To think that closing schools for x weeks shows that a week of term time holiday was never that damaging?

[Hollyhead]

So many teachers seem to now be saying ‘don’t stress about the work set, spend time together, learn skills’ etc. Yet it’s not so long ago that it was being touted that taking a week off was consigning children to educational destruction. AIBU to think the argument is now lost and that actually for children who otherwise have good attendance a week off at a non key point of the year makes not one jot of difference to their overall education?

When DS was 8, we asked our then headmaster if he could link us into a school on the other side of the world where he had worked a few years back, so DS wasn't missing out. (DH had had a desperate illness, and with regained health wanted to see New Zealand).

To his eternal credit, he said... FFS, take this very precious window of health and money to travel. Read books together, teach child to read airline timetables for maths, and look at what's around to teach the rudiments of physics and chemistry and history, geography, RE and geology... whatever is interesting wherever you are. DS slotted right back in to his class six months later, without a blip. We read, we wrote, we took every chance we got to put him in school for a few days wherever we went. Education, before A level study, is just stuff most people should know. GCSE is a minimum level of competence. Non mainstream school is just fine.

A friend says teach them to read, write, arithmetic including tables, and to swim, and drive, and cook, and they can make sensible choices.

Missing school during the lockdown doesn't necessarily mean all children are in the same boat. All children are being set the same work at my school, however, some have parents that will complete it with their children, support their learning and do extra things as well- some will even use the time to extend their child's learning well beyond what they usually do because they have more time with their children. Other parents who are less conscientious, have less time because they are still working themselves, don't have skills to teach their own children will do a lot less, and their children will be a lot further behind when school starts again than they otherwise might be. The teachers at my school are very concerned about the gap between different groups in their classes widening, and if/how they will be able to close that gap later. All children are definitely NOT in the same boat!

Yab completely unreasonably

This is a pandemic with huge implications. Not a week in Spain by the pool.

I’m actually surprised that it has taken this long for someone on Mumsnet to post this question because when schools first closed, I was expecting this to be raised.
YABU OP and are obviously one of the few parents who do take their children out on term time holidays anyway, so it’s unlikely you would think there would be a benefit to attending as much of the 190 days per year of education your children are provided with, as possible. However, plenty of sensible reasons already posted and I hope you have read them at least taken them in.

However, yes, please don’t accuse teachers of yet another thing that have supposed to do wrongly, when it is not teachers who issue the fines or set the govt. policy.

Ok I’m back, firstly this was not meant as a teacher bash, I really respect teachers. I realise it’s the government who pursued the no holidays agenda, but I think they conflated the issue of the damage of low attendance throughout the year bs taking the last week of June off and tried to use data to show this was as damaging.

I suppose the point I was trying to make but did so badly was that suddenly family time and skill learning is seen as a really positive thing and unlikely to hinder long term attainment.

I gotta say, I think it's way too soon to say this Pandemic won't make a difference to the kids missing a term of school. We don't know that. Teachers are trying to say it won't because what else can they say? Kids can't be in school, we have to work with what we have but I'm genuinely worried, especially for kids in GCSE and A level years.

I suppose the point I was trying to make but did so badly was that suddenly family time and skill learning is seen as a really positive thing and unlikely to hinder long term attainment.

An interesting point but I think you are conflating teachers trying to manage the mental health of their pupils as the immediately issue at hand, rather than focus on the education they are clearly not having as normal.

In an ideal world, with no global pandemic and no lockdown, the benefits of attending school for education outweighs extra days out and week/fortnight holidays in the sun for the majority of young people.

There is a difference in approach to reassure children in danger and not.
There is a difference in parenting styles too.
Some children have lots of input at home and some have little or none.
When looking at your own schools data you can generally see a difference in those with and without home input.
But often the children themselves may feel things have changed or they are out of the loop for a while on their return from a holiday. Behaviour especially appears to take a dive.
Even within the attendance figures you need the background data.
Data needs context.
Those with input will usually catch up or not miss that break. Others just getting into a routine or where it is just gelling may be massively disadvantaged by that break.

This might be an interesting read of the research that was carried out at the effect absence rates have at Key Stage 2 and again at Key Stage 4

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/509679/The-link-between-absence-and-attainment-at-KS2-and-KS4-2013-to-2014-academic-year.pdf#page=4

So this thread suggests that most parents feel incapable of being a positive element in their children's education? because if you are a fencing contractor, you know how to measure and order what's required.
And how much time it takes to do the job. Right there, you are teaching maths and economics.

It's not about one child and o e week off. It's collectively that it causes a problem. If every week, two different kids are missing from the class, it's very hard for the teachers to have a cohesive group all at the same stage of the material. It isn't about you, it's about what is best for the class as a whole. It's one of those things that is damaging if everyone does it, therefore individuals can't be allowed to do it.

