OK, one vote each...

[ClockWatchingLady]

Should schools/LEAs allow parents to take children out of school for a holiday (once per year, say) during term time?

There's been plenty of debate already, so let's just have a little show of hands so we can count up...

I say YES.

yes

YES
But (primary teacher here) don't ask me for work. Most of the time I don't use worksheets and even if you ever get them out of your suitcase why go on holiday and make your child work? Write a diary or send me a postcard instead.

yes, no caveats.

Yes

I ctrl-f'ed and there are 144 yes'es and 202 no's, but there are obviously some longer posts throwing the numbers off.

Yes

No

Yes

! Humph.

Seriously wish we had a shedload of money & could just immigrate though, Can't say how much stress this whole issue has caused.

OK, so...

By my count, we have:

Yes: 138 (59%)
No: 96 (41%)

Some of the yeses apply only to primary school, and obviously many of the yeses and nos have additional caveats. Also, as many have noted, if we changed the nature of the question (e.g., specify number of days in various ways) we may get different answers.

But, overall, it sounds like a majority of people here (assuming a representative sample, etc.) are unhappy with the level of control over absences exerted by schools/LEAs. But not a huge majority.

(N.B. for a handful of answers I couldn't make the call on whether it was a yes or no, so left these out).

Thank you all for joining in with this!

Yes

Very impressive OP. that must have taken ages.

But boo - glad MN don't make the rules

Yeah! Thanks for doing that.

good work OP

I think control is exactly the issue.

Parents judgement of what's best for their DCs and wider family can't be trusted.

We cannot be trusted to minimise the effect of a day or two's absence, we can't be trusted to feed our children a healthy diet and we can't be trusted to choose comfortable waterproof suitable footwear.

It begins to get on your nerves after a bit!

No ... Unless under genuinely exceptional circumstances, the problem being that once one gets this everyone else screams "me too, me too, it isn't faaaiiirrr!!!"

Yes. My child = my choice.

No

YES

Cheaper

No.

No - no one 'needs' a holiday.

I 'need' a holiday.!!

I'm shocked so many say no! Feels like soon the schools will just have complete control. We aren't capable enough to judge whether they can have a week out of school, we can't pack their lunches, seems like if you have to use state schools you just have to agree to follow someone else's rules for your own children. :(