lets start a campaign! parents rights to take kids on hoilday

[jayne222]

just want to rant a bit how unfair that schools no longer permit family holidays, the authorised absence thing is ridiculous for infant and junior children, the letter following and "unauthorised absence is threatening and rude, the fines are insulting and I feel mad about it!! I want to take a a short family holiday when it suits my family, I want to be concientious and make sure my child doesnt miss out on schooling, but this no longer feels like a free country!!

Shh up Orm! Otherwise we'll get carnival day cancelled again!

A year building the bloody thing only to have the performance barred- nah. not as long as they let other kids go off to the caribbean etc anyway. Which they always do (we tried the after school run down but it took 3 hours and the float left without us).

Bring on 2012 Saturday carnivals.

peachy - the carnival is an Exceptional Event! Doesn't count as hols.

Camping for wheelchair users.

Given what Frank Gardner has to say about the indignities of access to loos on airplanes for disabled people, I'd think camping was quite appealing for wheelchair users.

Kernow - your holiday sounds lovely but I still think it is irresponsible to take children out of school. I don't think there is any doubt that children remember holidays, but they will also remember that you don't value school enough to keep them there throughout the term. My issue with taking them out is not just the lessons that they'll miss, but the fact that it undermines the value of school in your children's eyes and makes life incredibly difficult for teachers.
I'm sure Cuba and Australia are lovely, but I honestly don't believe that children would have any mkore fun there than they would closer to home. Lovely for the adults to boast about though!

Buster Gut - clarification.

Personnel in the forces no longer get R&R for a 4-month deployment, which is what he's got.

Teachers do not have the same rights for 10 days holiday like students do.

So, either way, the answer is no.

yousank--
Do you really think 1 1/2 days undermines my/school values. I don't think so at all! We have also had holidays 20 mins up the road, nothing worth boasting about, but great to camping experience for DD as we all can get get away and it doesnt have to be long haul but still a great and doesn't cost too much.

Ragged whilst absolutely camping can work well for disabled people (all 4 of my boys ahve SN to varying levels) foir others it simply isn;t doable- hoists for example are needed, or other specialist equipment.

We're lucky as a family; as long as we stick to a one room tent it's by and away the best (only?) option- realised that after a rugby tour with our Sn club ended in me spending the entire time chasing after ds1 as he kept jumping out of caravan windows! never, EVER again!

not Porm

Orm

Porm is haha though

Porm Porms are what I would use if I was ever (mind boggles and refuses to consider the prospect!) to become a Majorettes.

ragged ry for he link and yes a disabled toilet may be fine as long as he ONE toilet is working .but not being rude you ever tried getting of a airbed without moving your legs and thats without pitching the bloody tent in the first place .

And the word disabled faclites /access can mean so many differnt things to people .

I am pretty adapatable and try most things but I know with the pracalties of camping and a wheelchair it does not work for me and before hand we used to camp regulary so not like have no experaince . .

Schools get penalised on their Ofted rating if there are too many absences. If you are up in arms about fines etc then your quarrel is with Ofsted, not individual schools.

Whilst I see the problem here are two comments:
If you are campaigning for children to be allowed term time holidays - what about teachers as well? We get stung by the price hike, my DH can't take his holiday in school holiday time - hence no holidays for my family, how fair is that? I will take it unpaid so the school can use my money to contribute towards the week's supply teachers' salary. I would be a bit worried as you can't guarantee the standard of the supply teacher the agency send.

Then look at it from a class teacher's point of view - thirty kids in the class that can take their holiday when ever their parents want.
Week 1 - teaching time and speech marks, but child A, B & C are away.
Week 2 - teaching place value and connectives - child A & B back (but have missed time and speech marks), but child C is still on holiday and child D & E have now gone away.
Week 3 - teaching data handling and writing assessment stories - Child C and D are back, but not child E yet, and child F, G, K & L are away.
... and so it goes on through the summer term - with the teacher frantically trying to plug the gaps with the children that have been on holiday and still push on with the curriculum for those who have not missed school.
We acknowledge chidlren take off time when they are ill, but not in the numbers we find for holidays.
This has been a fairly common pattern at my school over the last few years, and parents take their child away despite it being "unauthorised", as fines have not been issued. I had a grumpy parent complain that I commented in their report that the child needed to work on X. Their child had missed it while they were on a fortnights holiday. I've covered in several times in playtimes, but the child hadn't had the 8 numeracy sessions where we introduced it, embedded it, checked it was fully understood, applied it, developed it, etc. Another parent complained that her son was unsettled with his move to my year group and that his best friend didn't choose him to work with. They had been apart all summer and her DS had missed the first two weeks of the Autumn term. The dynamics of the class had changed without her DC there. We knew he needed help and provided various support, but if you know your child is sensitive and concerned about the new year how logical is it to make him miss the first fortnight when all the routines, expectations and relationships are established?
Yes, it's a pain with the price issue and children do have a great time and learn on a family holiday, but I really don't feel parents really understand the impact it can have on a child's education.

Excellent post Abigail!

I am probably being very dim but holidays are only more expensive in school hols if you use travel agents which are extortionate anyway - if you are pricing up a villa/cheap flight or cheap flight/hotel then they are exactly the same.

No most places have different prices depending on the time of year. School holidays are more expensive.

