£350 for 1 week in July term time- family of 7 - or £1100 in school holidays??

[devonvalley]

Yep that old term time holiday chestnut-
We are a family of 7 we can only afford to go on a Uk term time holiday, or have no holiday at all!(yes I know some do not holiday at all !)
Why is it seemed the, one holiday a year family, like us, have to be penalised , and berated?
It appears to my friends and I, that in our experiences, the people who can afford there £3000-£4000 a year on their peak season holiday, have little regard for families such as ourselves and our friends predicament, because money appears to not be an issue for them.
Travel, new experiences, and valuable family time are great educators , are they not? so when those of you who resent , parents who take our children out for 5 days once a year, spare us a thought, its most probably the only time we can afford to go.(and avoid fines by ......!)
Also when school residential trips seem to cost £270 upwards- £350 for 7 of us to go away, not just one of us seems to be preferable!

Hacked - that would cause complete chaos and have a major impact on attendance levels across the school. If 30 children all have a different week off then somebody is off almost every week and on the sickness days which can't be helped = chaos for the teacher.

as a teacher - yes I have a smaller class for a week but unless a significant number all decide to holiday at the same time this makes little difference to my workload but it can make a difference to some children who don't find learning easy.

For what it's worth I don't have a problem with parents taking their child out for a family holiday but I do think expecting your child to keep up a lie when they return to school is naive. The first thing they are going to do is tell the teacher all the fun things they did.

I have to laugh a little here because when my dd1 was in y3 and learning was severely disrupted with 8 supply teachers for a term and huge amounts of dvd watching...the head said to me :" you know mrs sovery, its only a term... Children catch up and will be ok - a term off won't disrupt years of education"...

expect the teachers to cover the missed work when their children get back or they expect the teacher to provide worksheets etc to take with them.

Do they? How do you know this?

Well if they do then the answer is simple- just don't ( teachers) do it!

I think a touch of reality is needed here: at primary school level, there is very little that is missed in a week away that is going to hugely impact on a child's learning. Taking the long view now- have children with masters degrees now in their late 20s- I can honestly say that a week out of school for any child regardless of whether their parent is a teacher or not, does not disrupt their education for life.

If you use this argument then the same has to apply to children who are off sick- which will amount, in most cases, to far more days away than a week's holiday.

I wasn't a primary teacher anyway- I was secondary- but it is common sense that if your child misses out on a new topic- eg 'fractions' - then you get a book from WH Smiths and fill in the gaps.

I'm afraid I believe in parental choice but also parental responsibility- and that means it's not the school's role to fill in any gaps a child has because parents take them out of school.

And if parents can't do this due to their own lack of education well...they are ultimately responsible for their children, not the state.

The fact you don't know how much can be missed in a week away from primary school is clear. It's the time children are putting down the foundations for future learning yet the time most people seem to see as less important

Re sounds as a rec I was constantly assessing.Often some who were there didn't pick up all the sounds as soon as they had learnt them so I would revisit and my TA would take out children individually and in groups to go over any gaps.

All classes have several abilities and children out for a variety of legal reasons alongside sickness.

Sorry many schools are allowing children to have time off and getting good Ofsted results.

Following on from Sovery my DS has had half his job share off the entire year and has been taught by a selection of supply,dd had half her job share disappear at Xmas.She ended up being taught by 4 different teachers,a selection of TAs and a student.That was apparently fine too.

Lazysummer - we had had posters on here (this forum, not this thread) who have previously given their personal experiences of missing vital work due to their parents taking them out of school for a term time holiday. The one that sticks in my mind is a poster who says she missed long multiplication due to being on holiday the week that it was taught and despite the subject being revised later in the term she never got the full teaching of it and is still not confident about long multiplication as a result.

I agree that it is not the teachers responsibility to cover missed work, but unfortunately some parents that I have come across believe that it is the schools sole responsibility to provide an education for their child, including any gaps due to absence. Do you really believe that all parents see the value of buying fraction books from WHSmith to assist their child's learning?

Sadly not all parents have an active involvement in their child's education. In an ideal world it would work as you suggest, but it doesn't because not all parents are bothered enough and ultimately it is the child who is affected, not the parent.

@soveryupset Exactly

In Nottinghamshire you don't get fined, but it is marked as unauthorised absence.
Having worked in secondary and primary I would say teachers don't care unless it's an exam year.
The primary schools in my area have many kids off for thr odd week. The secondary schools they feed into get about 85% a-c s.
I think u a can be a factor in under achievement etc, but only when combined with other issues like social deprivation.
I do think expecting kids to lie is harsh and unrealistic.

I am trying to book our holiday too.

