Does it really do any harm??

[fruitandbarley]

Holidays in school time. I'm 40, my parents took me out of school for a week once a year to go on holiday.
I've done ok for myself, don't believe it's affected me in any way.
So AIBU to ask if it's really such a big deal. ( So long as it's not a silly amount of time).
Disclaimer:- I've had wine, any spelling mistakes are due to that and not a week camping in Cornwall when I was 8).

It always amazes me how the parents who try to justify allowing their children to bunk off school always have geniuses!

Children who are off sick frequently do create extra work for teachers. I've had to work with children during assemblies, playtimes, lunchtimes etc to catch them up because of time off sick. That's part of my job and I don't mind doing that because they've been unwell. I do mind doing it if they've had three weeks in Florida. (But do it anyway as it's not the child's decision).

I'm a teacher who was taken out of school when I was young occasionally for a holiday. In Primary, it doesn't make that much difference if it is timed right. If it is the start or a middle of a big project then of course it does.

What some parents need to realise is that I am never going to set or mark work that has been done in the holidays.

I don't think it does any harm to the student individually but if all student in a class of 30 did the same thing, it would be extremely disruptive for the school.

No. First few days can be an arse for the teacher helping the child catch up but in the long term, no. I missed most of year 1 a child as my mum decided to take me travelling. I was always in top sets and graduated uni with a first (not bragging, pointing out that missing almost a whole school year at 5-6 wasn't detremental).

I'm a teacher and if done in the middle of a school period they can miss some very key teaching. If they are struggling anyway then it seems unkind to make them miss out and expect them to catch up. Some children can get very stressed about it when they get back. Also, to ensure we plan according to where the children are/need to go we plan 1 week in advance, therefore I cannot give you 2 weeks of holiday work and explanations to take with you. However I find for me it depends on the attitude as well, if people explain and are considerate I don't mind helping them and their child out however if they act as if it's my duty to put myself out for their cheap holiday when I myself pay full prices them I may not be as helpful.

My mum told me she didn't approve of taking the children out of school for holidays so I can't do it...well I can but don't.

My boys go to a private school so you just fill out a form, the head can say he doesn't think it's appropriate but no fines you just say I'm doing it.

Some parents do it consistently every term. I think one off is fine but do think you're giving your child the message it's ok to take time off when you feel like it and may affect their work ethic long term.

puckingfixies is absolutely correct, watch Simon Caulder the travel expert. the holidays ARE discounted out of peek times.Holidays arent an absolute right for anyone. If you had different children going out of every class weekly frankly it would be a ridiculous situation. Being sick is completely different, you cannot help that. Where I used to work WE werent allowed annual leave in summer school holidays

I just never saw / or heard of all the awful things that resulted from me and my classmates being off.

It might not have affected you but might have had an effect on another child. Say the TA spends 1/2 a day listening to the reading of those below reading age, but you have been on holiday and need a catch up session then the TA might spend time with you not the children who need that reading listening.

Can you explain further please? As the way I see it ( and I believe most other parents) is that the holiday companies increase the prices to get more out of families as they can't take kids out of school in term time.

That's a bit like saying shops increase their prices before Xmas and the sales prices are the real ones.

I was teaching before the new law came in and the summer term was a nightmare. Hardly a single week with all the class there so difficult to begin new topics. I was always happy to spend extra time with DCs who had been off ill, those taken out for a holiday, less so.

We even had parents trying to get us to change sports day or the school fete because they'd be away.

HeartsTrump - it isn't just holiday companies who 'make more money' - think about a holiday cottage owner in Cornwall for example. A small business. You have to add up the cost of running that cottage for a year (mortgage, electricity, rates, tax, maintenance, replacing furniture and crockery etc, insurance, advertising, cleaning, the profit that you need to
Make to pay your own salary so that you can raise your own kids etc....). Before Michael Gove introduced this rule, you could split those costs across a season which ran from May/June to End of September. (You could take holidays during term time at the head teachers discretion before so many people did). Now, you can only guarantee renting the cottage for the six weeks of the school holidays, so have to charge more because there are fewer weeks in which to cover my costs, and by reducing the costs for non school holiday weeks I can encourage more people with pre schoolers or without kids to come so it's not sitting empty.

Also, if a number of holiday cottage providers in the area are considering moving to long term letting as they can't justify only having an income in school holidays - if demand outstrips supply then the price will go up.

My point is that it's not a faceless holiday company increasing prices for fun, many hotel and holiday rental companies are real people who work very hard to run business.

From the parental side of the fence I take a wider view than some. If my child takes a week out of class for a family holiday they might miss long division, or the formation of Oxbow lakes, or French verbs, and they may never catch up (though i would help my child to catch up). But what they gain can change their view of the world completely - using French verbs in practice, eating new food, climbing a mountain, exploring a castle, having time to draw a picture with your mum, seeing a dolphin, (or even a whale! Or a elephant!) huddling in a tent in the rain, using hand gestures to buy bread when you don't speak the language, hearing the call to prayer, counting out money in a new currency and learning about exchange rates, observing poverty or extreme wealth, great environmental management or polluted rivers, or even just playing in the pool with siblings. I strongly believe that the more we see of the world the easier it is to understand others and empathise with them and for me that's more important even that a whole GCSE grade.
So if it's a choice between being able to go on holiday in term time or not at all, then term time holidays are the way to go.

