£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!

or perhaps the person had a fear of maths (as so many adults believe and will happily report they are no good at maths) because they had gaps in basic understanding

I don't like Gove's attitude to this (and many other things) but I can say that I see the consequences of years of term time holidays being taken in my job (university lecturer). Every year I tell students when the exam period is and warn them not to book holidays in that time (3 weeks in May, 1 week for potential resits in August, so not hard to work around) and every year I have students who tell me they are now going on holiday during exams and can they do the exam at another time? Then I have to tell them that no, exams can't be moved unless for serious medical issues, and they will automatically fail for non-attendance. Interestingly, many of these holidays are booked by the parents.

OP, I would have to say that five kids all off ill for exactly the same amount of time is going to look massively suspicious, apart from anything else.

Then Happy sorry but extra curricular sporting fixtures,music lessons,music exams etc are luxuries and not essentials either.

Mrz we're talking one week,I'm sure your average child could pick up quite easily.I did,children in my classes did.

My 3 knew all their sounds before starting school and I'm sure several others do or at least several.Going over them again and work the less able hadn't picked up easily didn't harm them.They have mixed ability groups for half their day anyway.

There seems to be a lot of hypocrisy on this issue.

I guess this is an issue with state education, where the users of it all have different needs and expectations. On the same logic that you can't deny holidays to children who have gaps in their learning if you are allowing holidays for children who don't, you could argue that you shouldn't differentiate in the classroom according to different abilities and prior achievement. We must all be treated the same, regardless of our differences, even if the teachers can tell which children will suffer from having time off and which children most likely won't.

The reality is, of course, that life is complicated - however much time some children spend in school, their prospects are still limited and they haven't even been allowed a few holidays in their childhoods to lighten their lives up a bit... meanwhile, some people seem to have all the fun and win all the prizes. The question is, does taking some of the freedom away from the lucky ones improve the situation of the others, or make their lives feel more bearable, or does it just piss everyone off?

And done are allowed to have all the fun and win prizes- in school time!

Some

I speak as a mother of kids who are allowed out to do this,that and the other in school time and who can afford a holiday during the hols(just).

I know educationally how important the benefits are re enrichment and sorry I don't think any of my dc's friends should be resigned to having sfa.

Retro, music and sports usually form part of the curriculum anyway. Extra curricular in our school happens after school so it's up to parents if they want their child to take part. Some clubs are free but some have to be paid for.

Competing in school sport or having a 30 min piano lesson is vey different from taking children out of school for a jaunt. No comparison what so ever.

Bollocks the benefits from said "jaunts" are huge.

Kids do music and sport in school time,they do not need extra lessons and fixtures,causing all this "disruption" on top.

They are luxuries.If you crack down on one you should crack down on it all.

Actually when you factor in monitor duties,time off for music lessons/exams,sporting fixtures,G&T courses etc two of mine will have had more school time off and caused more disruption than many who take a week off.

Actually re music lessons alone I would have thought various children out of the classroom for various music lessons every week would be far more disruptive than a child having 1 week off once during the entire school year.

I used to mind a child at a private school. She was always being taken out of school for holidays and her mum used to trot out the "wider education" excuse.

Child ended up 2 years behind the rest by the time she got to senior prep. Then mum moaned bitterly about the extra remedial classes she had to fork out for (when she'd been hoping to get her into the scholarship class) and had the nerve to blame the school!

OP, if you wanted cheap holidays, you should not have had so many children! It costs me and DS about £400 for a week in this country in the school hols, if I had more children, I would not be able to afford this. You have five! Surely you can't expect cheap holidays?!

Agreed.

In any school, primary or secondary, you will see children wandering around going off to music lessons, sometimes missing the same lesson each week and sometimes missing different ones to spread the devastation! This was one reason that we stopped DDs music lessons in school as she was getting too far behind with certain subjects. Missing science for example week after week had far more impact than missing 1 lesson if away for one week.

