Supreme Court sides with government on term-time holidays

[Mulledwine1]

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?

If it is my responsibility to provide a suitable education, then why can't I determine that is 90% school and 10% HE?

Why is the only option 100% state school, our circus our rules, or we will put you an jail, or do it yourself, on your own with no state support whatsoever?

granny if you bothered to read more than 3 words of my response you'd see that I agreed that there were some professions, including the forces, that should be exempted. However, these cover only a small fraction of the employers who currently feel free to put staff on restrictive leave schedules because it suits them.

And there is no need for any business, even a water company or the fire brigade to allow all staff to take 2 weeks off simultaneously. Most businesses require leave to be booked over school holidays to ensure that all who want it get a share (and if they don't they get a week at Easter or half term).

Except of course it's the other way round. The price for off-peak is an £800 reduction on the regular price.

But it comes to the same thing. Basically people with children are subsidizing the holidays of those without. Without the school holiday prices there would be less accommodation and holidays of all types available for everyone.

I haven't RTFT but i don't agree at all.
Im a teacher and if i decide to take my child out of school for a holiday i would ensure it was educational and a worthwhile experience. Sometimes life experiences are worth a lot more than academic.

This said i know full well i can follow the curriculum and make sure that whilst away my kids don't drop behind. And certainly wouldn't let them drop behind when they're in school anyway.

So personally if i wanted to I'd pay the fine and take them out of school

Of course this is entirely pointless because i couldn't take myself out of school in term time to go on holiday!

For all this read the government wants your kids in school at all times to push them harder and harder for those crappy SATs tests, and constantly changing GCSEs etc, so that they must all be above average (dur!) and must learn not to ever question authority.

Of course - raising the children to be good little workers who take their annual leave when they're told to without question. A generation of Baldericks.

I havn't taken my child out of school for a holiday because we can't afford one even out of term time, but I agree that if attendance is good then there isn't an issue.

I fail to see how other children being outside the classroom is disruptive to other kids - certainly if the disruptive children are on holiday

Well, generally its people without children that subsidize those of us who do - change and change about!

Yeah that's true enough Barbarian

Please don't jump on me for being a teacher and not capitalising "i". My phone keypad is playing up and i don't seem to be able to capitalise or select the autocorrect! The errors are annoying me a lot especially since it's correcting at the start of a sentence!!!

I agree with the judge and what she said.

Thanks for answering dibble , I would be the same as you but some people have very high expectations of teachers.

My dds are 25 and 23 and we took them out almost every single year*. I'm not sure how they ended up both at good universities and on to fab jobs, missing all that education.

I think this is a tax on poorer people. If mine were young today, I would take them out and pay the fine. A lot of others can't afford to do that.

*At the time DH had a job where he couldn't take summer holidays off as it was one of his company's busiest time of year.

I love the assumption that no work goes on in the last few days week of term. At our school, work continues up to at least the penultimate day of term and in the case of the current Easter break, to the end of school on the last day of term. Some parents chose to take their children out for the last week and will no doubt expect us to ensure the child 'catches up' in the first weeks of the new term. Except that the new term means that we will be starting new areas of study in most subjects, so children who missed the end of term have missed out and may or may not have the opportunity to cover missed work.

Every school has an attendance target. Poor attendance is an OFSTED limiting judgement, so if attendance is below the target level, it will adversely affect the school's OFSTED grade. That is fine, but not when so many parents still base their choice of school on the OFSTED grade. If every child at our school missed 10 days of school for holidays /illnesses, we would be below our target attendance of 95% .

It's crap.
Should be the parents decision.
(Within reason, such as the traditional cap on 10 days)
Parents responsibility to make sure the kids are getting an education.

(I haven't RTFT, sorry)

"Well, generally its people without children that subsidize those of us who do"

And those children will subsidise your pension and healthcare and when you're old. Swings and roundabouts.

There are always going to be special exceptions but heads have the authority to allow those

They used to be able to allow leave for holidays in "special circumstances", but that power was removed in 2013. They can now only authorise absence in "exceptional circumstances", no mention of holidays in the revised rules.

