taking children out of school for a holiday - why is our school so anti this?

[tigermoth]

I've just seen this statistic on the 'home' page -last year, 38% of parents took their child out of school for the maximum allowed 10 days of non sick leave.

Now some of this leave will not be for actual holidays, I suppose, but much will. I have been guilty of this - taking our sons abroad out of the high season, because it saved us well over 1,000 pounds.

Anyway, getting to the point and confining my question to primary school pupils, I know our primary school discourages this, as many do. But why exactly? OK if your child is on the run up to SATS I can see why it is not desirable to have a break, but if your child is, say, in year three (no SATS for a few years) what is the problem? Missing two weeks, if attendance is good for the rest of the time, surely isn't going to put your child at a disadvantage.

I just wondered if anyone - teachers or not - could explain.

So far I have resisted the temptation to take a holiday in term time but then dd is only Year 1! Principally, I really want to keep family holidays to school holiday times. However, our family income is low, even with Family Credit added. We only have holidays in England and then only for one week in the year. Even in England, prices can double during school hols which makes it very hard. I know it's not good for kids to miss school but sometimes I NEED A HOLIDAY!!!! and if the only way to get one is during term time ...

I feel guilty if DS misses a single day from NURSERY SCHOOL! He learns so quickly and the days are always so packed. OK we would be learning other things and I don't suppose he'd suffer in the long term but I'd still feel bab that he'd missed out. I completely sympathise with teachers frustrated if they prepare lessons and children miss out.

I can sympathise with the cost of holidays. We've not had a holiday this year for this very reason but are not organising ourselves for camping holidays which the children love anyway. I do think something needs to be done about the high costs though. We have laws in place so ensure a competitive market etc but there seems to be nothing to protect the family from this rip off. I really do beleive the government needs to take steps to enforce things otherwise people will feel compelled to allow their children to miss school.

However I also think that people should make more use of the UK for holidays. Perhaps if we didn't bump up our prices at home then people would be far more likley to holiday here, pouring money back into rural communities and boosting tourism. We'd probably also get a flood of people coming from overseas. There are plenty of gorgous places to holiday in the UK, now if only they could fix the weather......

There are a group of parents that have been missed out so far. Those are the ones who have no say when their holidays are. My dh did not have any summer holidays this year when the schools were off. He has a 5 year rotational shift and holiday pattern that dictates when he works.
I also am not able to take holidays necessarily when I want to either. Lots of us midwives have children and we can't all get the school holidays off.
Now, horror of horros, we are all off to Florida next week. One week is the school week ( which fortunately we were both able to get after much negotiaion) and the second week will necessitate an absence from school. My eldest will be sitting his prelims for his Standard Grades at the end of Nov/Dec and he knows he will have to be on the ball as far as catching up on work is concerned.
This is a once in a lifetime holiday for us with 4 children which is costing a bomb. We would never have been able to afford it in the middle of summer either.
I have never ever taken them out of school before and they always attend till the very last day of term. I get angry about that as many other parents don't bother with the last couple of days. The teachers make no effort to give them something interesting and fun to do. Consequently my boys complain that they are in a class of 6 who have turned up with bu**er all to do, and no reward for turning up in the first place!

Mears - you have made a good point about the end of term. It infuriates me as a teacher to have a half empty class for the last few days of term - why should these days be any different???

I always have things planned for the students - although I know that a lot of my colleagues don't bother - so I get really annoyed about parents who think it is OK for their children to miss these last few days for no particular reason.

I also sympathise with the financial side of things and obviously there will always be the unavoidable situations but in general I do not think that children should be taken out in term time for all the reasons discussed.But no one so far has thought about the effect on the other children in the class,my ds had until recently 2 children in his class who were taken out a lot; 2 weeks skiing in the spring, a week in the carribean etc .On their return time would have to be spent recapping work missed ( yr1 and 2) for the benefit of the child who had missed things,the teacher would have to spend more "one on one" time with the child to help him with topics missed ( the building blocks syndrome)and so much more these days is done in whole class teaching that if you have on who has missed time this will, despite the best efforts iof the teacher, hold up the rest to some extent.On one occaision I did have a bit of a sense of humour failure about it, as my child who had spent most of a week working on something had to share the end result with the child who had been missing for the construction week because he had been on the beach!So those of you taking primary children out do think of the effect on others.

Just read through all this - seems to be evenly balanced between the pro and the anti term time holidayers, with a few sitting on the fence.

