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?

The UK has some of the shortest school holidays in Europe, in particular over summer, so I'm not sure that comparison serves you particularly well.

Yanbu OP. The fining system creates problems and hasn't been shown to achieve anything.

When did holidays away become an entitlement? Some people talk about a holiday (abroad or otherwise) like it is some sort of basic human right.

Education, however, is a fundamental right for your children and an obligation for parents to facilitate. I would happily see fines trebled.

i had all of 2 camping holidays as a child, both within 3 hours drive of home. I never felt particularly deprived, and have great memories of summers spent at home or with grandparents. It is possible to have a happy, enriched childhood without an annual trip away.

It’s not that education isn’t important, it’s that family time is important too.

Seeing each other at the weekend or evenings when there is still cooking / cleaning / daily stuff to deal with just isn’t the same. Many families only get one or two weeks out of the entire year to actually spend enjoying proper time together. For some families, if they can only take them in school holiday time they will never ever have a family holiday. For some people that might not seem like a big deal, for others it’s massive.

I would like to think there will be some sort of compassionate ground you could appeal on that for. Same as if a terminal parent takes the kids out of school for a last holiday kind of thing.

It used to be the case that children could take 2 weeks a year out of term time to go on holiday. When mine were in primary school we used to do this every year. Because of my OH's job he needed to be on duty in the summer holidays, so it opened up the opportunity for the children to have trips to France each year where they relaxed, and also learned language and culture.

Many other parents did the same. I have seen no evidence that this practice did harm.

Why do you need to go away to have family time? My family regularly has loads of quality time during school ho,I day without leaving our house.

I think most parents are capable of deciding what is best for their children. I'm not a fan of excessive intervention if the child isn't at risk.

Whereas camping is my idea of hell so it wouldn’t be a holiday. I never ever had a holiday in the sun as a child. My dad liked hiking. So we were dragged over the long mind and the moors in wind and rain.

I definitely felt miserable and deprived when my classmates were enjoying their beach holidays. Everyone is different.

'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.

Holiday companies and their punitive charges are well overdue for some regulation. Temptation to take term time holidays would then be reigned in.

I know, it's so strange in the UK. I wish education was valued more.

It must be obvious that we have a culture now that places much more value on travel than was the case a few decades ago. The childhood of anyone who's old enough to be posting on here is no longer a relevant example.

No it's not. We didn't get a holiday this year because our youngest has had multiple hospital admissions and surgery since birth.
Are posters honestly saying our eldest is deprived or will be emotionally damaged for not 'going on holiday '??

If you child has 100% attendance usually then just take them out once a year for less than 10 sessions. Simple.
I'm a teacher and work part time. We usually take the kids out for 2 days and tag the holiday into a half term to reduce costs a bit. They usually end up with 98% attendance as the very rarely have any time off ill.

Because you have to cook, clean, meal plan, wash clothes etc. It’s not particularly relaxing. It’s nice but not the same quality as a holiday and being able to focus on each other.

Don't they have 13 weeks holiday a year? A lot of opportunity for family time.

I grew up in the late 90s/2000s, so not that long ago.

At my school the last week is a total write off. teachers are taking down the wall displays and shredding stuff while the kids watch a film. The loss of structure is very difficult for autistic children like mine. Then on the last day, they mark them as present for the afternoon and immediately send them home - hence falsifying the attendance data and requiring all the parents to take a day off. Apparently this is ok because the teachers deserve a half day.

Ah, our kids are getting too much education and therefore slacking off a bit is absolutely acceptable.

Where did the idea come from that children HAVE to have at least one holiday abroad during term time every single year? When I was a child, people only went on holiday during the school holidays so when and how did the change happen? There's one family at my son's school that have at least two holidays abroad during term time every single year, they have their "summer holiday" during summer term and go skiing during the winter term. it seems that it's the norm now for people to take their kids out of school whenever they please.

I genuinely don't see the problem with that.

Nobody does any any work in the last week of summer term 🤷‍♀️

It's long enough for the cultural attitudes to have completely changed. Have you not noticed even in the last few years the increased value placed on travel? It's social media. No point telling people you had a couple of camping holidays in the 90s and liked it, we don't live in that world now.

We don’t get that time off work so, no.

So really it is about you getting a break from a few basic adult responsibilities, not the children?