taking children out of school for holidays is ILLEGAL

[zippitippitoes]

interesting news report here \link{http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2075270,00.html\ High Court Ruling}

so will anybody still be taking those unauthorised breaks and days off?

Will schools get tougher

and does your school say no at the moment?

mb, I totally agree with you when you say it's up to parents to decide. I also agree with you that parents must realise time off always has an adverse effect on education. That's obvious - your child is missing lessons.

But I do think your examples (2 weeks off over a GCSE exam period) are extreme ones and this discussion is about more that that. Lots of people on the thread are talking atbout a few days off very occasionally during their a child's whole time at school. To my knowledge no one here is saying they would put holidays before important exams or course work. I know my sons have so far missed a grand total of five days due to us overlapping our holiday with term time - 2 days one year and 3 days another year. And this was several years ago when they were much younger. I honestly cannot see that those five days had any huge effect on their education or general attitude to school. I take your point that it had a short term adverse effect, but this is not something I'd be beating myself up about.

...and no one has yet answered my question.

I actually wish more people would start doing it - then school-holiday holidays will become cheaper.

Actually if everyone did it, holiday conpanies would most likely raise prices for term-time holidays and if everyone did it, the schools would have to start saying no for everyone.

In most schools, the 10 days additional authorised absence has obviously gone beyond being used sporadically for rare occurrences and is now seen as the norm by some parents and theirs to take and add on to the school holidays every year.

Tigermoth - Why would my DH say I could not take a day of annual leave if I was not sick?

If I had already used up my annual leave then no, I would not be able to take a day off if I was not sick, nor would I pretend to be sick to get the day off. But I'm a goodie-two shoes about attendance too. I am rebellious in other areas of my life!

I'm a little dubious about those who say they would only take termdays off for holidays during the Primary School years. If you are claiming only to be able to afford holidays during term-time, when you have two children in Senior School, you're going to have to wait a long time to have a family holiday. One child is in Senior school for 7 years and if you have another one two school years behind them, that's 9 years you'll have to forgo a family holiday.

My experience is that parents are just as keen to take their kids out of Senior School during term time for holidays.

We recently took dd (5) out of school for a week. We got permission from the headmaster and I spoke to the form teacher before we went and made sure she gave us reading books and maths and english work to take so that dd didn't miss anything. Every day we had a period when she sat down and did her schoolwork, so there was never the impression that it wasn't important. But it did give us the opportunity to have a family holiday when we couldn't have gone at half term (dh works in the travel business therefore 1/2 term is his busiest week and cannot go away). Dd has settled back into class easily. I think it's possible to manage term time absence responsibly.

baetie, I know what you mean about hesitating over throwing a sickie - I have had 3 days off (for real sickness) in the last 12 months, but it's extremely important for me to feel I 'can' throw a sickie without anyone at home telling me I can't. So, applying that to my children and school attendence, I would never tell them they must go in every day of their school lives, unless they are ill.

I think the point is that a possible safety net of 10 days so that in exceptional circumstances a child/children can be out of school without falling foul of the laws on attendance if the head authorises it has become

Dear Head

Our annual holiday this year is booked for the dates x to x

So at some point and in some schools it's already happening heads are going to say tough and they will have the law behind them

In Scotland it is already the case that unless there are exceptional circumstances the head cannot authorise absence so all these spurious days off even with the 10 day safety net are supposed to be marked down as unauthorised absence with any penalties that may follow.
Yours etc

So the Government completely ineffectually have taken so far a softly softly approach by asking all travel agents to tell parents that they must get permission first before they book in term time and raising awareness creating discounted hoildays (haha) through the campaign "every Lesson Counts" which has clearly had zilch impact.

So now you are softened up in anticipation of a crackdown Will it happen..I expect the first signs will appear on mn! I thought they might be here already. perhpas a glimmer from gdg

It is something I've changed my views on over time..I think it is partially related to a lack of confidence in school (not education)

I have to say I was slightly surprised by the number of english, school age kids in the resort we were in last week. Hypocritical I know since we'd taken our dd out of school but there were masses of english kids theer, many of them much older, and that's just one resort in one week, so it clearly is very widespread.

Go beatie! Go MB!!

As a teacher I find it unbelievably tiresome and time-consuming trying to deal with students who miss a few days of lessons because of genuine illness - let alone for totally unnecessary family holidays which could have been taken during the 12 weeks of school holidays.

