to think less of someone who is willing for DS to miss nursery so they get cheaper holidays?

[oasis]

When I said that our kids starting nursery this coming September means we have to go on holiday during the school holidays from now on, she replied that her DS will have to have a poor record for attendance for the first year as it was not that important and she was going to have her holidays when she liked!

My ds is in yr4 going to yr5 and the last 2 yrs I have taken him out of school for 2 days to go away. I used to be of the same opinion until I looked at the price to go to eurodisney in June 2006 compared to July 2006...£1500 cheaper....This year 6 of us went 3 of them had to miss school....my ds, friends dd and my mum....all and it was £2000 cheaper to take the dc out of school. I will do the same next yr as I am not willing to be robbed by travel companies.

i have a holiday bookedf for last day off term. i am sending the kids to school, packing up, and collecting them at home time then driving down.

mainm advantage is that the caravan belongs to family members so no check in times.

i will be back on the monday, if thyey were at school i would be back sunday night i ntime for school monday.

LOL Fruitful! My EXACT reason for not taking dd out of school for holidays is the same! purely selfish but then I would have more time on my own with dd and ds during summer holidays That said I did take dd out of reception for 2 seperate days and probably will in Year one as well as we like to go for long weekends away so an odd day here and there cant be to bad can it?

I took DS1 out of school 3 days early last summer. ( end of yr1)
It meant we saved £500 on our holiday.
For people with large familes the only way they can afford a decent holiday is to take kids out of school.
A child at DS's school is one of four they are away at the moment and missing a weeks school.
Good luck to them.

Education isn't compulsary till chn are 5 and holidays can be very educational - not to mention spending quality time as a family!

We will have no qualms taking DD out of school for a week to go on holiday when she starts school, running a guest house it will be the only opportunity to take her away which we feel is equally important, languages, culture, history etc.

yabu it is not school.

For nursery it hardly matters. The 10 days for a state primary school isn't a right it is a discretionary permissable maximum but is only really enforceable once the child is of legal school age (term after turning 5) since absency records don't offically apply before then.

Ours are at an independent school and frankly I'd begrudge paying for those days and then overlapping a holiday. However with slightly longer holidays we occasionally get some price advantages. Our school are pretty strict and it is policy for the holiday dates to be observed in all but exceptional cirucmstances, form nursery upwards. If you allow your kids to miss days unauthorised or give a suspect reason, the staff often know anyway. Agree the nursery in this case may get hacked off by repeated absence , although what action they can take rather depends on their own rules.

My dds nursery teacher actively encouraged us to take 2 weeks term time holiday! It was the only opportunity we had to travel to Turkey to see my aunt - she said it the experience would be far far better for dd than those 2 weeks in nursery, where she'd be doing a bit of sand and water play and colouring the letter B. They don't actually 'miss' anything - not like they have catching up to do.

cripes take em out! nursery isn't school, you only get the fines when you get there

My daughter is due to start nursery this September, and we have already booked a 2 week holiday at the end of that month. We could NOT have afforded to go in school holidays blah de blah.

I spoke to the head about this and she was fine (apart from the dutiful "lecture" about not missing "proper" school etc, once she gets there). She said that nursery education wasn't statutory and therefore they couldn't stop people having time off.

it's nursery!

Another that would take them out in nursery - dd is starting in September and we usually go away in September - this year we have decided to do it in the holidays because we didn't think it was fair on her to miss time in nursery right at the beginning but that was about her settling in NOT about missing nursery as such.

translate "to think less of someone" to "to look down on someone"....

As has already been said - IT'S NURSERY and me too I'm afraid - you ARE being unreasonable!

(imo)

IMO YABU. Nursery is non compulsary education. It is not essential. Many children manage fine without any nursery/pre school education. A child will not be disadvantages in any way by missing a few weeks of non compulsary education.

TBH, speaking as a teacher, I am yet to be convinced that children are really disadvantaged by missing 10 days of compulsary education in primary, and probably early secondary also. Teachers and schools are disadvantages and inconvenienced by it certainly, but I doubt any one individual child is TBH.

Rather than penalising parents and schools for children taking term time holidays the Government should be coming down hard on travel companies for hiking the prices up, at least double in most cases, during school holidays.

Bless you, Oasis!
I wonder why she hasn't returned to the thread.

When DS2 was in Y6, several families took their children out for the last week of the summer term, on the reasonable grounds that they wouldn't be doing any real work that week - but they missed all the end of school stuff and were really sad.

So please, whatever else you do, don't do that to yours

Agree it is profiteering on the part of tour operators, nto sure what govt can do though . If you look at prices for same accommodation direct you'll often find that they only have 3 price categories - low, mid and high - so the week on week price hikes in the UK brochures are not purely due to them nor do aviation costs rise. However it is market forces and possibly they make relatively little off season so compensate for that in the 6 peak weeks to balance the profit books overall.

Nursery is non-compulsory. Go on holiday and enjoy it while you can without grumblings from the head.

But to make so much extra just because it is school holidays?

I was sad enough to do a price comparison the first year I ca out of teaching and was able to do a term time holiday. We spent 1 week in the South of France, 5 days in DLP and then 2 days in hotels enroute from South of France to DLP. Rather than going first 2 weeks of school holidays, we went end of June. The cost is June was £1500. The cost in the holidays - and the price went up to coincide with the first week of the private school holidays (week before state here) - was almost £4000 - for exactly the same holiday, same accomodation, flights, car hire, the lot.

That is £2500 extra!!!

Only read the first post and I think you are being unreasonable. They will learn far more and enjoy more a good trip than sitting in nursery.

DS has been in 12 countries in his short life (thanks to cheaper fares and DH working abroad). He know more about geography and cultures than most children his age. And... he has become very good at picking other languages' words or even find the way to communivcate with the locals by signs and noises

My 3 dc are missing a whole term of school as we are travelling overseas. They are year 4 and year 1.

I am a little concerned about them missing school, however they are quite ahead in their work for their year iyswim and I am taking workbooks and homework sheets with us. Nothing can make up for life experience.

I blame the holiday companies for the poor state of the education of the youth of today