Page 10 | To think the penalties for term time absence is ridiculous..

JKbowling · 2024-09-05T20:47:38+00:00

I got this in my email inbox today, sent to all parents and guardians. "Failure to safeguard a child's education" appearing on your DBS, really? As for term time holidays. If a family can't afford to pay for their one measly UK break per year to be had during the 6 weeks holidays (because the prices are hiked right up and become unaffordable) how does school suppose said family is going to pay the fine?

Labraradabrador · 05/09/2024 23:35

And for those using send as an excuse - it really isn’t. The level of business might be slightly lower, but if you are expecting popular destinations to become send friendly environments outside of term time then you are in for a rude awakening. One of my dc is autistic, and it definitely shapes how we holiday and where we holiday but not when we holiday.

BarbaraHoward · 05/09/2024 23:35

Ours didn't particularly learn anything on our holidays. Little bits and bobs and their fire swimming improved a bit but they were purely for fun (Spanish AI one year, center parcs the other). Lots of ice-cream and running and swimming. Great time. No hassle from the school, just "have a great time" before, and welcome back did you have fun.

No hassle, no angst, no drama. Everyone happy.

LoopyLooooo · 05/09/2024 23:35

noblegiraffe · 05/09/2024 23:13

Maybe you shouldn't be so patronising and consider that telling a teacher that it doesn't matter that kids are missing millions of hours of school so that their parents can take them on a cheap break.

Teachers generally tend to think that school is important.

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The people telling you that have every right to their opinion, do they not?

It doesn't mean you shouldn't take your time and think about what your saying, should you choose to reply to them.

BarbaraHoward · 05/09/2024 23:36

Mumofsend · 05/09/2024 23:32

Some American states summon parents to court for truancy notices.

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For a week's holiday notified in advance?

queenprincess · 05/09/2024 23:37

noblegiraffe · 05/09/2024 23:33

And so we should let education become optional to all those other parents because we should base government policy on you, and not give a toss about the millions of hours of lost education?

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and should we all let you put words in our mouths time and time again adding a question mark at the end again?

noblegiraffe · 05/09/2024 23:37

LoopyLooooo · 05/09/2024 23:35

The people telling you that have every right to their opinion, do they not?

It doesn't mean you shouldn't take your time and think about what your saying, should you choose to reply to them.

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Don't try and tell me how to post? I don't give a toss what you think about it.

Agn · 05/09/2024 23:37

Agn · 05/09/2024 23:33

There are a lot of people caught whose children are SEN and who, as yet, have not got EHCPs or diagnoses. A lot of these parents are caught in a system and unable to get their kids into school. Schools are not set up for all SEN kids and this problem becomes more apparent as children grow older.

Having been a parent who has a Sen child and who has not yet been able to get diagnosed (massive waiting lists for assessments and huge resistance with regard to statutory assessments/EHCPs), until you have jumped through all the mandatory hoops, it is impossible to prove that you fit into these categories. You have to be super assertive, resourceful and skilled (and often educated) as a parent to get through these hoops.

There is a cohort of parents and children who are unable to deal with all of this. They are just getting fined and more poverty stricken. And it’s the women who are predominantly being hit and made more poverty stricken. It’s the women who are giving up their jobs as they cannot get their child into school and keep down their job.

This is helping nobody and increased background pressure in these families will be making children’s anxiety a fuck of a sight worse. For parents who are caught with mental illness or living in harsh conditions or already vulnerable, this is just pouring on extreme & nasty pain.

planAplanB · 05/09/2024 23:37

noblegiraffe · 05/09/2024 21:56

450,000 kids were absent from school the last week of the summer term. You don't think that's a problem?

I don't think it's a problem. They don't do anything in that last week anyway.

AloofFloof · 05/09/2024 23:38

morningbbrew · 05/09/2024 23:35

I find it ridiculous that education just vanished during the pandemic and yet now we are all expected to buy into the story that little Jimmy will fail at school if he misses a few days to go on a family holiday

For a lot of kids it didn't. My children's school and college stuck to the same timetable online. For many of the kids that did miss out, it has been a big problem with some kids still not catching up. My child's school is still going extra lessons for year 11s.

It's pathetic to use a crisis like covid to be an irresponsible parent and take your child on holiday when they should be in school.

noblegiraffe · 05/09/2024 23:39

queenprincess · 05/09/2024 23:37

and should we all let you put words in our mouths time and time again adding a question mark at the end again?