I won't speak for other subjects, but mathematics is a building block subject. If they've missed algebraic fractions in the week that we do it, it will dog them for the rest of that year, and in subsequent years too. They won't be able to do factorisation, surds, calculus... The ONLY way to make this up is with a student that is motivated enough to go through the work themselves - and very likely the teacher to take extra time at lunch or after school to give them one-on-one help in understanding it.

As MB said - fine, take your kids on holidays. But:
(a) stop kidding yourself that they learn anything comparable to what they learn in school; and
(b) brace yourself for poor marks and don't expect the time that you squandered on holidays to be donated in lieu by a teacher giving individual tutoring.

I'll offer that support to students who have genuine reasons for missing school - and gladly. But no way for holidays.

Tigermoth - I think I was too blown away by the very idea of DH having any decision making capacity at all, regarding whether I go to work or not:)

I'm a firm believer that instilling the importance of going to school if you are able to means one is less likely to throw random sickies when they are working!

It really isn't something I would ever do! I think the Scottish work ethic is fairly well bred into me - and I shall be trying my best to ensure it flows through to the next generation too:)

I should also point out that the thing that concerns me is not really a single days' absence (although missing a particular lesson can still be a PITA if you get the wrong day) - but more like absences for 3 days or more.

For that reason, Tigermoth, I would agree with you that on exceptional occasions, I would be happy to let my child remain at home for a day because although not physically ill they were run down or stressed and just needing a little quiet time. But I wouldn't let them take a few days' off to go on holiday.

Correction: 'single day's absence'. (I must have been on a holiday when they did apostrophes... :o )

"Actually if everyone did it, holiday conpanies would most likely raise prices for term-time holidays and if everyone did it, the schools would have to start saying no for everyone.

In most schools, the 10 days additional authorised absence has obviously gone beyond being used sporadically for rare occurrences and is now seen as the norm by some parents and theirs to take and add on to the school holidays every year. "

This is exactly what has happened in our school.

By tigermoth on Friday, 10 March, 2006 7:54:12 AM

Oops, don't know how that rogue "By Tigermoth" got in there.

so does the head now refuse fnose?

btw I doubt very much I would take dd's out of school for a "cheap" holiday (don't know, not got there yet)
BUT
I would certainly consider it for one off days as I said, if there is good reason e.g. a dancing or sporting competition
also, and this is something I have just come upon - now that the different LEA's have different school holidays, it will be much more difficult for dd's to spend time with their extended family as the school hols are out of synch
so I might take them out for a day or two in primary school for them to see their extended family

See my post further down - some parents are taking weeks every year and the head has sent numerous warnings to no avail. She now will not authorise any term time holiday at all.

I do find it hard to believe that anybody works in such restricted employment that they can never take leave in the 13 weeks of school holiday time...

Harpsi so would you prefer co ordinated holidays rather than staggered (which in theory would lower prices of travel instead of the peaks we have now)and what about weekends?

yeah I think I would/did tbh. Personally I value time spent with extended family over "cheap" holidays, but that's just my personal preference... it hasn't impacted on me much so far because dd1 is in preschool but I have always holidayed with my extended family. I value that particaularly as we are living all over the country now.

on and sorry, weekend are not always possible, because many of my family work shifts/weekends. so if we meet up on a Sunday, say (which we do) several people are missing. also with the travelling, it is difficult to do there and back in a day with young children.
sorry this is very specific now...

one more thing, because I was thinking about this last night a bit.
What grates on me is this "rules are rules" thing - the idea that the rules of the school/authority are unquestionable.
several years ago I was in court and had a call to say that my niece was seriously ill and probably wouldn't last much longer (in ICU).
I asked the judge if I would leave and go and see her.
he said no. she wasn't close enough family
now I know this was inconvenient. I know I had a professional responsibility etc etc. But I went anyway. contempt of court or not, who cared.
now in that situation, I ignored his "rules" and if he had been a headmaster I would do the same thing again and take a child on unauthorised absence.
sometimes people in positions of authority make the wrong decisions.

I suppose it's symptomatic of the times, we are more mobile than ever and busier

Roll it forawrd a few years HC and imagine the Head has told you specifically that the amount of holiday your children have been taking in term time is adversely affecting their performance in school. What would you do? For a lot of parents in our school the answer appears to be "carry on regardless" which suggests to me that they're in the wrong school tbh.

er

I think I'd probably ignore the rules (and I expect any head would give permission) if a family member was dying harpsi