To think the penalties for term time absence is ridiculous..

[JKbowling]

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?

Wow, you are painting an interesting (and slightly farcical) picture of my home life.

you can try to paint your choice as some sort of exercise in independent thinking, but really it just boils down to you deciding to opt out of rules when they don’t suit your personal preferences. By all means question a rule when it doesn’t make sense, but unless it is morally wrong or unsafe, you still have to follow the rules. That is what it means to live in a law abiding society. I might not agree with the speed limit on a particular road, or certain building regs or licensing requirements but I cannot just decide ‘nah, not for me’ and then get angry about consequences.

It was an unreasonable request.

I wouldn't provide any lesson plans so a parent can judge them and make some stupid point to the head teacher. HTH.

The usual argument is that taking them out disrupts their education/they will miss a vital lesson giving them a foundation for a key skill/something that may come up in an exam. I don't believe that missing out on learning a Greek dance for an assembly on the Olympics is vital, no. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the efforts of the teachers, or indeed that I would take my own children out - clearly they were there for the Olympic themed activities! However I think a child would learn as much, probably far more, about Greece and indeed the history of the Olympics by going there!

Yes, all these factors and plenty more go into determining how a child's life will turn out. Ensuring good attendance on its own won't ensure that all students achieve top grades. And good grades don't guarantee a happy adulthood. Whilst students with higher grades are in general happier as adults, there may be some who would be happy with lower grades, and there are certainly some who will be unhappy regardless, just as there are some who will be happy regardless.

Maybe you need to work on your reading comprehension- this wasn’t my description of an ideal holiday, but trying to answer your question around how I manage to unwind without a week abroad every year. If you can’t cope with life without a foreign holiday I am very sorry for you.

I also feel slightly bad for the staff at wherever you are holidaying if you actually are living out this total abdication of responsibility.

@ThePrologue

Fuck me, if that's the attitude of a teacher, children don't stand a chance.
Factually incorrect too. Not all adults in work can choose when to holiday, and duvet days are very rare in organisations
If this attitude is being taught in teacher training, this country realky is fucked

Yes this came across as lovely(!)

Maybe if people in education are against the fines, those out of it should listen! And those against it who are education not being just because of school attendance data and what will ofsted think!

I'm an ex teacher and I wholly disagree with these fines, always have. It is incredibly enriching for children to have a family holiday and worth missing a week of school for IMO as long as it's not right before SATS, during Year 11, etc.

That's disingenuous. The link is for genuinely low attendance. Not one week off which still leaves attendance of over 95% across the year. Or are you claiming there's a difference in attainment between 100% and 98%?

I did read it. Pointing at someone else's behaviour to excuse your own is a bit childish.

Your posts were unpleasant and self righteous way before that.

It shouldn't be a race to the bottom though.

I'm 36 and my parents always took us out the last week of school, although our overall attendance was very good and it was never around exams or anything like that.

I won't be taking my now reception attending child out of school for holidays, mostly because I think he'll need the consistency as much as possible and extra breaks would impact him (he has some additional needs)

However, I do wish we could - not just for the cost saving element, but because I know during the school holidays places will be absolutely packed and he'll likely find them overwhelming.

I agree something needs to be put in place to improve school attendance, I just wonder if this is really what is needed?

The ideal would be using common sense and fining those who are consistently taking their children out of school (say more than one term time holiday a year?) and/or have worryingly low attendance with no communication/apparent effort to improve things.

But also put things in place to make schools less stressful and more supportive, so that those children who ARE genuinely struggling (and I know there are plenty, mine is already one of them) can start to feel happier about going in the first place.

But I expect all that was too expensive/complicated so they've thrown this in place instead.

Not realising there's more to life then work and education is sad

I grew up in another european country and taking a week or two off to go holiday was never an issue. Particularly if the child has great attendence overall and is doing well in school to think that a week wont make a major difference to this child. They send some extra homework so parents become responsible for their learning whilst away. I can confirm that we all turned out well educated with professional jobs. So I really cannot comprehend how strict it is in the UK… isnt it important for the child to also enjoy quality time with family and I also think life experiences from travelling is just as important

@XlemonX - so in your country, parents supervise homework from school while they are on holiday?

Whatever else, laws are made for everyone without exclusions, and a big issue that needed addressing was absence during term time for holidays. Unfortunately you have to suck it up or pay the fine.

I have no time for people who tell me to 'fuck off'

Oh please, the question isn’t whether you can have a life outside of work/education. The question is whether you are entitled to buggering off when told explicitly you cannot and face no consequences.

Lots of people on this thread trying to frame 'I want' as 'I need'.

Or even worse 'I want' as 'My children need'.

Very much this.

Mine has swimming lessons for that, and yes we’ve done the swimming with animals thing, I’m planning a trip to an elephant sanctuary on the next trip etc. it’s an experience definitely but it’s not an education. They are two different things. I “salam” and “shukran” “bonjourno” etc my way through countries but picking up polite phrases is not learning a language, it’s nowhere close.

The best thing they could do is to stagger holidays around the country more. The issue is too much demand crammed into short periods.

Also we all have to normalise just having one holiday a year (the norm when i was a child). Everyone is trying to have 2 or even 3 trips a year now - its the growth in demand making it more expensive.

British people seem to have got used to having cheap holidays abroad. Maybe the whole cheap flights phenomenon has skewed this.
Also, there seems to be a lack of respect for teachers and education by some posters, although I've seen it a lot on this forum.

@KatyaKabanova
Yes but only if the child is going for longer than a week or if its something important they need to learn that week. I think its a good compromise - you as a parent decide to take them out hence should also be responsible to educate them whilst away and make sure they are not falling behind

Since you're the one who decided to bring in other countries, the calculations are really something you ought to have done.

And you may not have noticed, but this thread is about the fining system. You went straight to term time absence is a problem, and engaged with precisely none of the problems with the fining policy. The thing the thread is about. It was a perfect example of there's a problem, we must do something, this is something and therefore we should do it.

Was it an issue though? In the context of the state of the education system, was holiday absence really a problem that needed to be tackled? Or was it something headline grabbing that added more red tape for schools, another target for them to stress over, a reason to villainise parents?

Would cutting paperwork and workloads for teachers, and better supporting struggling children into school not have been a better idea?