Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Does it really do any harm??

386 replies

fruitandbarley · 08/02/2017 00:50

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).

OP posts:
MidniteScribbler · 08/02/2017 07:46

Please don't take them out the first days of a new year. That's when so much is done to set up classroom routines.

Trifleorbust · 08/02/2017 07:46

won't show your stupid ignorant post to my colleague who was close to tears yesterday, over this very issue, he is working 70+ hours a week already and some idiot parents have had their child away (y9) for 10 days, resulting in my colleague spending an hour a day helping him catch up.

Your colleague needs to learn to say no, not my problem. There is no WAY I would do a long series of intervention hours with a child whose parents removed him/her from school of their own choice. Let them hire a tutor. If I liked the kid I might send them some links or the resources I used that week, but an hour a day? Not a chance in hell.

Phalenopsisgirl · 08/02/2017 07:51

Think on in like this. Would you take your child out if you were being charged a daily rate for their schooling? This is a bit like all the stuff we enjoy for 'free' (NHS for example) We don't value it. Your child's education has a cost attached (regardless of if they show up or not) if you were expected to cover the cost of the days you were missing would you value it more?
In the independent sector parents are paying but can remove their children at will, however holidays in term time are almost unheard of, sick days are also very minimal.

frumpet · 08/02/2017 07:53

Two weeks in the holidays would be nicer for DS too as he is in kids club for the rest of the weeks which means he has to leave the house at 8 every morning and we don't get back until after 5 during the holidays so only gets the weekends off Sad

frumpet · 08/02/2017 07:54

Midnite what do you mean by classroom routines , sorry not sure what that means ?

emmyrose2000 · 08/02/2017 08:00

I had my first overseas trip at age nine, mainly to meet my dad's huge extended family, many for the first time. Decades later, I can still remember most of that holiday, but other than the teacher telling me to have a wonderful time, I couldn't tell you about a single thing we did in school that year.

My own kids have missed between one to five weeks at a time for overseas travel in both primary and secondary school. It's never been an issue with the schools. DC1 was awarded top of his year the day we arrived back from his last overseas trip, so missing that time didn't seem to have a negative impact on him. In our case, it has nothing to do with cost, but to do with timing. DH used to own his own business and we had to work around that. As much as possible we try to work around school holidays, but that's not always viable. With the other families I'm aware of that also take their kids out, cost is the bottom of the list. Timing and family obligations are the mitigating factors.

I'm fortunate to live in a place where schools don't try and dictate things like this. Would they prefer it didn't happen? Understandably, yes. But they have a realistic attitude and so long as the school is notified (TOLD, not asked) in advance then that's the end of it really. The UK attitude to kids missing school for legitimate reasons is astonishing and, like a lot of posters from other countries, I can't believe parents there accept it.

MidniteScribbler · 08/02/2017 08:03

Midnite what do you mean by classroom routines , sorry not sure what that means ?

We started school for the year last week. A lot of what is done in those first few days is setting up for the year. Where are you expected to sit for different activities? How are you expected to behave? We have a very specific reading program which involves children taking responsibility for their own learning, and the students spend the first few days learning how it works, what tasks are required, when they need to do certain things, where to collect their work tasks, where to put their completed work. A child coming in several days late is going to need to have all of that explained to them, they will feel out of place until they have learnt it. It also means the time I take to show them what they need to know is time that is taken away from work I need to doing with other students.

Also, a lot of those first few days are benchmarking assessments and guided reading and maths groups are established. Again, more time that needs to be taken away from other students, just so the parent can extend their holiday for a few more days.

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 08/02/2017 08:06

but is a very little bit extra work for the (beloved by MN) teachers.

Aren't you a delight Hmm

Trifleorbust · 08/02/2017 08:06

I wonder how many parents know (or care) that their child's progress has a huge professional and financial implication for their child's teacher? Since performance related pay was brought in, a teacher will or won't be awarded a pay rise depending on the number of students who make 'expected progress' in their class. That can be the difference between earning 24k (hardly a fortune) and 26k the following year, or staying on 24k. The usual ratio expected is for 70% of your students to make their expected level of progress as a minimum and for 40% to do better than that. So - as horrible as it is to say this - in a class of 30 students each student 'represents' about 3% of that. You can have a maximum of 10 students who don't make expected progress before you are penalised for that in a fairly significant way. That doesn't sound that bad, until you realise that a GCSE Music class might only have 10 students in! So each student 'represents' 10% and only 3 students can make poor progress (not fail - I am talking about a grade under target) before 'you' have failed to teach them properly.

As a parent I understand what many people here might think of this: isn't it disgusting that a teacher thinks of students in these terms? Well, yes, it is, but teachers did not design this system (and in fact went on strike to protest against its blatant unfairness). We are in a situation where we are 100% responsible for your child's progress, whether or not you believe drawing a picture with mum or learning to order a bread roll in French is more important than grades.

If the public opposed accountability measures in schools (which are as described above for the Head as much as or not more than for individual staff) then parents might get further with requests to remove their child for a week 'here and there' without the Head thinking 'Hold on, how is this fair on the school?'

MargaretCavendish · 08/02/2017 08:11

Maybe I'm just unsympathetic because I married a teacher and so we can only ever go away during peak times, but is this not a clear example of how sometimes we all have to remember that we're not the only person in the world? Maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal if your child and only your child missed a week of school, but it is clearly unsustainable for all 29 other kids in his or her class to be doing the same all across the school year. How is a teacher supposed to plan for an uncertain number of kids being off for a week or more at a time? How on earth will the class as a whole keep on anything like the same track and pace?

