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 was a teacher for 10 years and can say that there is no correlation between bad parenting and taking kids out of school.
it’s completely up to the parents and I’d consider it when I have kids.
i was taken out of school to go to Israel weeks here and there and I was absolutely fine.

Reallllly? Firstly I don't think my behaviour influences Tommy's parents. Because if it did, Tommy would have a 98% attendance like my kids and not 60. But also, if you're not trying to stop arabellas skiing vacations, why have a problem with her skiing in term time. What if we all focused more on as you put it's stop tommy from failing his education'. And less on Arabellas vacation. Don't see how the two are connected at all. If anything, you have more time to spend on Tommy of there is 3 kids absent each week.

My 12 yr old GDC has been at school but not taught "proper" school work for over 12 months so having a week off is nothing and can easily be caught up!
I'd teach him myself but live in a different country. It's all very sad 😞

I think that the culture has changed as a result of the long periods of school closures in Covid times, combined with there being a strong narrative around at that time that parents who were worried about the educational impact of this were being silly and selfish (I remember numerous posts on MN in 2020 along the lines of “kids grow up in war zones where they can’t go to school and they’re fine - stop making a fuss about missing a bit of phonics and sort it yourself”).

That experience (and seeing how low the government really prioritised education when the chips were down) I think made a lot of parents feel the government narrative on attendance can’t have it both ways. Either every day of education matters (in which case why didn’t they work at ways of keeping them open, eg proper ventilation) or it doesn’t (in which case, why shouldn’t we be allowed to take them out for a few days when it matters to us)?

Also the realisation from lockdown that you can cover the entire content of a school day in less than an hour if you are working 1:1 and so able to tailor it to your child’s own pace.

Every single topic in both primary and secondary school is visited and revisited on multiple occasions - nothing is taught once and then left hanging forever. So long as children are not taken out of school regularly (several times a year), their education is not going to suffer in the long term. As others have suggested, probably best not to take older kids out just before exams, but apart from that ...

The airlines are the same pisstakers. Outside school holidays an Easyjet flight to my home country is about £100 return. Flights are on sale nearly 10 months in advance now and school holidays can easily cost me £300 return per person. I can’t afford to spend £1200 (family of four) and more on flights alone to see my DP and cousins. Already February 2025 is on sale and unaffordable.
and yes I consider it important that my DC have a Connection to my home country and their family (they have two passports). And I can’t drive 20 hours across Europe!

Best to not let other people's decisions when it comes to term holidays bother you op, as it won't affect you.

I don’t think parents who couldn’t be arsed to take their kids into school (and yes some of them do that, one of DDs friends had dreadful attendance because her mum didn’t send her in if she felt ‘tired’), would suddenly have good attendance if someone else didn’t take their children on holiday.

I know right 😂 what a bizarre take! As if those parents cared about that.

It's about fostering an attendance culture not about individual children. If attendance was valued by most parents, then that might pass to a few of the kids whose parents don't care. I'm not talking about awards for 100% attendance, but just a general feeling that about 90% is a good aim for all.

If attendance is not considered important, then it is harder to get children to go in if they don't want to - and many don't want to.

I actually think that primary children coming out of core lessons every week, especially maths for a bloody music lesson is far more disruptive. Every week I had to try to catch up a child who had left maths to play guitar and rushed her through the last 10 minutes. So difficult.

Missing school on a regular basis is far more impactful, we used to have teachers driving a mini bus to collect children of a morning to ensure they made it to school. Nothing wrong with the child but a parent who was overwhelmed and a school run was just too much.

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

This was always my stance until I started travelling internationally with work and decided to take my 9 year old with me on one trip as it was an opportunity to visit family we only get to see every couple of years.
It meant two weeks off school but it was completely worth it as he experienced so much.
Providing it wasn't an exam year I'd do it again.

School were very supportive and we made sure he caught up on missed work.

My DD was off for nearly 3 weeks with chicken pox aged around 7. She missed the entire block on telling time. She's now mid twenties and still struggles to tell the time on a clock face (but is fine with digital obviously). She has a first class honours degree and a master's from a prestigious university so I'm guessing it wasn't life altering. It's great for taking the piss out of her though ...

As a teacher I would say, it depends.

The impact is worst in Primary 1 and S4/S5.

It depends on the child.

It depends on the family.

It depends on the holiday.

People are mentioning life experiences, travelling the world, experiencing new cultures… but let’s be honest, in reality most families will be going to the beach, often AI resorts.
Also, for most the choice is not between a term time holiday vs no holiday at all, it is a term time holiday vs a less fancy holiday.

Note: I said ‘for most’, not ‘for all’

Oh they absolutely are. It’s not regulated at all, they’re allowed to just run rampant and boost prices to no end because it’s school holidays. Then Rishi, the man with the millionaire wife, doesn’t understand why people take the kids out of school to go away. Because for many, it’s unaffordable, but that doesn’t mean they’re undeserving of a family break away just because they can’t afford £9k to go to Spain in August when they can go in September for less than half the price.

It's very dependent on the academic ability of the child, whether the parents are supportive of education at home (e.g. doing times tables, practising reading every day...etc.) or can't be arsed, the age of the child, whether their attendance is normally good...

I'd never take a secondary aged child out for a week regardless of the above, but at primary it depends.

I take mine out. Maximum of 1 week a year. If they don't they'd never be able to go abroad. I usually do it the last week before they break up for a term.

This year its a winter holiday. The last week before Xmas, it'll just be craft and parties etc that week. I can't afford £4-5k for a week's holiday In the school holidays. I want my kids to see other places and 1 week is not going to make a huge difference.

I went on holiday the week we learned to tell the time. Still can’t do it now 30 years later. I’m forever being late to things.

I can speak a foreign language though, so swings and roundabouts.

Surely telling the time is something your parents should have been teaching you anyway with out a week at school.

You are BU to be worried about something you've said you wouldn't do!!

The sarcasm may not have come across as well as intended. At 30 years old I can in fact tell the time 😂

Serves me right for being on Mumsnet while cooking 😂 I was really shocked 😳 😂

It depends on the child.

A bright kid will pick it up the next time it's mentioned (maths and english topics are touched on repeatedly over a single year - most at least once a "big" term).
A less able kid, or one with significant SEN... one week isn't going to make any significant difference. That single week wasn't ever going to be the break-point between always struggling, and being at an expected level.

In other words, the children that either end of academic spectrum will likely be fine, either way.
The ones in the middle... It'll most likely be completely fine. But I'd maybe take a few reading books, and a couple of maths workbooks along on the trip.

If you choose to take your children out of school for a holiday, you don’t need to justify it by citing their attendance record. It’s a choice made because it suits the family.

Whether or not it has a long term impact in terms of an attendance culture, we will probably have to wait and see, because the numbers of term time holidays have increased so much only over the last few years. I suppose you could argue that doing something you prefer, rather than something you’re expected to do, could translate into the workplace in future years, but who knows.

I imagine it would be more difficult to organise if different counties chose different terms and holiday times ( and I know there is some difference now) but maybe travel companies might have to even out the costs if the terms and holidays were different.