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

@CatamaranViper yes... I think there's always an element of that deep down!.

Mine is KS1.. he's being taken out for 5 days in May , we're going to France and to be blunt we cannot afford to do it over the holidays.
Prepared to pay the fine if we have to, and the head has told us she'd do the same if she wasn't working in education.
Come secondary school we will not take him out, I believe their learning will change completely so will be an every other year thing for us so we can afford it during the school holidays.
No we don't ask the teacher for any work he'll miss out on but we do keep up with reading/ writing etc and his attendance is 100% or would be if we didn't take him out. Done the same last year.

Teachers were fine, but fgs don't lie to them and own your decision!
Your child will spill the beans and they aren't stupid!

Tbh I think it sounds like you think primary school is more academically “heavy” than it actually is

My DC is still in nursery so I think I'd avoid it but I could change my mind when he older and a family holiday is costing a fortune.

I missed nearly 2 months during GCSE because I was really sick. I'd manage maybe 2 days max a week and minimum homework. I still managed good GCSE's. Now of course I wouldn't reccomend taking your child out in such an important year on purpose.

Teacher friends have said as well the last few week of school v the first is always better.

My relative has a spouse from a very exotic place. They took their DC out for nearly a month to go stay with relatives over there. I think that was well worth it.

It isn't the job of the parents who can only afford holidays in term time to set an example to those who care less. They can't be held responsible for other people's actions.

If a parent is invested in their child's education, their attendance is otherwise exemplary and they made the effort to ensure they work with the child rather than the teachers having to repeat then the rest is not relevant. It is not a race to the bottom.

Justifying it this way will only further increase the competition for schools in wealthier areas

Supply and demand. You would never get agreement to spread out school summer holidays, the only thing you could do to reduce the price gap would be to ban child discounts during school terms.

If missing a week or two off school has such a catastrophic effect on their learning of 13/14 total years, then there is something wrong with our school system.

My kids rarely had time off for holidays, but when they did it had no effect whatsoever. They all got the results they wanted, worked for and deserved.

What pisses me off is that it's OK for school trips abroad.

Our school has three this year. One in June to Ireland then they are only back a week and off to Germany. Sure, they will be educational, but they are bloody expensive, too. I'd like the option of taking my child somewhere during one of the three weeks of school trips abroad this year.

I don't know... I am still undecisive but thank you all for your responses.

Now that I am thinking of more about it, I think it also affects the dynamic of a class if every week a couple of kids are off and the teacher would lose track on what is taught, what needs further attention and who knows what!

Of course, taking a kid out a couple of days before the term ends or after it starts, it's not the end of the world I think based on my school years.

But up two weeks in a row?.... it's not ok I think, no matter the school year. This is a lot!

And honestly if parents can afford 2 weeks off mid-term then surely they can afford 1 week off during the break.

Your kids are not even in school yet, half of what you are saying is not the reality. It’s not that kids are constantly missing every month of the year. A lot of kids are sick in the winter months every year too. Not every day of learning is crucial for the rest of your life. And stuff rightly gets repeated all the time because repetition is part of learning.

taking a kid out for 2 weeks is far from the norm, I have actually never heard of it only anecdotally of children who have family abroad. Most parents do a day or two before or after holidays as it saves £££ on flights. And yes we have family abroad in 2 different countries and want our children to see them.

so save all your judgements until your kids are actually at school and if it’s actually a problem. And start paying for some half term holidays before you judge others.

Why is my post pretentious? I think several previous posters are being pretentious.
it’s about creating a pro attendance culture.

if you want to take your child out, nobody is stopping you. But just own the fact that you are contributing to the massive problem of absenteeism, and it’s probably not your child who is going to be negatively impacted by that. It’s selfish.

Justifying what? Children missing school? Why on earth should I justify that.

Ok fine do what you like. Who cares if it affects school attendance (which is a measure taken into account by ofsted) and there is a poor culture of attendance in the school.

it’s selfish. Go ahead and be selfish. Just accept that’s what you’re doing.

If you’re worried about it, don’t take your children out of school when they reach school age. I don’t understand what the distress is about

I took mine a day earlier out once for example to see family abroad. The day they missed finished at 13.20! Saved me £600 in flight costs and I doubt my child was harmed academically by missing 4-5 hours where they mostly played party games.