Put me in the pro holiday camp. Not something I'd consider every year or do very near exams, though. I also think there's a difference between missing a few days because your holiday overlaps a term, and missing a straight two weeks. I can see that a class would move on a lot in that time.

Completely agree that if the goverment is worried about school absance due to holidays (and are they really?, can anyone give me proof of this? hope the answer is yes) then pressure needs to be put on the holiday companies to lower their high season prices.

I wonder how we'd all react if a schools/goverment body dredged up a statistic to 'prove' that children who miss school for holidays do ie 20% on average less well in their GCSEs and or SATS? Is there any research to say taking those two weeks off is measurably detremental? If I was in power and wanted to change parent's habits, I'd commission such research pronto.

Also, I feel I could be guilty of a far greater crime IMO, and one that deprives the school of my son's full presence and concentration very easily - my sometime failure to ensure he has a proper sleep before each school day. I have never come across a primary school that states in its literature that it is expected that all children will have a sensible bedtime. I have never heard of a school that routinely asks parents to collect their child early if that child is tired.
I think it is a touch inconsistent to discourage term time holidays while not encouraging good bedtime habits.

Tigermoth, we had the 'home-school' agreement to sign last week for ds's new school. And top of the list was that parents should ensure children arrive at school having had breakfast and a good night's sleep!

I remember whan I was 8 and my best friend was taken out of school for two weeks to go on holiday to the Med. A foreign holiday was quite unusual 30 odd years ago and I was struck by the realisation that her parents must have been far richer than mine. My parents could only afford a holiday every other year in a caravan in this country.
I had no idea there was any difference between us until that point. Given that one of the purposes of school uniform is so that poorer children do not feel disadvantaged amid their richer peers, surely by allowing holidays during term time, this principle is being compromised? It highlights to poorer children very obviously what they are missing out on. My friend talked about her holiday endlessly and I still remember my jealousy clearly now.

Tigermoth, we also had to sign a home-school agreement which requires children to have had sleep & breakfast before attendance. To put my vote - I don't agree with taking children out of school as I think it sends the wrong signals to the child (schools great as long as nothing more interesting crops up). We are lucky enough to be able to afford to go away in the hols (cheap holidays though - no luxury hotels), but if we couldn't it would just be holidays in this country I'm afraid. I don't think children learn any more by visiting a foreign country on the avg holiday - apart from swimming a lot better!

Ah yes KMG, thanks for the reminder about the home agreement. I have heard of these and at my son's previous school I signed one. I'm sure ours did not specify sensible bedtimes and breakfast before school. I think this would have been a good idea and it should have been linked to the school's policy on taking holidays, after all the two are very related I think. Mind you the school had a relaxed view about the odd term time holiday.

At my son's present school there is no home school agreement yet it states in its literature that the school strongly prefers parents to arrange holidays out of term time. Yet there is no mention of breakfasts and sensible bedtimes.

I'm sure my son has lost more productive school hours through tiredness leading to day dreaming or worse than he has through the 16 or so days holiday absence he's totted up in the five years he's atttended school.

The girls' new school also has something about children being 'well-rested' when they arrive in the morning. Some of them (not mine, thankfully) leave home at 6.25 for a 1.5hr bus journey. You need your sleep to be able to cope with that when you are just five years old!

Forgot to add, I thought some of the rationale over the proposed ?5 term year was that parents could take advantage of cheaper holiday prices. Mind you, it wouldn't take the holiday companies long to cotton on to the fact that children were now on holiday during weeks D,E&F instead of A,B&C, would it??

Suedonim, I think you're only too right about that. Mind you, such a cynical rise in prices might galvinise government watchdogs into action.

At the moment, the main school holidays are in
July/Aug - the height of the summer - so I suppose the travel business could argue the price rise is more to do with this.

If, however, you get shorter school hols in early June and late Aug for instance, then surely the travel industry would be more hard put to justify price rises then.

I do wonder if parents in other countries also face this diversty in holiday price?

In Germany the different States have different holidays, staggered over the year, and this does make a difference. Though, of course, there is some overlap. I think all schools are off the first fortnight of August.

Tigermoth,

The school I am doing my teaching ptactice put out it's news letter today. On it was a reminder that children need a good nights sleep before coming to school and that even 18 year olds need 8 hours sleep to function well. It also recomended a good breakfast, high in carbohydrates before coming to school.