General life rule: whenever you're thinking of doing something that relies on other people following the rules and not doing it (parking so you half block the road, not vaccinating your child, asking if you can go to the front of a queue because you're 'in a rush', refusing to let anyone sit next to you on public transport, taking your child out of school for a two week holiday) think 'am I being a selfish twat?'. The odds are high that the answer is yes.

mambono5 · 08/02/2017 08:15

If you take your kids at term time to have a discounted holiday, what do they do during half terms and school holidays? Do you also go away for the remaining 13 weeks or so they have proper time off? Or at they stuck at home?

mambono5 · 08/02/2017 08:17

*are

emmyrose2000 · 08/02/2017 08:22

My parents took us out of school for 3 months (yes, months) when I was 14, to go on a world trip

That would've been amazing! What a wonderful opportunity your parents gave you. :) Much better than being stuck in a classroom for three months.

I'm still in contact with a girl whose family did a similar thing when we were in early high school. Even now she still talks about that experience from time to time.

Cheby · 08/02/2017 08:25

No it doesn't affect them, and education is wider than just school FFS. Family time and experiences are important as well (is probably say more important).

The example above about what if that happened to be the week they were teaching long division...I genuinely missed that week (and a few more) in primary when I was very unwell as a child. No one ever bothered to teach it to me. Despite that I managed to get a double A* at GCSE maths, double A in A-level maths, a maths degree from a good uni and my professional accountancy exams. And I still have no clue how to do long division the official way. So all that missed education wasn't an issue for me.

frumpet · 08/02/2017 08:27

Ah yes I see what you mean now Midnite , DS will be going back into the same mixed class as this year so seating arrangements do not change and he allegedly knows where everything is ( except his jumpers which always go missing , even though he certainly put them in this tray !) It is DD I am more concerned about , starting her GCSE years , I am trying to work out what sort of impact those missed three days will have ?

I am a daughter of a teacher so remember how easy the holidays were for her in comparison to me , she still cannot get her head around the fact that I have to work Christmas day , even after 15 years !

Trifleorbust · 08/02/2017 08:29

Cheby: But you are obviously clever. I teach kids who - with the greatest of respect for the fact that we are all different - struggle with the most basic concepts and wouldn't recover from a few weeks of missed Maths, let alone missing content in every other subject at the same time, leaving massive holes in their foundation for learning more advanced Maths. Please don't argue as though all children are as capable as you, because they are not.

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 08/02/2017 08:29

So all that missed education wasn't an issue for me.

May not have been for you. I have known it to be an issue for struggling children however. They can miss important stuff and in some cases it isn't the parents that put in the extra time to help them catch up.

SarcasmMode · 08/02/2017 08:31

I think it depends how many, how long and if you've had many other absences.

1 7 day holiday and 2 sick days that year and one doctors appointment for example, not a problem IMO.

1 7 day holiday, one 3 days holiday and 4 days sick is borderline imo.

3 lots of 3 days off and 2 weeks sick is pushing it.

So basically I think one week off is better than 2 or 3 shorter holidays. Less disruption, less having to ask teacher what you covered multiple times.

But as a rule no, I don't think it's so bad unless of course you have an exam.

tigermoll · 08/02/2017 08:32

Family time and experiences are important as well

No one has suggested it isn't. No one has said that it can't b enriching and educational to have a holiday with your family. In fact, each child has weeks and weeks of designated holiday for just such a reason.

Take your family holidays in the designated times. That's what they're for.

If you can't afford to pay the true cost of an overseas holiday (not the discounted cost designed to lure people to book at less popular times) then you cannot afford a holiday. Do something cheaper. But don't pull your kids out of school because you think you are somehow hard done by if you don't get an overseas trip.

emmyrose2000 · 08/02/2017 08:37

No it doesn't affect them, and education is wider than just school FFS. Family time and experiences are important as well (is probably say more important

Agreed.

ForAllWeKnow · 08/02/2017 08:39

Trifle, they mostly don't care.

BeansMcCready · 08/02/2017 08:41

Tigermoll - I'd be fine with that, a new different person with a different way of teaching and a different view of life coming to teach my kids for two weeks a year? Awesome! Kids are at school for a long time. They learn what the current government thinks they should learn in the way they think it should be taught, it's just politics, not life!

Trifleorbust · 08/02/2017 08:42

If a child misses the first week of class with a new teacher in my subject, they will miss:

  • Explanation of classroom rules
  • Handing out new books and a detailed walk through of how to label and present them (ours have to stick in samples of old work, various whole school hand outs about presentation rules, assessment tracking sheets etc)
  • Explanation of homework for the week
  • Computer based work including login details and assessments to establish current reading age
  • Library induction, including choosing a reading book
  • Actual learning

That is the missed admin I have to catch them up on. The only time available for that is the next lesson and series of lessons, so they will miss the learning in those lessons as well. It is highly disruptive for them and for the rest of the class, unfortunately.

ForAllWeKnow · 08/02/2017 08:43

No it doesn't affect them, and education is wider than just school FFS. Family time and experiences are important as well (is probably say more important

It's the government who doesn't recognise/allow for this. Not teachers/head teachers/schools...

Trifleorbust · 08/02/2017 08:43

ForAllWeKnow: Until their request is denied Grin