Students to be taken out of school for holidays

[Spinachandcheese1]

To clarify, I am mum of two young kids - not yet primary school age!

I am a bit puzzled on this hot topic on whether students should be allowed to be taken out of school for holidays mid-term...

Surely, holidays are less expensive mid-term, but how can a kid miss whatever is taught at school/miss homework/miss new topics that they will learn, just to go on holidays?

How will this kid be examined at at school test in this "lost" knowledge at a later day? For example, if they learn about the rivers of the UK or about decimals in maths or a historic event and then the kids will have to somehow know all these things that they would have learnt in this "missed week", how would that happen?

Please forgive if I am worried unnecessarily, as I said I don't have school aged kids to know what's happening but this is something that concerned me.

AIBU - Kids won't learn anything important in a week that will have an impact

AINBU - Kids will struggle to catch up academically on their return

I wouldn't take them out the first week of school becuase I think that's important socially and practically to get yourself settled in. And I wouldn't take them out during gcse years.

The rest is fair game. I don't value SATS I saw upthread someone has refused them. I may well do that for DS when he's that age.

How much of what you were taught can you remember and actually is important in your day to day lives? How much of what IS important were you actually taught in school?

I'm currently in the process of building a house, growing food and rearing animals. All of which I've had to learn from scratch right now, none of these valuable skills were taught in school. They'll teach a kid different types of rivers but not which plants you can plant with the food you're growing to protect them from pests, or how to grow food at all. I don't believe school is the most important part of a child's life.

Holiday companies not being allowed to charge literally whatever they feel like purely for it being a school holiday would likely do the trick for the most part.

I saw a comparison post where a haven holiday cost £900 last week of the school holidays and then reduced to £80 something the week after schools went back. Frankly it’s a ridiculous mark up and they’re all guilty of doing it. All the while they’re allowed to, nothing will change and it’s cheaper for parents to pay a fine, nothing will change.

I took DD a couple of times and she never missed much at all.
We were meant to go away just after SATS but lockdown hit, I was sure they wouldn’t be doing much after they were over anyway. (And the fact school didn’t bother to send any lockdown work I assume I was right).

I wouldn't do it in Y9 and above (that was when my DS's school started studying for GCSEs - but I was already home schooling by that point.....)

Prior to that, I don't think it has a dramatic impact. Yes, they might miss a particular thing, but if it's crucial they know that bit of info to pass a particular GCSE, then it will be covered in the GCSE curriculum.

If it's vital knowledge for primary, then it will get returned to.

Our week in Spain last year was £3.7k in May and would have been over £8k in August.

We went in May. DD's education doesn't seem to have suffered.

It wasn't a particularly educational trip aside from the sense that at that age they're always learning. We swam, ate ice cream and chips and just generally relaxed together and had fun - which is worthwhile in itself.

Zero regrets, zero hassle from the school.

I think the fines in England have changed the cultural views on it.

I wouldn't take a child out of secondary as I don't think it's fair on them or the teachers.

But I am taking my year 6 out after SATs for a week. He has coasted all through primary school and gets fed up going through the same maths / SPAG ideas again and again and again and again so that the rest of the class can catch up with him. I'd be less inclined if the school had bothered to try and stretch him a bit. He was getting 100% on mock SATs papers he did at the end of year 5....

I don’t normally but I am looking at it for September 2025. So year 5/9/12.

Hmm. Not sure missing a week in year 12 is a good idea. While it isn't an exam year, the volume of work ramps up considerably for A level. And if you DC is studying sciences or maths they could miss out on some of the "building block" work.

The teachers won't bring them up to speed either.

As a teacher I find all these posts saying ‘we went to Portugal for a week had a lovely time, and my child has 98% attendance anyway’ are totally missing the point.
I’m glad you had a lovely time in Portugal doing lots of middle class things and I am glad that you were able to understand the school syllabus enough and had enough motivation to help your children catch up.
It’s not really about you. It’s about that kid down the kid down the road from a more deprived background for whom going to Portugal is a non starter. However they see their classmates missing school and maybe their parents don’t really care much anyway and suddenly their attendance is more like 60% and they’re not spending their free time in Portugal but in the park and are vulnerable.
It pisses me off when middle class parents say ‘but skiing is such an important experience they can miss a week of school.’ That’s not really the point is it. That’s not what the desire to improve attendance is about. We’re not trying to stop little Arabella’s skiing holidays. We’re trying to stop little Tommy from failing his education.

Please forgive if I am worried unnecessarily

I don't really understand what is worrying you. It sounds like you won't take your child out during term time, so there's nothing to worry about.

