Is taking my DC out of school really so bad??

[MaryPoppinsPenguins]

I'm getting a lot of shit judgement from DH's parents about our holiday plans.

I thought long and hard about it and decided that it would be okay to take them out of school given that my youngest is only in nursery (so not compulsory) and my oldest is only in year one and it will just be the week before Christmas and I don't feel she'll miss anything crucial.

My DH is told when he can have time off and has to take projects when they're offered, which means that often he won't see the kids from Monday to Friday (which I know is common) and pretty horrible.

So we booked a holiday for this time, went for lunch at PIL's after and ended up having a huge row with them over booking it during school time.

I know this can be a sore subject, but a week of essentially watching videos and having carol concerts isn't really as important as getting to spend a whole week with your dad is it?

(Dons hard hat!)

Well depending on the length of the holiday I imagine you'll be fined.
Parents who do this just to get cheaper holidays are only likely to reconsider their decision if the fine is large enough to make their decision unviable economically. The current fine is neither here nor there in the context of paying for a family holiday.

I have sympathy for parents with restricted holiday entitlement and those who have children with SN (who don't seem to have any right to have their needs considered) and I think they suffer because some parents just take the piss to save money or go on a more exotic holiday in term time.

It is outrageous how high prices are hiked up during non term time, we are currently making the most of having a pre-schooler!!
Perhaps the key to end this is having regional holidays throughout the year, obviously Easter and Christmas will be pretty similar. Or shorter school hours, fewer holidays, or longers school hours, longer holidays.

I agree with the poster that says fining isn't necessarily the way to go to tackle absences and, as a consequence, exam results. Perhaps quality of teaching and way curriculum is delivered prepares for abuse due my way

I know there are many wonderful teachers that go above and beyond, but there are also shit teachers due to the poor teacher training...this is completely going off topic but perhaps if every parent was 100% satisfied with the teaching they wouldn't be looking to go to Corfu for 'educational reasons'

I don't think it's anything to do with the quality of teaching which is more rigorously monitored than it's ever been.
Taking pupils abroad citing educational reasons is just an excuse for a cheaper holiday.
Arguably holiday prices are simply adjusted to demand and prices are cut in low season rather than hiked in high season.

When my DDs absence was so high it was year 9, and I strongly suspect there was something serious going on. (Especially as her brother was also ill a lot, but nothing showed up on his blood tests, except low white cell count.) She has Asthma, but seemed to get every cold bug going - and spent most of each absence in bed asleep, and was in school when her teachers asked her several times if she should go home.

If they have raised it to 90%, a lot more people will be "Doctor bothering" - and I know our GPs won't write notes for general absence.

And actually around here I know few parents who abused the previous system, and there were plenty of schools where the Head blanket refused anyway.

... are just smug no it alls who think they know best, it's quite comical really.

The irony.

We have just had five days authorised by our DS' head teacher. But he does have SN and when it is school holiday times he just cannot cope and will refuse to leave the accommodation and will have constant meltdowns. Our holiday is from a charity so it's not a cost issue and will probably have to come back before the weekend as DS won't cope.

It is highly likely that if our request had been denied we wouldn't have been able to go on holiday because of the stress. However, DS is at a special school so I'd imagine these type of requests are common.

"if every parent was 100% satisfied with the teaching they wouldn't be looking to go to Corfu for 'educational reasons'"

IME, it is not that parents think 'my child is not making sufficient progress with Mrs Tw2K, I must take them to Corfu to improve their education". On the threads here, and at the school gates, discussions about what to do with a child who is not making sufficient progress range across extra work at home, tutors, Kumon, moving school ... but not 'you should take her on holiday, that will make all the difference'.

The 'but the holiday has a couple of elements that could be loosely seen as educational' argument is based on something entirely different - a wish to justify the holiday to doubters or an attempt to gain authorisation from the school.

JJXM I'm glad your holiday was authorised and I hope you have a lovely time.