Downside of having school age children though IMO and you change your plans appropriatly

I'm with those that think learning is not by a long shot, all about what you do at school.
I agree with those that say that this is more attendance rates driven, rather than a genuine concern about the effects of taking children out of school. My understanding is that there is no issue in private schools with children being taken out for holidays.

I actually missed the whole middle term of school when I was 15. My parents had long service leave and we drove around Australia for 3 months. {I'm from Australia, so this was when living / in school there}. That was an amazing opportunity that arguably was just as educational as what I was learning in school at the time.
The school gave me work to do while I was away and I successfully passed the year, so it effectively made no difference to me missing that amount of school.

it does not instil discipline and abiding by the rules which will be very important for them in later life
I disagree with that argument too.
My attendance rate at school was very good outside of this time out of school, which the school agreed to, and so that discipline was still learnt.
As an adult I'm a really punctual / organised / reliable type of employee etc, who rarely has a sick day etc.

My son starts reception in September, I need to go and see the head teacher as soon as we start, as we have a trip booked to Australia in November. It's in term time as it's my father's 70th birthday, and this will be a chance to see our extended family.

I will think more carefully in the future about general holidays in term time, even though I strongly don't agree with the policy, but would book trips to visit famliy in term time again in those sort of circumstances, so the unauthorised absences / fines if something I can / will have to live with.

Ginger, I totally agree that learning is not all about what happens at school - a good teacher/school will understand this. (Certainly at primary school I can't think of much that a child couldn't learn at home.) All the fuss about attendance is inspection driven, although you can't blame the schools for worrying about this. However, it is schools' problem, not parents'.

I would also question the value of 'discipline and abiding by the rules'. Rules need to be questioned and evaluated. Our children when they grow up will understand that the consequence of taking unauthorised time off work is losing that work, just as they can understand that the consequence of taking time off school is having to work hard before and after to make up for it. As a teacher I have always helped parents to facilitate this.

"(Certainly at primary school I can't think of much that a child couldn't learn at home.) " Why do we bother then ... oh yes... free childcare!
UnSerpentQuiCourt - I'm afraid I can't say the same about the parents of many of the children I teach.

Yes, I think, sadly, that a great part of the function of schools is free childcare.

I think I probably phrased my post badly. At primary school I am hoping that my child learns to be part of a group, to share and relate to many different children and adults, to play team games, to be part of a gang of girls doing handstands in the playground ... place value and the use of commas I could easily do at home - or while on a train in the mountains in Spain.

However, I hadn't thought through the fact that there are many parents of children in my class who couldn't/wouldn't do this .... But I still feel that it is my right to decide what my child does, not the school's.

Where as I believe we are lucky enough to have a free education system 8.30 - 3.15 child care and it is wrong to pick and choose when you want it and went you don't. Especially with so many parents complaining when a school closes due to broken heating, burst pipes and (whispers quietly) teachers' strikes. It's OK for parent to say they can get just as good quality of education by taking their kids to Spain when they are choosing, then berate the school when the school is closed or doesn't provide the wraparound care they want.

There is an awful lot of belittling of the capabilities of parents on this thread. Of course going to Cuba is going to be a very educational experience - it is a vastly different culture. Of course many parents can provide their own child with as good an academic education as a teacher could. It doesn't mean they can do the job of a teacher - they're not asking for permission to take 30 kids on holiday with them.

The idea that you are undermining the importance of school education is also unrealistic. Does anybody seriously think that we measure the value of education by how many times somebody turns up? Surely it is about the intrinsic rewards of learning and working towards extrinsic goals through the exam system - both of which are the responsibility of parents as well as schools.

And Primary school is partly about childcare. I don't think that is offensive. Perhaps if people held primary carers (usually mothers) and people who are paid to work in childcare in higher esteem and appreciated that those people are also educators, they wouldn't be offended when Primary schools were also described as childcare.

Primary school is also about providing children with an institutional social experience with their peers, which obviously cannot be provided by the family and takes immense skill on the part of the teacher to manage properly. That is the main reason I sent mine to Primary school, not for any unique academic wisdom that I believed could only be imparted by teachers.

"There is an awful lot of belittling of the capabilities of parents on this thread."

The only people I've seen belittled on this thread are teachers!

I am astonished at the attitude that "I'll take my children out of school whenever I want to - it's only childcare after all" I hope the people who think like this are ready for thie children to have the same attitude - as soon as they are old enough to be autonomous you're going to have a hard job explaining why they should go to school. If you don't value education, neither will they. And why should they?

I would and do take mine out of school for hols. Always have, always will. If a child is missing the education it would be down to the parent to do the catching up. I do not ask the school for worksheets or anything like that. That is not their problem. It is mine, so I accept that I do the catching up wtih no effort from the teacher. This is where it all falls apart. Asking the teachers to set work when you are going to be away etc. Why should they go to any extra effort to do that? Their job is to set the work for in school, not outside.

I have been fined too, but I didn't pay it, and came up with the usual excuses, and it went no further.

Now we go sick. I gather the school are aware that many parents are going sick and coming back with a sun tan and nothing is said. What can they do.

It doesn't particularly bother me but I have always refused to set any work for the child or to help them catch up on return. If they miss it they miss it. I always make this very clear to parents.

It does make me laugh that they same parents who take their kids out in term time are the ones whinging about the school being closed for polling or because of the snow or even for insets.