School breaks up at 1.30 on the 17th July, ds is leaving yr 6, has yearbook signing, leavers assembly etc etc

If we fly on 16th or 17th our holiday will cost £4000 ( ish). If we fly 19, 20 or after it in excess of £6000

Sorry my 10 year old just taught himself long multiplication from a book.If an adult can't do the same there are problems a week off school didn't cause.

I used to be taken out for the most of June,most years.Still managed to get a degree and become a teacher.

Impatient- your example leaves me speechless. If an adult hasn't got to grips with some basic maths, given all the help there is online and in books, then I doubt very much that the week she missed at school has any bearing on it whatsoever.

I don't believe that all parents will bother to fill the gaps by buying books.

But equally most parents continue to fill their child's lunch boxes with rubbish according to most research, and show a complete disregard for looking after their child's health.

Are we going to fine them for that too?

I don't have a TA Retropear and support SEN children before school and during my lunchbreak when do you suggest I fit in another group?

So all your children are the same ability and pick up everything at exactly the same rate? Wow,I've never had a class like that.

Lazy summer; as a teacher I would expect you to know that different people learn in different ways and not everyone has the capacity to learn from a book. Some people need humans to actually help them to learn.

I had a good standard of math myself and managed to teach most of it to myself as my school was beyond poor, but I am not naive enough to think that everybody else is able to do the same.

If all kids learn at the same rate and level how do you cope with the G&T kids off out on courses,the musical kids having lessons and exams,the monitors doing monitor duties,the sporty kids doing sporting fixtures,the children off ill etc? You must have hoards of booster groups in order to catch up all this vital work missed.

Impatientismymiddlename - which neatly underlines the point that all parents are being treated like parents who aren't bothered enough, regardless of the parents. The most bothered parents are, as a result, punished for the sins of the others, whilst the others continue to take their children off on holiday and pretend they are sick, resulting in everyone feeling worse off...

It's funny isn't it.It'll be the m/c kids whose parents can afford music lessons,out of school sports clubs,G&T courses etc and holidays during the hols that will expect and benefit from enrichment activities during school term time but the poorer average kids are expected to do sfa as regards enrichment- ever!

It stinks!

One rule for one class of people and a different one for the less well off and the gap will get wider.

Poorer kids will never experience handling foreign currency,a foreign language, culture etc thus not seeing the point in languages until years down the line when they will go abroad in secondary(if they can afford it,obviously richer kids will be allowed out on these school trips then too).

Said poorer kids will never think the ever widening global market as regards jobs and further education is for them.They'll never aspire to earning enough to travel themselves and that is before you consider all the benefits even an extortionate week in rainy Cornwall would bring for many kids stuck in cities and vice versa.

It's so short sighted and laughable.

I agree with that rabbitstew but unfortunately I do think a blanket rule is the only option because I can't imagine schools having to tell children and their families "sorry but you can't have a term time holiday because your parenting and attitude to education is crap, little Josie from your class has involved parents who will fill in any gaps so she can have the time off".

Not all councils are doing the fine thing, Sunderland isn't, two siblings in my school are having an additional 7 school days off on top of this week I dread to think what that would total

Devon isn't as far as I can tell.Some kids in my dc's school have done some fab things and my dc have benefitted as they've looked up destinations,heard all about their travels and want to visit said places themselves(not likely at the moment).

It would always have to be a blanket rule, you can't say yes to some and not others on the basis they will make up the works. Just the same as you can't grant time off based on finances.

There are thirteen weeks, fifty two weekends and bank hols to go away in. No job would mean having to work everyone of those. Holidays are not essential in any shape or form, they are luxuries. Nice if you have them but fine if you don't.

No Repropear my children are not all the same ability and don't all pick up things at the same rate which is why I give up my lunchtimes to provide extra input. Unfortunately f you aren't in school you can't access that either.

Lazy summer; as a teacher I would expect you to know that different people learn in different ways and not everyone has the capacity to learn from a book. Some people need humans to actually help them to learn.

No need to try to patronise!

There are also some people- children and adults- who are incapable of learning something simple no matter how it is taught.

The person you refer to had 11 years minimum of compulsory education.
if basic maths eluded her after all of that time, then it's nothing to do with missing a week when she was 8, or whatever age she was.

The whole issue comes down to personal freedom and choice.
Parents act irresponsibly all of the time in so many ways- whether it's not encouraging their children to exercise, (by setting an example) eat healthily or spend time away from the pc.

It depends on how much state control you feel is necessary over parenting.

The whole issue has evolved from the need to rank highly in league tables and heads are terrified that absences will impact on attendance figures, SATs and GCSE results.

I don't think anyone can genuinely believe it affects a child's education in the long term- there's a lot of dishonesty in all of this.