I think the law should be changed to how it worked before - head teachers could authorise up to two weeks a year.

You surely don't learn something in one week then that's it!!! It's never
mentioned again.

The rate of progression now, even/especially in primary, is so fast that if a child misses two weeks of teaching on a topic then, yes, they might actually have missed the only time that topic is going to have been taught that term at least. Whatever they do later on in the year will be dependent on them having understood/learned/remembered what they did in that first two weeks. It can be hard enough building in time to recap what they did before (depending on how the teaching is organised in the school), having to fit 2 weeks of missed learning in too incredibly difficult. There's barely enough time in the school timetable to get everything done that needs to be done, let alone extra time, and there isn't even a TA available in the afternoon anymore because they're all doing interventions.

Also, to those saying that they missed time off school and it didn't make any difference to them, that's probably true enough. I'm early 40s and I didn't miss time off school, but plenty did and it didn't make much difference, but the amount of stuff the children are required to learn is unbelievable now. I teach things in year 6 that I didn't cover until I was well into secondary school and there are some things I have to teach that I've never actually learnt myself! So the curricula/expectations are very different now.

Everyone needs holidays. Just take it and enjoy!

Whilst map reading on a family holiday my mother directed us over an alp. In a rubbish old car. It was terrifying. When dad looked at the map he asked her didn't she see all the close together contour lines? Emerged she had been away ill when they "did" contour lines at her boarding school and had always wondered what they were

I think the main reason not to go would be the extra work created for teachers to catch child up.

However I think the solution there lies in taking a lot of ridiculous pressure and workload off teachers. I have many friends in the profession and am aghast at how bureaucratic and pressured the job has become.

Coming from a family of teachers, we never took time off other than during the holidays. Also, coming from a family of teachers, we didn't have a great deal of money to spend on holidays! My parents found a way round it by doing working holidays, or sort of cheap commune-type holidays - as children, we made some great friends, and the adults would take turns looking after a bunch of children each day, so people would get a few child-free days.

I still find "normal" holiday costs completely bonkers as a result! I baulk even at off peak costs, to be honest.

I think what I'm trying to say is that there are ways round this whole holiday thing. I would have been one of those children who would have got stressed out catching up, and if we'd been on a typical family holiday, without all the other families, I strongly suspect that my parents would have ended up very stressed out trying to keep me & my DB from each others' throats!

I have done it and always felt guilty about it , even though it was because they were the only weeks I could get off . This year is particularly tricky , if I take the two weeks I can get together it will mean , both children will miss the first 3 days of the new term , one going into their GCSE years , are they going to be doomed by missing these three days out of two years ?

I don't agree with taking kids out of school for holidays. A day or so tacked onto half term is fair enough but a whole week off is not, in my opinion, acceptable.

We have booked 3 holidays this year costing an average of £70 per night. 2 caravan holidays (although upgrades - heating and slightly bigger caravan) and one cottage break in the UK . There are 5 of us. If you can't afford Majorca or Florida in the holidays then you can't afford to go.

Totally agreen with pucking that the term time weeks are discounted, not the other way round. Supply and demand.

The uk does seem to be out of step with other european countries on this. We have italian friends who just cant believe that we cant take the dcs out for a long weekend here, an extra week there. It seems draconian to them. Are our children futher ahead than countries with a more relaxed attitude ?

Surely you can just go away for a week or 10 days frumpet?

Presumably, if you think that it's OK for your kid to miss two weeks of school so you can have a cheap holiday, you would be happy with teachers doing the same thing? Just randomly taking a fortnight out, and having someone mind the classroom while the whole class colours in for two weeks. After all, it's not that big a deal, missing two weeks of teaching, is it?

When I say I have done it , that is 2 times over a period of 18 years , so not regularly !

It depends.

A child once or twice in their school career going to a destination where they will be experiencing something very amazing, using languages, learning life skills, with a parent who is willing to spend a bit of time continuing their reading and then catching them up when they come home is not going to have a big impact.

The child who is pulled out several times per year to go to the beach in Bali, who does no reading/work while away, and is already struggling academically is going to have a huge impact on their schooling.

Oh, and please don't pull this shit about sending them in with a 'diary' to present to the class. I am NOT going to waste class time letting your child going on about their beach holiday whilst other students were sitting in school learning.

In France school holiday dates are staggered by region, to help keep holiday costs down. Though it's still a lot more expensive in any of the holiday dates than out of them. And not really acceptable to take kids out of school in term time, though not as big a no no as in the UK.

Sirzy we could go away for a week , but it takes so long to get there , you only end up with 5 days holiday , 10 days wouldn't be possible because of where we go , there are only weekly holidays available . I am going to try and see if I can get two weeks actually in the holidays , it would certainly help with the childcare costs if I did . I really don't like taking them out of school , previous times were the week before the end of summer term primamry and once two days at the beginning of term early secondary .