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You appear to be arguing in favour of parents taking their kids out of school during term time, right? Making going to school optional?

Or is that not what you are arguing when you extol all the virtues of kids missing lessons?

Differentstarts · 05/09/2024 23:40

planAplanB · 05/09/2024 23:37

I don't think it's a problem. They don't do anything in that last week anyway.

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This. My eldest watched tangled, had a class party, and played games.

Scrabblequeen · 05/09/2024 23:40

I haven’t read all messages, but I see some teachers saying it’s disruptive for the class for kids to be out for a week or so- what if they’re out for a school trip? My son is going on the school ski trip for a week in January, 30 kids across 4 years are going, and my daughter is going to London for 4 days next month, again about 20 kids in the year. So not the whole class, and therefore when they come back they’ll have missed school, for effectively a holiday, and need to catch up. I sign my kids up for these things because it gives them good experiences, at a much cheaper cost than if I took the whole family say skiing in the school holidays. In my opinion families doing the same shouldn’t be punished. It makes no sense to me that if the school can take them on holiday, parents can’t 🤷🏼‍♀️

morningbbrew · 05/09/2024 23:41

AloofFloof · 05/09/2024 23:38

For a lot of kids it didn't. My children's school and college stuck to the same timetable online. For many of the kids that did miss out, it has been a big problem with some kids still not catching up. My child's school is still going extra lessons for year 11s.

It's pathetic to use a crisis like covid to be an irresponsible parent and take your child on holiday when they should be in school.

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I paid for my children to have tutors and online schooling because their schools just vanished (and I still had to work) . They didn't get any contact at all.

I don't take my children on term time holidays but I can sympathise with those who do. Particularly after the education of state educated children suddenly became so unimportant for the best part of a year.

RampantIvy · 05/09/2024 23:41

SoManyTshirts · 05/09/2024 22:03

My kids never did anything useful in the last week of summer term anyway. Particularly at primary school, where they were sat in front of films they’d seen before at the cinema.

Have teachers suddenly started providing lessons all the way through?

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DD had full lessons until the penultimate day of term at secondary school. They never had a whole week of no lessons at the end of any term.

morningbbrew · 05/09/2024 23:42

Scrabblequeen · 05/09/2024 23:40

I haven’t read all messages, but I see some teachers saying it’s disruptive for the class for kids to be out for a week or so- what if they’re out for a school trip? My son is going on the school ski trip for a week in January, 30 kids across 4 years are going, and my daughter is going to London for 4 days next month, again about 20 kids in the year. So not the whole class, and therefore when they come back they’ll have missed school, for effectively a holiday, and need to catch up. I sign my kids up for these things because it gives them good experiences, at a much cheaper cost than if I took the whole family say skiing in the school holidays. In my opinion families doing the same shouldn’t be punished. It makes no sense to me that if the school can take them on holiday, parents can’t 🤷🏼‍♀️

Exactly. How is that ok but not when parents do it.

So much hypocrisy

Agn · 05/09/2024 23:42

Just to add that when my child was out of school for days, weeks, months, the statutory authorities such as schools and councils could not care less. There was no contact. The silence was deafening. I was the one chasing them.

They had to be forced by me to give him the education that he was entitled to. This was an almost impossible task.

There are parents sitting at home for years, with children, having given up jobs with pensions and their financial security as the local authority wouldn’t get their finger out and do their legal duty and supply alternative education as per Section 19.

queenprincess · 05/09/2024 23:42

noblegiraffe · 05/09/2024 23:39

You appear to be arguing in favour of parents taking their kids out of school during term time, right? Making going to school optional?

Or is that not what you are arguing when you extol all the virtues of kids missing lessons?

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yawn.

Fizbosshoes · 05/09/2024 23:43

Labraradabrador · 05/09/2024 23:23

I think that’s a big stretch in defining educational value from a typical beach holiday, but I still stand by the assertion that it is less valuable than a week of school - not just for the content covered in school that week, but because of the larger signal you give your child around the value and importance of education.

i never saw a beach or flew on a plane until I was 18 - I still had a lovely childhood, and that critical bit of missed learning (how to beach abroad) hasn’t really held me back. I have successfully beached abroad numerous times despite that seemingly large gap in my ‘education’

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Once kids were at school, until last year when we went abroad at Easter, (DC were 13 and 16) we generally holidayed in the uk or camped in France. They are not as well travelled as many of their friends but it's not exactly a hardship.

