Follow up on last post ref Head/Holidays/Fining System etc

[twinsplus1sfb]

Thanks for all your comments. My experience has obviously fired up a lot of feeling out there. I have read all your points with interest, and I have calmed down. I realise the head had no option to say what she did. I was not suggesting she give me special treatment, merely trying to find another way of her getting her SATS figures. I dont mind if the kids don't do them, what I do mind is that she tells me it will affect the rest of their school career. As I think that is just scaremongering.
I do feel the system has a lot to answer for - and it is the heads and the teachers that feel the brunt of a bad system - Education secretary please note - this system you have at the moment is causing friction. Surely there must be a more creative way to ensure everybody can go on holiday to have quality time with their children/learn about different cultures etc etc without having to pay double. Lay person suggestions: Different authorities stagger their holidays? Each child is allowed 5 days authorised leave per year? Lets make this a positive post and get creative and make suggestions to change the system we have in place at the moment.

Are holidays really that important?

That's what I don't get. Genuinely. Yes, holidays are nice but they are something that is obligatory or a right to have. You go on the holiday you can afford. If you can't afford to go abroad during the school holidays then unfortunately you have to take a different holiday.

Yes, heads should definitely have more flexibility to authorise absences. Parents in the armed forces, illnesses in the family, funerals, weddings etc - these are important family events and I think it's awful if absences for those are not approved.

But a lovely jaunt to Indonesia for a fortnight as opposed to a week in a cottage in Wales? Not that important.

I do wonder what people who think kids should be allowed out of school during term time for a holiday think teachers should do. It's not like a teacher can take a week off during term time to have a better holiday, is it? But that's fine. And fine for their kids too. Apparently.

Op when you say every person, does this also include those that work in schools?

And yes it should be the holiday companies that you campaign against. Since the intro of the fines, prices have increased more for school holidays, and term time even cheaper.

We all think differently about things don't we? For me and my dc life is tough and stressful. They both have autism and accommodating that in every day life is very hard work. Am a lone parent too. So yes for us, holidays are very important and necessary. They reduce our stress levels and allow me especially to rest while someone else cooks and cleans our hotel room.

Holidays could be staggered if this was decided centrally. We live in France and holidays here are staggered on a regional basis (there is no scope for a state or voluntary aided school to set its own holiday dates). So for example, my kids' spring holiday started last weekend, children in Paris broke up this weekend, and my son's best friend who lives in northern France still has a week of school before his hols start.

Its mildly inconvenient if you want to holiday with friends whose weeks don't coincide with yours (like DS's bf who he won't see until the summer hols now) but generally works well because it's done on a regional basis so very few people will have children in schools with different holiday dates (I think in practice this would only affect people with older kids at senior high where it doesn't matter so much anyway.)

I don't see why a similar arrangement couldn't work in the UK.

I would be happy for headteachers to be able to authorise five days' holiday per year during term time, as long as teachers are also entitled to five days' term time absence. I would love to go skiing in January when it is cheap(er) and quiet, rather than being compelled to go at half term when the mountains are covered in damn kids. I should be delighted to go into school for a week during the Easter or summer holidays to make up the time.

After all, if it's just a question of providing lots of worksheets (as many parents seem to imagine when they ask for 'work packs') then my absence wouldn't affect anyone's learning, would it?

Probably not upnorth. I don't think five days once a school year would make a massive amount of difference at all. I agree it should be an option for teachers too.

Thank you, Nicki. I remember once suggesting this to a mum in a social situation when she was moaning about not being able to take her kids away during term time. It was quite funny watching her try to justify the double standard that she should be able to go away when it was quiet / cheap, and that a week off wouldn't affect her children's education, but that I couldn't

I've brought up that argument before on these threads, upnorth.

The response I got was that one child being absent does not affect the rest of the class (don't entirely agree with that), whereas the teacher being absent affects the whole class.

Presumably teachers are off sick at times and the whole class doesn't collapse and fail to achieve?

i dunno. I hate being off as even with a cover teacher its a right old mess. Assessments not done right , books unmarked, progress not made

Presumably teachers are off sick at times and the whole class doesn't collapse and fail to achieve?

yes but depending on the type and length of sickness, the teacher may either set the same work that they would have done anyway, to be covered by the TA (primary).

Or the head of year/dept will set the appropriate "next stage" lesson, to be implemented by a cover teacher. Don't forget teachers are required to plan in advance, they dont make it up day by day, so colleagues will have a very clear idea of where in a scheme of work the pupils are up to, and what comes next.

Or in the case of long term illness they will get long term appropriate supply teacher in.

The teacher being absent is very different to a child being absent. The school have a duty to catch up missed work/provide the appropriate work if a teacher is absent - not the case when parents are keeping kids off willy nilly.