I fail to see how other children being outside the classroom is disruptive to other kids - certainly if the disruptive children are on holiday

Its disruptive because someone has to spend the time covering the stuff they've missed. If this happens on a near weekly basis, the actual teaching time the kids who do attend regularly receive is cut into, and so is their rate of progress. Kids who struggle at school are disproportonately affected (not that the parents of the ever so talented Clarissa whose having her life experience enriched by 2 weeks at Disneyland Florida give a stuff about them).

*"Well, generally its people without children that subsidize those of us who do"

And those children will subsidise your pension and healthcare and when you're old. Swings and roundabouts.*

Yes, that's what I said.

Its disruptive because someone has to spend the time covering the stuff they've missed

When has this ever happened? Children returning for missing time at school, be it illness or holiday, have always been left to pick up what they missed as best they can.

I don't know if I agree or disagree but I just accepted the fine would be the consequence of taking DD out of school in term time, in a "all actions have a consequence" kind of way. I figured that I'm an adult and can measure up the pros and cons of my own child missing school and act accordingly.

We took DD out one week before the Christmas hols began to visit my parents in my home country. The extra week had nothing to do with it being cheaper, we just feel 2 weeks is not long enough for the distance we're travelling. My reasoning included the type of activities they do on that week, how well DD had been progressing at that point, how many absences she had. We sent a polite letter to the headteacher and she never replied so we have no idea if she had even seen it. We fully expected to get a fine but we didn't.

I didn't expect any extra teaching resources or support to be given - quite opposite, actually, I expect that I would be responsible for any catching up she needed to do. As it happened, DD got double homework on her first week back and as far as I know, that was it. We just got her report last week on parents' evening and she's already achieved the expected outcome for end of year, so it did her not harm, which doesn't mean it wouldn't be harmful to other children.

I think there should be some flexibility around holidays, but I do understand why there isn't. I am taking my DD out of reception for 2 weeks and feel terrible about it. I'm in a total panic which is silly as presumably we just get a fine and pay up. We couldn't have gone any other time as it would have priced us out. We are going to see family in the US we haven't seen for years, and because it will be my anniversary of 5 years in remission from cancer. Chances are I won't live all that long so, to me, that's exceptional circumstances and once the plane has taken off I'm sure I won't spend a second worrying about missing school. DD has only missed 1 day of school so far this year and is top of her class for everything, plus while away she is going to write a diary and keep a scrapbook of everything we've done. I'm not sure I'd take her out once she gets into more formal schooling as they do miss so much, but then again my parents took me on holiday before my GCSEs and I did just fine!

I take my children out in term time and I won't stop doing that.

However, even if I don't agree with it, it is illegal and I can be fined for it so I will pay the fine - though never have been fined in seven years of term time hols - take your kids out if you want to but pay the fine. It will be cheaper anyway, £60 is nothing compared to potentially saving £1000's on a holiday. I don't agree with the legislation and won't follow it but know I have to accept the sanction

I agree with what the judge said. It must be incredibly difficult for a teacher of a class of 30 children to ensure that no child is falling behind in any subject if potentially all of those children could be absent for two weeks at a time throughout the school year.

Also, having read Jon Platt's statement, he sounds like a complete twat. He says that everyone should vote for the Green Party or Lib Dems in the next local elections purely because the Conservative leader of Suffolk County Council gave out more penalty notices than any other council. WTF!!

But now the school is penalised if the kids can't jump through various academic hoops at set times Perspicaca So the option for teachers to shrug their shoulders and say "on your head be it" is gone.

It seems to me that if you are going to demand a rise in academic standards (which frankly the country desperately needs), then demanding kids attend school seems reasonable. Or I guess we could run a results based system - if your child can meet the required standard then they can have a couple of weeks off. But that seems somehow unfair.

persp but maybe that because you went to school when they cared about your education as a whole...and one week didn't missed doesn't stop you from getting a rounded education. Now every thing has to be done in sequence and drummed in and revised, all to achieve maximum test scores. Not for the children's benefit obviously...just for the school's.

I mean if you miss a week you may never get to have the correct spelling of 'sincerely' drummed into you and your whole life will be blighted, not to mention the school loosing a tick box in the all important SATs.

I missed 3 weeks of A-levels due to hospitalisation. No one made any effort to catch me up...it was fine.

Recent thread about holiday prices that might make for an interesting read in conjunction with this one.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2895040-People-moaning-about-holiday-prices-in-school-holidays