I've never in all my years had more than 1-3 children away at the same time and TBH it had a beneficial effect on the other children because class numbers were down and they got more attention.

Anyone who was behind due to a holiday would be given a worksheet or information about what they needed to do to catch up - there's no need to be holier than thou and all pious over it and make out it's such a big deal to do this. It isn't.

Go in the school holidays- they do get 7 weeks off!
It's more expensive but that's life- get over it.

I agree with you, it's ridiculous. My son has been at school in Ireland and Australia where thankfully they are much more relaxed about this sort of thing, In fact last year my sons teacher took a month off for his honeymoon in America during term time, no one batted an eyelid and on his return he taught them all about the places he had visited including Vegas. He is in primary school, it's no biggie. I've taken him out at the start or end of school year for a cheap holiday, and believe he got more education on those holidays than a week at school, he is top of his class ( and some) and is a more well rounded kid for having travelled to interesting places that he still talks of fondly.

My son is 12 and already planning trips to Italy and Nepal when he is older because he thinks they sound amazing, I doubt he would have the same curiosity about travelling if he had never done it.

No need to try to patronise!

A bit rich coming from a teacher who decides that somebody is no good at math when they have only 1 specific gap related to a weeks teaching that they missed on that specific topic.

Impatient

errr .....no. It wasn't me who decided someone was no good at maths. You acted as the messenger on this and it was the person who you referred to who decided herself that she was no good at maths, after missing 1 week at school.

Not me.

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.

You didn't write that then? Those are your words, not mine. Somebody saying they can't do long multiplication doesn't mean they are rubbish at basic math or that it eludes them.

Somebody saying they can't do long multiplication doesn't mean they are rubbish at basic math or that it eludes them.

I don't think I- or anyone -used the words 'rubbish at maths'.

You are making things up.

But long multiplication IS basic maths ( note the s - in the UK we say maths, not math) so if someone can't do it after 11 years in education and blames it on missing one week of school ..well...draw your own conclusions.

Retropear well done you and your children. Unfortunately it's very rare for our pupils to know any sounds when they start school, many don't have even basic language. But if it worked out OK for you there obviously isn't a problem.

I am actually surprised holiday is so much cheaper in July - Scottish schools are out from end of June and prices take a hike from then.

But long multiplication IS basic maths ( note the s - in the UK we say maths, not math) so if someone can't do it after 11 years in education and blames it on missing one week of school ..well...draw your own conclusions.

Well if you are going to reduce yourself to picking out my spelling and use of language then go right ahead. I'm sure it makes you feel better.

If you can't see that some people who miss an introduction to a subject might have a lack of confidence when revisiting that topic in the future then you are a being a bit blinkered. I know that if I had missed an introductory session to a new topic at school I would have felt a lack of confidence when the subject was revisited. It's that thing where you feel intimidated because everyone else knows how to do something that you don't. I would have tried (and probably managed) to teach myself how to do it from a book in order to catch up but not everybody can learn like that.
I am obviously wasting my time trying to make you understand where I am coming from though because you seem to have decided that children don't miss out due to missing new topics and that everyone can catch up because school is 11 years long and to not be able to do so means that they are incapable of learning something no matter how it is taught.

I am going to go away now and be glad that my children have excellent teachers who understand that different children learn in different ways and have different levels of confidence and react in different ways when they feel anxious about not knowing something that everyone else has already learned.

Long multiplication may be basic maths in secondary but it isn't basic for 5, 6,7,8 or 9 year olds and if young children haven't grasped the real basics they are going to struggle in their future learning.

It's a spiral though and an area revisited- a lot,every year!

Given how much input is expected from re learning times tables(and reading)I find it a bit galling that we are entrusted with our dc's as regards these issues but making a judgement re taking a week off nah- we're all criminals.

And re sounds the point is in any area some will know more and some less which schools cater for and account for perfectly well so the disruption argument just doesn't stand.

So the fact that national data links achievement to attendance doesn't stand ... interesting