Parents need to stop lying about term time holidays

[Ljcrow]

If parents want to take their kids out of school for a term time holiday because it's cheaper, I wish they wouldn't give the bullshit that it's an "educational experience". There's an article about this on the BBC today, but working in a school I've heard it all before. Can we not pretend that an all-inclusive to Lanzarote or similar is a rich cultural and educational experience?! If you want to take your kids our because it's cheaper that's up to you but don't try claim the moral high ground, no one's falling for it. (Fwiw I think holiday companies shouldn't be allowed to hike their prices up in school holidays, it's disgraceful, and as a parent myself I have no choice but to pay those inflated prices. It sucks.)

If you deeply disagree with the control of your children by school- you should home school them, people say they need 2 salaries, but if you are not very highly paid the saving in childcare will offset the second wage packet.
Resent the control but don't want to spend more time with your children? Then you have to suck it up because school is the only free childcare you'll get.

Schools have to obey laws. A week off school at certain times and in certain age groups definitely has a negative effect on educational achievements. It also signals parental attitude to education and work.

I don't think that wouod make much difference tbh.
Those who see school as a priority still wouldn't take them out, unless it's something so important that they do as a one off, and they do it regardless of whether they would get fined. We did it once, applied for it to be authorised under exceptional circumstances but were fully prepared to pay the fine if it wasn't, we were going
And those who don't see school as a priority and currently take them out, would still take them out, the only difference is they wouldn't lie about it to avoid a fine.

Genuine question here...

What is special about "navigating an airport" compared to a train station for example? Its been mentioned a few times.

Am happy to admit my children are "privileged" on this situation as we lived abroad for several years and a flight was pretty much the same as a train ride.

It doesn't have to be one or the other. You can value education and prioritise family time.
We did it once years ago in the credit crisis, 4 days I think we took. We asked what was being covered that week and never got a straight answer so we just did some times tables and reading.
Dd always came on far more with 1:1 anyway.

A teacher at our sons school was recently granted ten days off to go to Everest base camp. Teachers are humans with needs to, I’m pleased she had a great (but challenging time), it also builds on her skills as a geography teacher.

This ^
I was a child of the 80's whose parents took their kids on countless cultured trips which involved exploring exciting cities. Some, were also sat on a beach eating chicken nuggets or hurtling down a ski slope at speed.

My point is, those memories are far fonder than those of being sat at a desk crunching algebra equations, which I've never once used in my adult life. My teachers at the time too fully embraced the opportunities I had and fully supported my parents by allowing them to take work away. They never encountered one fine.

Before the comments about my parents being wreckless and irresponsible, I must point out that I have a great job, continues to live a cultured life and am mortgage free at 45.

The system needs a complete overhaul and there's no wonder so many parents are choosing to remove heir kids from the conventional system and preferring to home school. The state and parents needs to work to become more aligned as there so much more for children to experience in life other than that of a school desk.

Where we live children can be granted ten days off a year as long as it doesn’t clash with national assessments. I have no idea what other schools do, but our sons school always has the topics available online so you can look at what they’re learning and easily prevent them falling behind.

Have you considered not being so condescending to a stranger online?

@Whitste1

A bigger discussion but whilst many subjects have given me a deeper understanding of the world around me including physics and chemistry which I didn't do well in, maths has done absolutely nothing.
I've never had to do algebra or work out the square root, or even ratio work.

I only use and need the basic four operations.

@Simonjt wow that sounds incredibly progressive!. Are you in a state school in the UK?

Maybe if you educated yourself as to why schools get upset, you’d be better informed to comment. But clearly you’re among the ‘I’m entitled to a holiday’ brigade. Why not home school or pay for your child’s education if you want to do as you like. You’d all soon stop it if your child was excluded from school and they were at home with you all the time!

Has anyone mentioned school staff? No one that works in education gets any choice in when to take their holidays with their families. They don’t get paid great money so often don’t get to go on nice holidays abroad every year. They usually have to fill half terms with appointments as can’t get any time during term time. It’s a nightmare to get a meeting with their children’s schools as you are only granted 2 days in a year to do this so everything else would be unpaid.
And before anyone says “well you know this when you take the job” yes to a point. You don’t realise how inflexible working in education is until you are in it. Yes you get loads of time out but you get no holiday pay and your wage, especially for support staff, is pro rata to the point it can be below minimum wage. So there is no way you could afford a nice holiday in school holidays, which is the only time you can take it. You can ask for a week unpaid but what you would have saved you loose in income.
No support staff in schools do it for the money and most have kids so 100% understand how prohibitively expensive holidays are at that time. But without the support staff schools wouldn’t function so thank God people still want to do it.
Working in education is becoming more and more unattractive because the workload has increased exponentially, the children’s behaviour issues are beyond anything seen before, the changes to education go against all expert advice thanks to Gove and every education minister that’s followed and now schools are being forced to put ridiculous pressure on parents to force their kids in, even if poorly, because of an arbitrary attendance goal set by government. Yes there is a serious issue with attendance in schools and it does have a huge impact on those children’s ability to catch up. But most parents try really hard to send their kids to school and fining them for 1 weeks holiday won’t fix why the persistent absentees aren’t coming in. They aren’t going on holiday, they are either SEN and can’t get the right setting for them, in chaotic homes or have health issues.

And this is the crux of it. My children would probably be ok missing school, I can pay for tutors to catch them up if needed.
But the same children who are often (not always before anyone comes at me with their example) taken out for termtime holidays are the same children who often arrive late, who haven't done their homework, whose parents don't engage fully with school. As a parent governor of 2 different schools, and speaking to many other heads and governors, this is a fact. The children who are in living in poverty get their educational opportunities and their future earning potential further diminished and get stuck further in poverty trap.

Of course there are exceptions to this, where the only option is to take termtime holidays, such as those with a parent in armed forces, but these are the exception rather than the rule.

Sounds great.

Most of the people in this thread hypothesising about teachers having term time holidays did so in the belief that they were being clever, rather than making a serious point. But actually, it's not a bad idea, given the recruitment crisis. It only sounds stupid when used to make a stupid point about teaching staff and pupils identically. Clearly we need to do something more to get school staff anyway. The current offering isn't doing it.

I'm aware you're not in the UK, so perhaps this is just another example of there being a different way to do this other than England and still actually have a decent functioning education system. Which to listen to some MNers on the issue, you wouldn't think was possible!

There really are some unhinged people on this site. Hiding behind a keyboard and behaving like complete morons. That post was one of the worst, good for you calling them out on it.

There really are. People can make their point without resorting to name calling, when they do it completly undermines their validity.

I'd love to know what this person is like in real life. The irony of accusing me of being "enraged"... I could feel the rage coming off that post! Madness.

Did your obvious 100% attendance in education not mean that you were taught to use exclamation marks properly, then?

Your posts make my head hurt just reading them.

Yeah thank you, I'll take that on board. It feels a bit Martha/Baby Reindeer with the level of vitriol and rage!

That's so funny, you've hit the nail on the head and from now on if I see a post from her, I'll be picturing Martha, although in fairness I think Martha is a lot less scary😉

My stalker whom I rarely bother replying to has been screaming and frothing at people for about two days all over mumsnet. It's good you've bonded, you will get on marvellously 😘😂

You're right though, you do seem a bit Martha Reindeer. I'm glad you have that insight into your creepy behaviour.

Now, learn to leave other people's children alone, it's a very strange thing indeed to be so enraged and invested in their lives.