To think children shouldn't be taken out of school for holidays?

[MidiMitch]

Just that really. An article today says four million school days a year are being lost by parents removing children for holidays. I am a teacher so probably rather biased on this but I think it's dreadful that children are taken out of school because of a cheap holiday. I definitely think that more needs to be done to stop the hiking up of prices in holiday time but I don't think the answer is to disrupt a child's education.

And to add to that, in my first year of teaching I did give worksheets etc to those going away. They weren't done.

Nowadays I just suggest that the child write a diary/ make a presentation on what they learned etc, do a bit of online maths games and encourage the parent to make sure they get plenty of reading time. The kids usually come in with some good stuff, they enjoy it and it shifts the responsibility back to the parents.

I'm a teacher (I work part time) and I do it regularly and I give my DS days off when he needs them, and we take days off to go to the museum etc when it's not heaving with kids at weekends/school holidays, there's more to education and learning than sitting in a classroom

The first two days of my half term "break" will be spent with the two year 10, one year 11 and three year 9 students who have all missed a decent amount of lessons this half term due to holiday, and will struggle to sit their exams if I don't go over those missed lessons with them.
As I am also judged on results, I don't have much choice. So my kids are in holiday club while I teach other people's kids.
But, sure. Crack on.

Dd 10 now but when she was younger having any one on one with me brought her on far more than than being in huge class every day... Ie going through tables, getting here reading etc...

I think you can't put a price on family time. Unfortunately you can on holidays. We went on a holiday last year which cost £3k. To go on same holiday this year now DD at school £6k in school holidays. Regardless of cost I cannot always get leave during school hols as often they are my busiest time entertaining everyone else's kids at work. I'm not saying I will take my daughter out of school but it's definitely a consideration.
I know the cost is sheer economics but I feel a little more discretion would go a long way from schools. The £60 fine was brought in To deal with persistent truancy, not for otherwise generally supportive parents who can't get away at another time.

I also hugely object to a quote by the schools minister Nick Gibb on this matter during his dealings with Jon Platt, he said "headteachers know their students best they must decide" well I'm pretty sure my headteacher didn't even know my name, it's this kind of attitude to belittling parents that really gets people going.

My holidays are dictated to me by my employer (nhs). I am only allowed 12 day’s off per year during school holidays (and no more than 5 day’s at a time). This year I have been given October half term week, therefore to enable me to take ds away to visit family abroad I am taking him out of school for the week after school holidays, so we will have two weeks together (also long flights to take into account)
Next year I have only been given 1 week at Easter and 1 week in August (not enough staff to cover annual leave for more) If I want to go away for longer than a week I will need to take ds out of school again.

It’s something I have to think hard about, but this will be the second time I have ever taken either of my children out of school for a holiday. (Ds was taken out for 3 day’s last year). So far for this school year he has 100% attendance and the year before he was within the high 90’s %, only reason it lowered was because he broke his arm at school during PE!
I expect I will be fined but I will gladly pay it in order to spend more than a week with my child and family, if the nhs would allow me to have more annual leave with my son during his school holidays then that would of course be the better option but due to staff shortages that’s not going to be happening any time soon.

If you leave education to schools only, many kids won’t develop creative, musical, sport or critical thinking skills or just enjoy learning about something just for the pleasure of it. So much of school is target and test driven that children seem to be learning under pressure to get the best scores.

I agree with you OP, I have a friend who regularly takes her son out of school to go on holiday.
She was fined last year and tried to fight it but lost.
I think it's very unfair to the child because they are missing crucial lessons (year 5), then she complains when he failed his 11+. Even he said that he didn't understand some of the questions, but perhaps if he hadn't been taken out for a 4th time that year he may have been given the information that he needed to answer the question and may have passed.
Also I feel for the teacher, they have so many targets to reach and bogged down with so much red tape.
If you take your child out term time they shouldn't have to provide any work for them, which probably won't be done anyway, they also shouldn't have to provide extra lessons when they return to school to help them catch up.
I know that travel agents put their prices up in holiday time but it is irresponsible to take your child out in term time and it's right that councils fine parents.

DD starts school this year and occasionally taking her out will probably be the only way we can ever afford a holiday

I would definitely and do take dc out of school for a holiday.
Not because of price.
Simply because in my job . My holidays are dictated to me and no swapping allowed. Occasionally I get one during half term but that's rare.
Then the fact dps holidays get booked in dec on a first come first served basis , mine are dictated in the April .. If I'm Lucky enough to get a half term dp has to try and book the same week. Which by then most of the school holidays are taken.