The not allowing holidays is a very recent government policy (within the timespan of compulsory schooling). It is very much ideologically driven.

Before it came into being parents were no more or less selfish/ greedy/ entitled if they took their child out of school for a holiday. Headteachers regularly gave consent to do this. It was a seen as an unremarkable thing to do.

In Scotland, this policy does not exist. Parents can get authorised holidays for their children in term-time. Their children's education is not deemed to be being harmed. But the only difference is that they live somewhere geographically different.

If there was a change of government this policy could be scrapped. Parents would still be no more or less selfish/ greedy/ entitled if they took their child out in term-time for holidays.

Anyway to answer OP I would be frigging annoyed that my PILs were so opinionated about it. If I could I would smile, ignore, then leave very sharpish or obviously change subject when it was brought up.

Hope you have a good holiday OP but I think you'd be wise to find out the procedures for authorised/ unauthorised leave for your Local Education Authority in advance, as you don't seem that sure at mo of what possible consequences may be.

In Scotland, this policy does not exist. Parents can get authorised holidays for their children in term-time. Their children's education is not deemed to be being harmed. But the only difference is that they live somewhere geographically different.

The research that indicates that pupil progress (and ultimately the grades achieved) is impacted by level of attendance at school is not specific to England, it has been widely proven internationally. I would suggest that the Scottish policy is in spite of the knowledge that DCs education is harmed.

It is statistical research, rather than based on case studies. However, from a common sense POV, I think it's fairly self evident that if the PP whose DD missed a day of School a week for a year had had 100% attendance, she would have made more academic progress during the year than she did. That's not to say she didn't do well, but the statistically likelihood is she could have done better had she attended more frequently.

SouthAmericanCuisine We are only talking about taking holidays though, not missing one schoolday each and every week! What would your scenario be - 40 days off school a year?!

Attendance covers many more scenarios and circumstances than just those taking holidays, so lumping all those together under heading of attendance and saying we must tackle every single reason why a child is not in school, seems like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

I guess you could counter argue that Scotland is allowing parents to make the decision for their own children. It's not compulsory to take them out of school for holidays in Scotland so parents have that choice and can exercise it to best suit their circumstances.

I think that one of the difficulties around school attendance arguments is that the one of the strongest arguments IMO is one of 'common good' [rather than individual benefit].

In general, in this country in this day and age, we are more focused on individual benefit, and less susceptible to being swayed by a notion of the 'common good'.

To illustrate:
If I have a class with 32 children. If on average each one takes 5 days' holiday each year, then at every point I could have 1 child missing just for that reason. On their return, in order for them to access what we are learning next - e.g. writing about characters in a book [that they haven't read], doing word problems [using a maths technique they haven't learned yet], designing an experiment [to test a principle the rest of the class were introduced to the previous week] - an adult will tend to spend additional time with that child to catch them up, at least enough for them to be able to do the day's task. As not every day has every subject, it will take about a week for that child to be just about sketchily caught up on the critical bits of what they missed.

In the meantime, the 'common good' - the progress of the other 30 children (remember on average 1 will be away this week too) is marginally harmed, because the adult catching up the child who had missed a week is not available to help the other children.

Then the next week, it is another child who has been missing, so again the adult spends that time with the child who needs to be caught up, and the rest of the class, marginally, suffers... and so on ad infinitum.

It is that constant 'drip drip' of disbenefit to the rest of the class that is, to me as a teacher, the main problem with term-time holidays. I necessarily - in order to enable your child who has been on holiday to access the lessons I teach when they get back - make certain that the direct disbenefit to them is as small as possible, by allocating my own or another adult's time to them. But the cumulative marginal disbenefit of my teaching time being thus redirected is an issue.

I realise that the 'common good' may not seem important to many of you - 'it's my own child that i care about, and they are not harmed' - but that is how i as a teacher see it.

oven the PP said her DD has below 80% attendance, which is the equivalent of 1 day a week.

