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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Supreme Court sides with government on term-time holidays

913 replies

Mulledwine1 · 06/04/2017 10:28

www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2016-0155-judgment.pdf

www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2016-0155-press-summary.pdf

AIBU to get the popcorn out for the discussion of why this is/is not a great judgment?

OP posts:
EnjoyYourVegetables · 06/04/2017 18:19

Dolorestherunawaytrain. Yes your post is very important. This is my biggest concern.

CactusFred · 06/04/2017 18:22

I agree with it but think a day here and there e.g. Family wedding should be allowed.

11122aa · 06/04/2017 18:22

UKIP will exploate this using a racial dimenson .

BonnesVacances · 06/04/2017 18:32

This all makes me laugh! Can you imagine the uproar if some of these DC had a cover teacher for 2 weeks because the teacher had gone on holiday? How long would be it until it was pointed out that they had 13 weeks to go on holiday?

MsGameandWatch · 06/04/2017 18:34

I'm happy that you have had a good experience that leads you to blindly "support schools as a matter of principle". Many of us have not had such a good experience and maybe that's why we think more critically than "rules are rules".

MsGameandWatch · 06/04/2017 18:36

DD has a cover teacher one and a half days a week as her teacher is also head of KS2 and has training and meetings related to that. It's always a different one. A year of this definitely adds up to more than two weeks and there's absolutely nothing to be done about it.

RufusTheRenegadeReindeer · 06/04/2017 18:37

I've not experienced, or heard apart from on MN about anyone being asked to prove absences by doctors notes

Our school did

Happy to pm you with details, may still have my husbands email to them following the newsletter

He was a little annoyed which is funny because i was furious and he suggested i calm Down before i emailed

And then he emailed Grin

They back tracked in the end

ForalltheSaints · 06/04/2017 18:53

A child going to a funeral, to visit a dying relative, or where a family member is having medical treatment away from home is one thing. A trip to Florida is completely different. So the basic judgment I support, but there should be some circumstances where the school should have to authorise absence.

I'm not keen on fines though, as this just means those with more expensive tastes in holidays are more likely to accept a fine and pay it up. The whole purpose of a sanction should be to discourage the holiday anyway. I'd be in favour for anything other than the first offence resulting in passports being withdrawn for a period of time, say during school terms.

jellyfrizz · 06/04/2017 18:58

Because 'private' education means what it says. You're not expecting the government to educate your children so their oversight is limited to their welfare.

But the law is exactly the same for both.

I guess now the Supreme Court have defined 'regular' as abiding by the rules of the institution then private schools can carry on regardless.

sonlypuppyfat · 06/04/2017 18:58

There's some teachers pets on here, terrified of doing something naughty. I had to fill forms in last year for a 5 day break in a caravan which my friend paid for, I had the time off refused. I said to the Secretarys I wish I'd phoned up and lied, and they both nodded to me

11122aa · 06/04/2017 19:01

I cant imagine Passports being Withdrawn temporally will be a good government policy.
This can increase racial divides. On the train the other week I heard a women saying how her child will miss the final two weeks and she wont even tell the school till the night before he goes and that she will never pay the fine but that the 'Muslims' get away with it.

Frecklesfrodo123 · 06/04/2017 19:03

My problem is getting 2 weeks annual leave in the school holidays!!

EweAreHere · 06/04/2017 19:06

I think they should have returned it to the old system: up to the discretion of the schools who could take an honest look at the children's attendance records, school reports, exam periods etc and ok/not ok from that.

Willyoujustbequiet · 06/04/2017 19:09

I disagree with it tbh. No there shouldn't be a free for all but especially at primary age I don't think a week or so a year has much impact educationally.

I have never taken my dc out yet but as a newish lone parent of a disabled child who gets no support at all either practically or financially then I think a holiday is vital. I could see myself going under without a break. The wellbeing of my family comes first.

Genevieva · 06/04/2017 19:11

A trip to Florida might be perfectly acceptable if it happens to be the only week both parents can get time off work to spend with their children as a family on holiday. It is not really for us to judge the circumstances others find themselves in.