I'm doing it this year for two days at the end of the Easter holidays.
I feel quite anxious about it. But I also feel that the DD's and I very much need this holiday after two extremely tough years. And it's the only time we could go.
On balance I don't think they'll remember what they would have done on those two days at school. But I do think they'll remember and get more value from what will be for us probably a once in a life time trip.

@Buck3t

or you could say equally important hence why they’ve asked for work

You could well be right here but they still can't have it both ways - take your children away and welcome, but you are not entitled to ask for extra time and work from teachers because you have made this choice - even if you have made it for sound reasons.

Believe me, as a young teacher (secondary) - way before this ruling about term-time holidays came in - I did go to some trouble to provide work for kids going on holiday. But there were so many - and they used to either come in the first lesson back shouting that they couldn't do this or that because they had been away and expecting me to leave the other 29 children waiting while I found something we had done two weeks ago, or they would down tools and disrupt. They wouldn't just give me ten minutes to get the class started and then let me come to them. Sometimes they had a note from parents demanding I give them catch up time at lunch or after school - and in the end I simply couldn't keep up with it.

It's not always easy to give work in advance - even if you do have worksheets, they are usually somewhere in the photocopying system, (we had to give quite a lot of notice to have stuff printed) and as pp have said, it's surprising how little can be done with sheets. Sometimes I lent them a text book, but so many didn't come back I was directed not to do this by my line manager.

When I was at school - albeit a long time ago I know - if you were away, (illness or holiday - or anything) you were expected to copy up work yourself from a friend's book. It was limited, true, but it was the child's responsibility. If we didn't do it we got into trouble. Since then, as with many things, responsibility for a child's work and progress has shifted from that child to the teacher, and there is so much to do.

kaitlin are you secondary or primary? expecting a primary to copy from someone else's book to catch up would be strange. expecting a secondary student to help themselves wouldnt be more reasonable.

I think Boney said what they thought above and I can't argue with that logic.

I take mine out of school for holidays. I'm happy, they are happy, the school is happy enough....why should I care what you think about it?

Our head keeps trotting out that she herself and teachers face the same price hikes. Then she says teachers have not had a pay rise etc.

This enrages me because dh was stuck on under 20 grand after the credit crunch and then got small pay rise after ten years.

So she and her teachers face same price hikes but on much larger salaries!!

So she and her teachers face same price hikes but on much larger salaries!!

What about the other school staff? To give you an idea.... I don’t even earn enough to pay tax but I have to take my holidays outside of term time. I’m fortunate DH earns well but many of my colleagues don’t have that good fortune.

Buck - I did say I was secondary. I agree about the primary and copying up - I have limited experience of primary. I agree with Boney too.

Seriouslycanitgetworse - do you think teachers are on much larger salaries than everyone ? What is the average salary for a graduate profession I wonder?

Seriously - most teachers are not on large salaries, especially for a profession. Also, what about other school staff who are still stuck to holidays but in even lower salaries - caretakers, teaching assistants, office staff, lunch time assistants, etc.

I still think there's no issue with most children taking a week or two out of school time for family holidays, regardless of it is a proper education visit, or a trip to the beach or theme parks. However, I don't think it should be a them and us type argument. Teaching staff don't make the rules and guidelines about holidays. Most teachers I know don't really care so long as it's not in exam years in secondary and that parents don't expect teachers to provide catch up work during and after. And tbh school staff also make the decision to work in a sector where their holidays are at set times, so that argument shouldn't tea;;y come into play anyway.

seriously your dh should retrain as a teacher - soon he will be rolling in money and only working 9-3 !
😁🙄

I take my DC out of school for family holidays and will continue to do so. We always choose the very last week of the summer term, or as close to it as possible. Our eldest has SN and can't cope with how busy it is in the school holidays so we go when it's quieter. DH works in a department with a high proportion of term time only staff so there isn't much AL available in school holidays purely due to their being less staff available to provide the necessary amount of cover, the most he can usually get in school holidays is 2-3 days in a row. Last year he had absolutely no leave left to take, I was ill for most of my pregnancy with DC4 (HG), then in hospital at 36wks with transverse presentation, then had a section, then ended up back in with sepsis then back again with secondary PPH then back and forth for ortho appointments for baby with DDH. His employer very generously signed off a week of annual leave for the purposes of a family holiday and that's when we had to go.

School signed it off as authorised leave.