How will this kid be examined at at school test in this "lost" knowledge at a later day?For example, if they learn about the rivers of the UK or about decimals in maths or a historic event

What tests do you mean? Nothing that will come up on an important test will only be taught once during a week at primary school.

I've never taken my DD out of school during term time for a holiday, and I don't see a situation where I would. But I also don't think that it poses a huge problem for the individual child.

I don't have a problem with term time holidays as a teacher but just wanted to point out this is a very old-fashioned method. We used to do this but now most schools now do weeks and weeks of place value, then weeks and weeks of addition & subtractions, then multiplication & division etc. This is the way the most popular schemes like White Rose are structured. Either way, missing a week is rarely that problematic. The issue is it's often children who already have a lot of random days off and are behind who take term time holidays.

I've taken my own children out for odd days because I know they're academic and it'll not make any difference. Even as they get older, if they miss learning about the Rosetta Stone or whatever - which won't be recapped - I can live with that. The curriculum is a essentially an arbitrary list of objectives. Within subjects like history, different schools can cover different things anyway so children at some schools won't cover the Ancient Egyptians at all and therefore I'm not going to worry if my child misses one lesson from that unit.

Not actually sure he is going to stay for year 12 tbh he might decide on college or go and work with dh where he can do on site training guess it’s more a future plan possibility. We have never actually taken the children abroad and kinda feels like times running out before his too old to want to come but cannot do 5+k for august 😅

Completely dependent on the child. A child working two years ahead in Maths and English is not going to be impacted. SATS are for the school, not the pupil so I'd not be bothered about Year 6. But I wouldn't in secondary.

Also it depends on the destination. A week's all inclusive to Turkey, I wouldn't. A week sight seeing in Rome or Athens, far more beneficial. And remember a lot of private schools offer trips to these destinations as part of the curriculum. The reason state schools don't is because they can't fund it.

I'll be taking DS out of school for a holiday soon. He'll be in yr 3 when the time comes. I'll help him catch up and I don't think he'll have a problem with it. If he does, then lesson learned and it won't happen again.

Sorry, are you saying that people shouldn't have holidays because others can't have them?

@CatamaranViper without wanting to put words into that poster's mouth, I think she was saying that it was more about creating a general pro-attendance culture in schools.

But pupils in Ireland take term time holidays all the time and educational attainment is higher there.

I moved to Australia, and we are on holiday on a school day today. I have two in primary school and I feel so smug every time I take them out that we don’t have these ridiculous fines. My children’s teachers are all lovely people who say ‘sounds lovely have fun’ if you say you are taking the dc out for a day or two!

Went on holiday for 2 weeks every year in term time as dad was not allowed school holidays off work.

finished my GCSEs, finished my A Levels, Finished my Degree. Work full time in 2 jobs I love (one is full time the second is between 20-40 hours a week), happily married, with a house and a baby. Absolutely no impact on me missing that time at school.

I don't think the issue is whether or not children can catch up the missed work.

I agree with the PP who referred to a culture of attendance. We know there is currently a huge problem with school absenteeism, and I think parents taking their children out of school for term-time holidays contributes to the sense of school being optional, which is really not helpful.

I've never taken my children out of school for holidays and never would.

guess it depends how much you value school! I personally don't really care what they miss while they are really young! I think travel can be educational and I don't think theres much they can't catch up on tbh

This is a really good post.

I don't care if other parents take their kids out of school but I do wish they would own these decisions. I see so many viral posts on social media with parents trying to justify why they're taking Freddie to Spain and how much they are supposedly learning on holiday, and often it includes a stealth boast about how well their child is doing academically too.

I take my kids out of school for an odd day every academic year but I don't make excuses for it. But my children are struggling a bit academically at the moment too so I don't think taking them out would be in their best interests.

Like you said OP you haven't reached that stage of parenthood yet! People managed in the 90s personally I think its an individual choice just like any aspect of parenting. It varies.

I used to be a stickler for attendance but saw so much time wasted in schools before the big school holidays that I wouldn’t have any problems pulling DS out for a holiday a week before Christmas, Easter or the summer holidays. Probably not at other times tho

@Bennettsister as a teacher that's a very pretentious and presumptuous view that your holding. I'm a single parent not MC and I've taken DS out for holidays.

The issue you have described about the vulnerable children or come from a chaotic background are completely separate issues. In fact the two comparisons are not even connected.

Also people seem to assume that all children with low attendance are doing badly and all children with good attendance are doing well and whilst I'm sure there is a correlation it is not that black and white. My children have missed 2 days of school each since September yet they are still behind academically.

I also think the rise of social media hasn't helped, some parents think they absolutely need to take their kids abroad at least once or twice a year to #makememories otherwise they worry that other kids are having experiences they aren't.

My kids have to make do with a week in Cornwall 😁