Once you start allowing civil servants to make distinctions between a trip to Disneyland or a trip to Rome, a trip to see relatives in an exotic or dull location, the funeral or wedding of a distant relative, different sorts of religious observance... you are entering a world in which you accept that the state has the right to veto family decisions. We have to decide whether we want to live in a country like that.

In general, do we consider that most parents prioritise what they deem to be in the best interest of their children and do their utmost to give them the best upbringing they can? If we believe this to be true (which I do - exceptions notwithstanding) then we need to trust parents not to make frivolous decisions regarding the education of their children. This means that parents should only be prosecuted if there is evidence that they are wilfully obstructing their children's education and encouraging truancy.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 06/04/2017 19:11

Hopefully schools will continue to use their discretion?

I'm sure they will, but there'll always be some for whom, no matter how widely the exceptions are drawn, it will never be enough

I'm referencing holidays here rather than family visits to sick relatives - even the minority where there's an apparently inexhaustible supply of grandparents - but sadly sadly some will never see beyond insisting that they want whatever it is, they want it now and how dare anyone suggest it might be less than ideal

As PPs have said, it's exactly this which has got us here in the first place ...

TedEriksen · 06/04/2017 19:13

This man knew the school rules on term time holidays. They were quite clear, yet like many people he assumed the rules would bend for him. It's quite right that the fine was upheld.

SuburbanRhonda · 06/04/2017 19:13

There's some teachers pets on here, terrified of doing something naughty

Teachers neither make nor enforce school attendance policy. Not being "terrified" of taking a term-time holiday therefore doesn't make you a teachers pet Hmm

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 06/04/2017 19:13

but there'll always be some for whom, no matter how widely the exceptions are drawn, it will never be enough

Which is why this was brought in, in the first place.

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 06/04/2017 19:15

There's some teachers pets on here, terrified of doing something naughty.

Wrong. People agreeing with something doesn't equal 'teachers pet'.

lill72 · 06/04/2017 19:16

I have all my family in Australia and my DD's need to know their family and their heritage. They have been to visit but we need to go there every couple of years as our parents are getting old.

My DD's need to know their grandparents as they are old and wont be around forever. To go to Australia is a big deal -you need to go for a few weeks.

There are lots of families in my position, especially in London.
There needs to be some acknowledgement of this need for families to be together, sometimes overlapping term time.

I spent Christmas in Australia with family last year. We missed the last two and a half weeks. Only really missing practise for the school concert. Meanwhile my DD did surf school, hung out with cousins and grandparents and got to know their roots and their culture.

So for my circumstances, these rules dont make sense. When I tell people on Australia, they find them laughable. Especially for a 6 year old! My DDs cousins came here from Australia in school time and were told to go have a great experience!!!

Let's have some common sense people.

SuburbanRhonda · 06/04/2017 19:21

What sort of activities are involved in to getting to know Australian "roots and culture"?

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 06/04/2017 19:22

Let's have some common sense people.

There used to be, then people started taking advantage. In my old school we had families taking children out for 4-6 weeks at a time every year. Then expected the teacher to spend extra time with them catching up on what theye have missed.

FrayedHem · 06/04/2017 19:24

MsGameandWatch One of my preschoolers has ASD too so I hear ya. I really thought taking this term-time holiday when DS1's class will be on the Yr6 trip would be the perfect solution all round. He can't go on the residential trip and he is unlikely to deal well with whatever they do in school for that week. Year 6 has tested him to the limits, he's had 4 teachers, one of whom thought he would punish the ASD out of him. It's been sorted but it's been awful.

This for us as a family is a rare opportunity to have a holiday away where DS2,3 & 4 can get do a range of activities, DS1 might try some (it's an activity hotel). but it doesn't matter if he can't manage them as he'll be free to retreat to his room as we have 4 adults going in total so can cover them all. I was willing to suck up the £240, but no way £2,400!

Puzzledandpissedoff · 06/04/2017 19:25

Precisely, Piglet

It also intrigues me that the demanders, the "my exception is special" and the I'll-follow-which-rules-I-choose folk are rarely prepared to accept the part they've played in bringing this about. It's always "the real truants" who are to blame, the ones who've taken their children out for a fortnight when theirs was only four days, even the school for some offence they're supposed to have committed, imaginary or otherwise

A shame, really