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.

I have views on whether or not children should be taken on holiday in term time but what I want to comment on here is Empress's view that schools are providing a service. I don't think it is a service that can be compared to other services that we buy.

I think the idea of school being a service is an interesting one, CAM. After all we talk of the health service/the education service etc. Not sure how you, Empress or I stand on this one, though.

way to go rozzy!

I wish it were more of a service. It always strikes me that schools are still working round the concept that one parent stays at home all day. Meetings about lessons, menus etc always seem to be at about 14.00 when it is most inconvenient to leave work for a bit. If they were at 9.00 or 16.00 it wouldn't be such a problem to go into work late or leave early, instead of having to take half a days precious leave for a 1/2 meeting or, more usually, have to miss it altogether.

thats a good point tinker, today i got a letter home asking for me to give support at my DD's netball match which starts at 3.30, then if you want to go to see the teachers it has to be around the same time, then i think there is also the issue of money - especially when you have more than one child, i have twins who go swimming every week with school which is £4.00, then there are the school trips and they keep sending raffle tickets home - and we dont know anyone, then sponsored events, again we dont know anyone so the kids have two names on their form! then there is the sports kit in senior school, shin guards, gum guards, fotball boots which are different from rugby boots apparently so i am told by DS something about more studs at the front ( heaven help me) its more expensive sending them to school than not.. free education system my arse, if you tell the school you dont want your kids to be part of these things its your kids that feel odd ....
.put this problem in the "guilt" pile please! along with the oh so many others aaargh

My class go swimming every week and it's paid for buy the school. Both Primary 7 classes get a ten week block of lessons. This is the same for all schools in the area and others.

I know that school trips are a lot of money but again my school subsidises them. After the enterence fee to the activity we go on and haveing to pay £300 for buses. I think our trips are reasonable.

I also know a lot of teachers who are happy to see parents before 9 and after 3. I prefer it because I don't have to disrupt a class to go and see them.

Please remember that teachers are parents too. We can't get away to meetings, netball or football matches. My dd isn't near school age yet but I'm already upset by the fact that I wont even be able to take her to her first day at school. Which as you can imagine is very important to me.

yes my childen used to receive free swimming lessons too in their old school, we lived in a poorer area and the trips were cheap too becuase school recognised that fact. the area we live in is affluent to say the least ( well i think so!) and a greater contribution is expected. but we dont all live in £250000 houses. teachers get paid extra for after school activity, but it ends up costing me more and when i cant afford it - more guilt - which was the underlying theme of the last post. its not a personal attack on all teachers, in fact we have the same problems dont we jopat - what with the guilt of not being able to get to school because of work

Can I add a totally other slant to the holiday thing. When I was a (secondary) teaching student in Glasgow, one of the schools I was in had a big problem with children being taken out for up to SIX weeks to visit family abroad - this school had a largely Asian (mainly Pakistani/Bangladeshi) pupil base, and children were being taken out for long periods of time, just before exams and some girls were removed DURING the exams. Needless to say, some of these girls were taken off on 'holiday' to return as Mrs someone.
Now while not allowing parents to take children out of school would not stop this entirely, when the school in question imposed a two week max period (dunno how they got away with it, I know Social Work were involved as there were child-protection issues) the number of girls missing exams dropped dramatically. Surely this is a good thing? I agree with the point that hols in the hols are dear, (although not as dear for us in Scotland, as our school hols start a lot earlier than in England), and that sensible parent will make holidays educational. I also support the idea that children from other cultural backgrounds should be able to visit their home country. But the blatant abuse of the system I witnessed is not justifiable in any situation.

Oh, where to begin. I taught elememtary children K through grade 3 sometimes all in one class some in single grades or combinations. Taking children out during school robs them of the shared experiences they gain in school. Many of these lessons, stories, games, tests, are done during the time your child is out. There is no doubt that travel is a learning experience but not during school time. Many parents would ask for "homework" for the children to do during travel times. Upon returning one of two things happen. The parents expect the teacher to mark the worksheets which went on the trip but were only reviewing the work already taught. And to teach all of the concepts from the weeks or month that the child was gone, to that child alone. Or you prepare the sheets and they come back not done and are told they were too busy to do it.
My solution was that the child be given an empty workbook and told to keep a daily diary of what was seen and done on the trip. As long as the parents let the child do it , it was a valuable tool when the child came back and shared the trip with the other children. When the parents obviously do it for the children, it is useless. I hope you parents will give special thoughts to how this speaks to your child when you say in effect, school isn't important let's go on a trip. Suelanda

Hi everybody,

We have arrived back today from our 2 week holiday in Florida which was absolutely fantastic. As some of you following this thread will know, this holiday was within school term time because my dh and I are shift workers who cannot get holidays within school holiday time, as we get them when they are given.
Anyway - I don't feel bad at all now because we had a great time and most beneficial of all was the family closeness we achieved that often is not there throughout the year. My teenage sons were happy to join in the family excursions that they so object to when we are at home incase any of their friends see them. Yes I know that doesn't need a trip to Florida but they were so overwhelmed by the activities there they couldn't be anything but nice to each other. The Americans are so nice to kids and each other, all the time.
I also don't feel bad because many of the kids were out of school the week before we went for 'work experience' ( my son didn't tell me about it till after the event, so he remained in school). He didn't tell me about it because most of the kids got irrelevant placements and were bored out their minds for a week. I am sure they missed out as much in lessons than my eldest ds who learnt lots of interesting things in Florida.
Anyway, jet lag has caught up and I am going to bed after a short surf of other threads. Is that possible? I'll probably still be here at midnight

Mears, glad you all had a fab time and reforged family bonds. Did anyone else read that article which stated that some of children's most vivid and happy childhood memories are of those time they were taken to theme parks, etc by their parents?

Sulanda, referring to your point, if you take children out of school think carefully about the message you are giving your children ie 'school is not important'.

IMO holidays are family times ( hopefully :0), so if you're happy for your children to think family is more important than school then there's little to feel guilty about.

Not that I'd make a regular habit of term time holidays. Everything in moderation etc.