And I feel that for the vast majority of people it means getting some guaranteed sun or warmth which is pretty understandable given the last couple of summers.
Agree education isn't just about sitting in a classroom but it's not as if the uk is lacking in history, different geography/countryside, museums, beaches etc if education is in fact, the main part of a holiday....

LoopyLooooo · 05/09/2024 23:43

noblegiraffe · 05/09/2024 23:29

As I said before, the assertion that parents are diligently only taking their kid out when there's nothing going on at school and they are taking them on wonderfully culturally enriching holidays is bollocks.

Like I said, one of my kids missed an exam. Another went on 4 holidays. You seem to think government policy should be based on the assumption that all these parents are really doing the right, laudable thing, when actually they're not.

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School parents are no different to school teachers in the sense some are really shit and some aren't.

And sometimes they're one and the same person anyway 🤷‍♂️

There's a lot of sneering and judging some parent's choice of holidays on this thread, and that says more about the people doing it.

Femme2804 · 05/09/2024 23:43

If you cant afford to go holiday during summer than dont go. Save up and going holiday every 3 years 4 years or so. Dont take your kids out of school.

kids needs to stay in school, go to university, get a good high paying jobs, so they can have family and can afford to go on holiday every year on school holiday. If you are educated its easy to find a good jobs. I never take my kids out of school unless they are really sick.

Labraradabrador · 05/09/2024 23:43

OlympicProcrastinator · 05/09/2024 23:32

Great for you if you can afford to take holiday during those weeks or get time off work.

And especially great if you don’t have a job that gets really busy during school holidays.

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… as mentioned previously, we mostly don’t go anywhere. Given the legal minimum holiday entitlement is 28 days in the uk, I would be astounded if parents were never able to align 5 days of that with the 13 weeks of school holiday throughout the year.

how about this as a rule - anyone who never manages to get time off work for at least one week during school holidays can apply for a special waiver on fines every other year? How many waivers would be issued?

OlympicProcrastinator · 05/09/2024 23:43

noblegiraffe · 05/09/2024 23:16

If only there weren't 13 weeks of the year when kids weren't at school when they could do that. If you can't afford it and really think that it's important, then save up?

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The difference can be thousands though. Not just a few hundred more. Not everyone can do that.

Differentstarts · 05/09/2024 23:44

Scrabblequeen · 05/09/2024 23:40

I haven’t read all messages, but I see some teachers saying it’s disruptive for the class for kids to be out for a week or so- what if they’re out for a school trip? My son is going on the school ski trip for a week in January, 30 kids across 4 years are going, and my daughter is going to London for 4 days next month, again about 20 kids in the year. So not the whole class, and therefore when they come back they’ll have missed school, for effectively a holiday, and need to catch up. I sign my kids up for these things because it gives them good experiences, at a much cheaper cost than if I took the whole family say skiing in the school holidays. In my opinion families doing the same shouldn’t be punished. It makes no sense to me that if the school can take them on holiday, parents can’t 🤷🏼‍♀️

Also striking is ok. So if it's on the teachers terms it's fine but if its the parents that do it that's not ok. I'm pretty sure that's what @noblegiraffe is saying

noblegiraffe · 05/09/2024 23:44

OlympicProcrastinator · 05/09/2024 23:43

The difference can be thousands though. Not just a few hundred more. Not everyone can do that.

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Tell me again, a teacher, how much more expensive holidays are out of school time

Sotiredmjmmy · 05/09/2024 23:45

Mademetoxic · 05/09/2024 22:22

'Family time' children have had 6/7 weeks off school and you're bleating about family time??
I never had a family holiday growing up
I went on day trips instead. This has no impact on me as an adult whatsoever.

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@Mademetoxic the parents haven’t had 6/7 weeks off too though have they? I spend maximum 2 weeks of the summer holidays with my children as I work full time, the rest of the holidays I actually tend to see them less than when in the school term routine. Taking them on holiday gives us dedicated family time away from day-to-day home chores etc. It also gives me a much needed break.

As for your comment that not having any childhood holidays has had no impact on you as an adult - that’s impossible for you to know, as you are totally oblivious to what the difference would have been if you had travelled widely as a child and experienced different cultures etc, it may have made no difference but it also may have completely changed what route you went down at school, after school, job, career, how independent you may be etc. You simply do not know but for many having the experience will broaden their horizons and give them life skills too.