The OP is proposing to take her DC out of school for 5 days this term -the equivalent of just over 7% absence this academic year. If the DC misses another 5 days in the Spring and Summer Terms (due to illness) as well, then that's less than 93% attendance over the course of a year; enough to impact on the overall progress made by the DC. Of course illness can't be avoided, but holidays can, so it makes sense to minimise time missed, surely?

the thing about allowing parents to make a choice is that the law already allows for that. Parents have a legal obligation to ensure that their child is educated. They can choose to send their children to state school, as long as they follow the laws relating to state school attendance. There seems to be an increasing minority of parents who want to take advantage of the state education system in order to educate their child, but consider themselves exempt from the regulations that are associated with that option.

(Note that I have already said on this thread that the educational disbenefit, both for the child and the class as a whole, is minimal in the week before Christmas and the final week of term (and tbh in some schools after Y6 SATs - I am shocked by how many schools have few, if any, lessons after SATs. My own DC's school just carried on having normal lessons throughout - and it is interesting how many of their classes made a really flying start in secondary compared with children from other local schools)

Meh. My son currently has a 'sick bug'. Must be a complete coincidence that we are also by the sea side

Torn up - IME if a child returning from a week's 'illness' (an authorised absence) talks freely of having been to the seaside, or if another child mentioned 'oh no, they're away' and phone calls to land line etc confirm this, then we simply change the mark on the register from 'sickness' to 'unauthorised holiday'....

Schools - especially primary schools, which tend to be fairly rooted in a close local community - aren't actually stupid, and small children do talk!

In our LA if you get a letter from the line manager saying that this is the only time holiday can be taken by a parent it becomes authorised.

We often have threads on here from people upset that schools are asking for medical notes for absences. The amount of people on here who are happy to lie is exactly why that has been introduced.

"Meh. My son currently has a 'sick bug'. Must be a complete coincidence that we are also by the sea side"

Bully for you. I don't think that is a good example to set your child.

One day, not a week! My son won't mention a word and we don't have a landline for them to contact or to call them from!

I know they're not stupid

"it is interesting how many of their classes made a really flying start in secondary compared with children from other local schools)"

I'd be interested to know how you know that, if it even could be quantified.

If we're deciding things "statistically", then statistically we should all have children when parents are a particular age, with a particular kind of co-parent, feed them the "statistically" correct foods and raise them in the "statistically best" type of households.

FFS.

I predict that "statistically" this govt policy is pissing a lot of people off & leading to damaged relationships between parents & schools. Which is a "Statistically" bad outcome, and all that.

I predict that "statistically" this govt policy is pissing a lot of people off & leading to damaged relationships between parents & schools. Which is a "Statistically" bad outcome, and all that.

Not necessarily.

Currently, state schools are oversubscribed. If the penalties for unauthorised absences lead to some parents choosing to education their DCs in a different way, then that relieves the burden on those school places.

There are lots of different ways that parents can meet their responsilbity to educate their child. If they aren't happy with the state sector, then there are other options. Maybe a secondary reason for the government increasing penalties for non-compliance with the state school attendance law is to weed out those parents who want the best of both worlds.

I am pretty much against taking children out of school, but in your situation I think I would do the same.

Education is of course very important, but so is being able to spend some quality time with your father. If this is the only chance you get then I would take it.

It is none of your il's business anyway. Grandparents do have the right to be concerned over their grandchildren's education, if they are missing school regularly. But for a one off holiday? That is just meddling.

My inlaws would be told to butt out of what is a parenting decision and the matter would not be up for discussion.

YANBU.

Clam,

2 ways:

• Comments from secondary teachers, both those I know and those who have taught my DCs (there is a very early parents' evening in Y7)

• Over-representation of my DC's primary pupils in higher sets early on in school, set from tests early in Y7 .... and as I know the comparative L/M/H ability pupils stats from other local schools - I teach in another of them - I know that that primary has many fewer HA pupils, but many more in high sets in Y7. It evens out a lot in Y8 /9.