Just wanted to add - education before the age of 5 is not compulsory anyway, so the school can't stop you taking an under-5 out whenever you like.And if its the difference between being able to afford to go on holiday, & not being able to go, who cares if they miss a day or so at that age?
Schools can be run in such a highhanded way - they are providing a service & some of them need to remember that IMO!

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I've only skimmed through the thread, so if I'm repeating or contradicting someone, then I apologise in advance!

Until ds I was teaching secondary, in a school where it was not considered unusual for kids to be taken out. But it was SO annoying for me - particularly when the child came back from holiday, had missed all the work done in the previous week, and needed the whole thing explaining again. One of the reasons I found this particularly bad, was that my subject is one that, as well as teaching concepts, has very concise modules. So a pupil could miss a whole section from the syllabus, if we covered it in one lesson, and then need it all talking through, explaining, and all the work making up and being marked.

For some reason my computer will only post short replies - so here is part 2!

Lots of people have commented that teachers can't take advantage of the cheaper holidays in term time. IME there are often very cheap holidays available in holiday time - perhaps not to the most popular destinations, but what about cycling in Devon say, or camping in the Lake District? Very educational for the kids, and I've found them hugely enjoyable for parents too!

Mears - I appreciate your point, and I think it is reasonable in your situation where you have no say over holidays to take them where you can.

Ooops, I'm really guilty here. I took my daughter out for a few days just so I could go away (no family nearby to take her to school etc) However, she was 4 at time so, as pointed out, not compulsory.

Have got mixed feelings on this one - I can completely understand teachers being fed up and I certainly don't remember it being the norm when I was at school. As tigermoth as said, I would be interested to know if the was any direct corelation between days mixed and performance later on.

Also agree that not all holidays are educational and this can be used as a justification by parents.

HOWEVER, I NEED a holiday, I work full-time and bring my daughter up on my own and, to be honest, don't see why I should sacrifice holidays abroad to have one in this country if I prefer to go abroad (which is often not that much dearer anyway than this country). I'm talking about the higher chance of better weather which makes me feel better and more relaxed, daughter happier, cheaper, better food, just somewhere DIFFERENT!

This year I DID have holiday in school holidays but I'm not so sure that I will next year. It wasn't a particularly expensive trip, but it was for me.

Should be 'missed' not 'mixed'!

Re Suedonim's earlier point about a 5 term year where there wasn't a huge chunk of school holidays through the summer - that would be great. Then we would actually be able to afford to take our English holiday (with our 1 yr old) in the summer. When I used to go abroad I was quite happy to go in May/June and Sept/Oct but now that I am holidaying in England I would like to be able to afford a go at the decent weather.

We hired a 1 bedroom cottage for just over £300 for the second week in September. Two weeks earlier this would have cost us over £500. So I'm really not looking forward to when DS is at school.

Musica, just to clarify - since my son is not of secondary school age, I have no direct experience of taking a holiday during a secondary school term. I really don't know how we'll view things then, though I suspect it would be harder for him to miss a module as he gets older. I remember lessons geting much more factual and high pressure once I started secondary school, many years ago. Anyway, that's why I confined my question here to primary, non SATS years only.

Tinker, RobinW, yes I agree. I need a holiday too! it's easier to be a good parent, IMO, if you are relaxed and rested.

We are lucky enough to be able to stay with inlaws in a lovely bit of the west country and these breaks have been our holiday for most years. So avoiding the cost of a high season holiday has not been an issue for us and we go in school holiday time.

However, last year, we did go abroad for two weeks in term. I cannot tell you how much my son enjoyed it, how many memories he has of it and how much good it did us as a family. It might not have been the most educational of trips - lots of beach activity etc yet my son learned so much: this was the first time he had heard people speaking a different language, seen cars driving on the other side of the road, flown in a aeroplane, felt a different climate, seen a huge range of different plants, had the experience of being a 'stranger' not a native. Things that don't have so much impact on a jaded adult who had holidayed abroad many times.

A holiday in the UK simply could not have given him this experience, and I think he learned more on this pretty standard beach holiday than he would have learned in his classroom. Not that we'd go abroad every year, or can afford to, but I feel his memories of this holiday are worth more than two weeks of missed school.

my kids are entitled to a holiday - i will take them on holiday in term time until someone in power tells the holiday companies they cannot make excessive amounts of money out of my children. two weeks doesnt harm their education - it screws up the teachers and their work plans granted, but it isnt as drastic as this thread makes out - they have 10 dyas off school per annum to go on holiday! its not really even an issue!