Have to say I completely agree with the sentiment although in a totally unrelated track - I still remember how to draw the diagrams and it was actually a question in my standard grade geography exam(Scottish exams) how is an ox bow lake formed!
That said if it was an important school year most responsible parents wouldnt take out. My son is mid-primary and we are certainly considering it this year as I think he will learn more about culture, travelling and family relationships on a holiday than he will in 5 days in school.

Haha sorry I shouldn't laugh but you don't thi k mum can go over the UK rivers with them ? I mean with more time spent one on one than a teacher can with a full class. But in all seriousness my dad studies abroad while I was a teen and we were taken out for school 3 and 5 months respectively. I was year 6 and year 8. Year 8 was from September to middle Feb . Each of us got a friend in class to take an extra handout for us whenever paper or assignments were handed out. And then we borrowed those kids' books to catch up. I kid you not, I remember it specifically because we were all so astonished about how little academics went on in school. We landed on the Wednesday, got the books and papers on Thursday and by Monday back in school we were all caught up! No jokes. We didn't have to do the tests that we missed but obviously had to write end of year exams so had to catch up on everything . It took us a weekend, one flipping weekend. Insane. I wouldn't blink an eye to take my kids out of school. They learn so much more on a family holiday or time spent somewhere different.
The value of school lies in academics not.. it's to socialise to teach children how to win or lose, handle triumph and disaster etc. It most definitely is not academics.

We took my daughter out for an extra week and she is still top of the class. We are involved parents but it doesn't really make that much difference.

I own my decision - I am actually pretty sure 2 weeks in Japan she learned more than she would have in school but that is not a justification - just truth.

Also, it is not really my job to make decisions about my child's activities based on poor Tommy with terrible parents. I do what is best for my daughter - if Tommy's parent s are going to let him avoid school for no reason - it will be because they are terrible parents and I hardly think my daughter (or Arabella) going on holiday will change that.

Ohh to add the only thing we took with and spent about 20 minutes to max an hour was maths. My mom bought us each a maths book that was appropriate for our year and that's all we did for 5 months.

TBF it's not like anyone else is going to care about our family having a holiday together, so yeah of course its selfish.

My DS is 7 and has never been on a plane. He's never left the UK. We've had 7 years of UK holidays where it's done nothing but rain so we've been trapped inside the caravan/tent/ cottage we've hired. He's seen his friends and cousins go on summer holidays in different countries where they stay in a resort with a pool and kids disco's in the evening.

We've finally managed to save enough to take him on one but can't afford to go during the summer so it's a September holiday instead.

@CatamaranViper have a lovely holiday

Thanks!

As a teacher (secondary) I have noticed that far fewer parents are taking their children out of school now. I think the message is getting through that attendance is important. And it really is. The evidence routinely shows a direct correlation between attendance and achievement. Anecdata of “I missed 5 years of school, still got a PhD and now earn a million pounds per year” isn’t helpful. We should all be aiming for our secondary aged children to be in school regularly (or completely opt out of the system and home school)

However, at primary, I think the odd week’s term time holiday is fine if attendance is otherwise good. BUT please, for the love of god, own it! It is for financial reasons that you are taking your children out in term time. Don’t pretend otherwise! I hate it when friends tell me that a week in Rhodes is going to be a cultural experience with Timmy practicing his Greek and learning about mythology. Enjoy your holiday. Have fun but don’t bang on about it being a ‘cultural experience’. It’s ok to holiday for holiday's sake - you don’t have to pretend to me that they are learning all the bloody time!

It isn't so much any given day that is essential, but the cumulative effect of both missing them every year and seeing them as disposable.

If you want to be brutal about it, to take a GCSE you are only get to be tested on the stuff that is in the specific 2-yr course (and the skills required to get that onto paper correctly in the exam) - so you could actually miss huge swathes of KS1-3 and still pass your exams very nicely, provided you were still sufficiently numerate and literate at the start of the exam course.

I don’t disagree that it’s supply and demand, but there is no way an 800% increase in price is necessary that’s just greed plain and simple. And that’s a fairly bog standard UK holiday, the disparity in pricing is only more evident in holidays abroad.

Mine missed six years of British history (primary overseas) and still knew more than his peers, he'd picked it up from horrible histories. I wouldn't worry at all about missing topic based learning. Maths and English seems to be cyclical.