education.

We should let parents parent. Schools seem to treat parents as crazy arsed people ergo don't give a shit.

I'm sure there are parents like that and they should focus on those, not have a rule which punishes decent parents whilst the crap ones simply ignore it anyway

[Hissy]

I think allowing such disorganised and frankly arrogant institutions as schools to set ANYTHING themselves that has an effect on ANYTHING outside their gates is a very dangerous idea.

Local authorities ought to set their dates for all schools in their area.

[Sirzy]

Are schools being draconian in enforcing the rule that when children are enrolled in school they have to attend? Some exceptions obviously need to be in place for illness and family emergencies but children have plenty of holidays from school in which to take family holidays

[niceguy2]

Let me be clear. I don't think it's schools per se who are being draconian but they're being pushed into it by successive governments. For example, ofsted now takes into account attendance in rankings so a school can be outstanding in every way but fail to get 'outstanding' if their attendance stats are down.

But it's hard to believe that every day off education is so critical when schools send my kids home half day early cos it's the end of term. or they get a whole day off just cos it's parents meeting day. Or they spend a week on 'rewards' and go laser questing or bowling. Even a trip to the shipping centre!

Can you imagine if I wrote into school and said 'dear sir. my child had behaved well at home, got good grades at school so I'd like to take them shipping for a day as a 'reward''

And don't get me started on inset days cos I know teachers week claim it's their good given right and that somehow doesn't damage my child's education but me taking a day off somehow manually would.

[sweetestcup]

Im taking my boys out for the first time ever, they are both at primary and this is a bit of a holiday of a lifetime for us all, I don't feel as if its a big deal and I don't think the situation here in Scotland is like what you all are describing in England eg don't think we have fines. We normally drive on our holidays so this year we are going 31 August (our schools go back middle August) and flying, it would have been thousands more going in July, not just because the price of the basic holiday is more expensive but because of the ridiculously high flight supplements to fly from a Scottish airport like Glasgow, they argue its because they need more fuel because its further away, so I always wonder how that works when its not, like America for example!

[funkybuddah]

I agree regarding no price control.

I hate the cries of 'the government must do something' no they mustn't, it's not their concern. They are too involved in too much while the things they should be controlling (health and well being, which covers w vast amount anyway of the country) they do appallingly at.

[HappyMummyOfOne]

Schools are under pressure from Ofsted to improve attendance, without good attendance they cannot be rated outstanding. The new rules arent that much of a change but are just ensuring heads only authorise in exceptional circumstances rather than grant 10 days a year.

Parents use league tables, ofsted etc when choosing a school so why would they then go against it and break the rules? Children get 13 weeks holiday and 52 weekends, plenty of time for breaks and family time without missing school. A holiday is a luxury, not a necessity. If people cant afford the costs of their preferred holiday every year they can gi every other year or downscale. If they dont want to do that they can go unauthorised and risk the fine. I think it has to be £60 a day not week though as its not a deterrant otherwise.