When I was young families could take 2 weeks in term time to have a family holiday. My Mother used to tag it onto the summer holiday it was great leaving London and having 8 weeks in the country

All children are in the same boat here, nobody is getting behind

Absolute codswallop. Of course all children are not in the same boat,

Children with a stay at home parent or furloughed parent/parents are able to get a full education from parents who can make them a full time project. Kids of parents who are working full time at home are getting very little. Blantantly obviously you can't work full time and homeschool effectively. Kids with parents with poor educational achievement are not going to get a good education. Kids like mine who were getting special support aren't able to get that from parents like me, struggling to work at home and with no educational specialism to help him get specialist support he needs.

Kids are not going to be going back in the same state at all. It is grotesquely naive to pretend that they will be.

DD has a full timetable of online lessons. So, not like a holiday at all.

My daughter missed a month of school last year due to illness. She readily caught up because she is very diligent. However I would not take my children out of school for more than a day (say for a funeral) unless extraordinary circumstances. School is their job, and taking them out for convenience or to get a cheaper holiday is not a valid reason.

But not all families are the same. If you allow term time holidays it is the children who need education who would lose out the most. I come from an migrant / refugee area (my own parents were refugees) and all my school friends were constantly nipping back and forth to other countries for weddings and funerals and other religious events. Some kids missed months of school and could barely read English because it was never prioritized.

It's the numbers
If it was allowed then day you've got 25 of a class of 30 having a week or two weeks out during the year
Some will be clumped in June, September, around Easter. Others will be here and there.
That would be v disruptive.
It's a bad idea.
YABU

Absolutely agree. It’s fine when it suits them to take time off.

You do realise teachers didn't decide to close schools because of the pandemic? And that it was essential to close schools to help slow down the spread

Term time holidays and closure because of the current pandemic cannot be compared....teachers have no idea how this term off school will effect students long term and with everything going on right now of course we aren't going to add extra pressure and say you must teacher your kids x,y and z this week

I was one of those who said children are in the same boat.
Obviously they aren’t in the sense that every family is different. Some will do work sent home, some won’t. Some parents won’t have the time or facilities to enable the children to work. Some won’t be bothered.

What I meant was that the work we are setting does not involve teaching new things. We are not expecting parents to suddenly start teaching fractions, for example. We are sending home work that either consolidates what we have already done in class, or that children can access at their own level (eg write a story). In that sense, because we are not teaching new material, the children are all in the same boat. Not like when one goes on holiday and the other children are all introduced to a new topic that this child then misses.
Does that make sense? If we were putting together packs of entirely new stuff then some children would be massively disadvantaged. At least at my school though, we aren’t. So nobody is missing that material. When they come back whenever it is, some children will have had more practice at reading, or counting, but they will all be at the same startIng point when we begin a new topic. We are planning for September with the vague idea that all the children will have missed a term of work.

One of the most ridiculous things I've ever read. Thousands of people have died. This situation cannot be compared to a week off to go to Benidorm.

^^ this x 1000

Unless you are in the Forces or some other job that does not allow any leave to be taken when you want it, or you are attending a wedding/funeral, there are 13 weeks during the year when you can have a family holiday and you don't need to take it in term-time.

13 weeks is 1/4 of the year.

Wondered when this was going to come up! It's hardly any sort of comparison!

What I mean about it being for teachers convenience is that every poster on this thread who has disagreed with term time holidays seems to do so on the basis it’s “disruptive” and makes more work for teachers.

I don’t think there’s any need for draconian measures for term time holiday. As a pp said the link between attendance and attainment a correlation not a causal link. I doubt it does any harm at all for many children to be taken out of school for a holiday and those it does, holidays are not the issue.

I don't take my children out of school for holidays but if I did decide to one year I don't imagine it would mess up their life prospects in the slightest and I disagree with parents being fined for taking their children out of school as I think that family or travel time is equally valuable. But most parents wouldn't take their children out of school for more than a week in term time.

This situation is different. The children will all be missing time at the same rate and it probably will have a significant impact on certain year groups, especially secondary school aged pupils. It may not have such a big impact on others as the missed learning will be easier added into the next term/year - unfortunately we won't know for awhile and we don't even know how much school time will be lost. Unfortunately even though teachers are doing their best by setting work for pupils it will be heavily dependant on parents being available to help their children do this work. Parents who are working, especially out of the home, will have much less time to help their children than parents who aren't working over the next few weeks.

Jesus, is there ANY situation that some goady fucker won't blame teachers for?

Nope. I wish I could figure out why the public hate us so much when we work so hard and genuinely care SO MUCH about their children. It’s really demoralising.