It amazes me the number of parents who are adamant that a week off does no harm, when a child may miss a whole subject in that time eg "there/their/they're rule" or how to tell the time, or a whole times table, or rules for plurals, or long division etc. In a week they may miss several of these topics, which may not be revisited till the next school year. Who is going to help that child catch up? In my experience as a teacher, not the parents!

It is not the schools fault that holidays are so expensive in the holidays, it's the airlines and travel companies.

Also - OP - you said it was a "mistake" that the holiday was booked, yet in your post above it sounds like it was the thought of paying double that was the factor?

Why can't they do all those things when they know they're going to be on holiday?

Also, it IS a nightmare when teachers are off sick. The children get really unsettled, especially when it's long term/frequent absences.

And it will be ME that helps my child catch up. I already home educate one of my children. I get a sheet showing what will be covered each half term from dd's school. I will ask what they are planning on covering that particular week and will ensure it is done.

NF that's great that you are a conscientuous parent. Sadly in my experience MOST parents "write off" that mised week of work, and do not see it as their responsibility to either ask for work to be set, or to help the kids catch up when they return. Even when a child is off sick longish term, some parents don't seem to think they are "missing" anything importnat (I am not talking about seriously ill children here, rather those who may be prone to frequent ear/throat ailments etc, who could quite easily do some work at home while off)

'one child being absent does not affect the rest of the class'

one child? Really?

There are 38 weeks in the school year, lop off a couple of those for start/end of terms which aren't whole weeks. For only one child to be off at a time, for 10 days each, would mean only about 17 or 18 of the class could exercise it in any school year and that someone would have to allocate permitted dates to avoid overlap.

It's never about one child being off. It's about any/every child being off at unpredictable times and in unpredictable numbers.

NAHT discussed all this at their conference, BTW. No appetite to permit termtime holidays. Guidance, written by heads for heads, has been promulgated.

The issue with both the 'old' system of authorisable holidays, and any proposed system of 'you can take x days per year' is that, at any time, a class can have a couple of children absent.

As each week's work tends to build on the week before, it ends up with a pattern like this:
Week 1: Alex and Alice away.
Week 2: Ben and Beatrice away. Monday and Tuesday: TA / teacher time used to catch Alex and Alice up with key parts of what they have missed. Weds to Friday - Alice and Alex need more support with this week's work, because they have missed some of Mon and Tues.
Week 3. Carla and Charlie off. Repeat Week 2, but with Ben and Beatrice.

Of course, no teacher or TA minds this when a child has been ill - we do our utmost to ensure that a child returning from illness 'fills in the gaps'. But endlessly filling in children with the essentials following holiday absences dilutes the teaching available to the rest of the class.

The only form of flexibility that might be workable is a system in which the holidays a school or county set are slightly different - but having worked in a different county to my children's school for several years, this often happens anyway - 3 weeks of non-overlap one year. It's hugely inconvenient if you have children in different schools, and tbh the holiday companies simply increase the length of the high season.

I can imagine that's true. Personally I get very stressed at the idea of dd arriving back at school clueless so work hard to cover what will be missed. The only thing that worries me is that I read that many teachers get annoyed at being asked for information on what will be covered as it makes more work for them to have to provide worksheets etc. Personally would you prefer to be asked so that the work can be covered?

PHANTO - your comments about when children are off school are true, although we did laugh when ds was in hospital recently when one evening him and the other 2 boys in his bay (all past the worst of their illness but still obviously not well) were made to do some of the school work we had all got for them. We weren't popular mums that evening!

I would never expect a school to provide work for when children are on holiday thoigh.

teacherwith2kids

I like your example! Especially as those absences are in addition to sick absences, so not just Alice and Alex also Vomiting Veronica and Spotty Dotty, and Broken Leg Meg who misses for fracture clinic and somehow needs to be assisted round the classroom.

Surely providing work to cover a holiday is the lesser of two evils, preventing the supposedly masses of extra work involved in catching the child up on their return?

The issue for me, if someone asked me 'what are we doing next week' is that, while I know in general terms 'we are doing multiplication' or 'persuasion texts' or whatever:

a) I only plan in detail a few days before, because I always flex what I do depending on the last piece of work.

b) communicating it in parent-friendly form is hugely time-consuming. I rarely use worksheets, for example, so it isn't a case of handing over a pile of these. And without a parent knowing EXACTLY where a child is and what they need to do next and via what steps, using what method, a parent e.g. teaching 'multiplication' or 'persuasion' can do much more harm than good!

What would in many ways be easier is a parent coming in on their retur from holiday to ask 'what did you cover that was critical so I can support my child while they catch up on it?', but even then it is the TEACHING that they missed, the class discussion etc that cannot be replaced.

My plans say things like 'Teach the specific skills of persuasion used in x text type. Identify in example texts, write own examples based on x context. Peer evaluate. Differentiation (then specified to between 3 and 5 levels).'

To convert that into something that a parent can 'do with a child' is hugely time consuming.

Fair enough. So you'd prefer not to be asked at all then?