Holidays

[dubsie]

Holidays are becoming more expensive and this is especially the case during school holidays.

Thanks to the education act we are forced to cramming our holidays into just a few weeks a year and holiday companies know this and can pretty much charge what they want.

A week's holiday in Croatia has just cost me over 2500 for a family of three in a threw star hotel bed and breakfast in May/June The same holiday a week earlier was just 1300.

Isn't it it time that parents are allowed to take their children out of school for a couple of weeks a year so we can enjoy a break together. They are our children and they don't belong to the state .

Mumsnetters who write off all primary school teachers are awful. What a nasty spiteful remark!

Why not retrain as a teacher yourself and see if you can do better, or accept that maybe your child needs extra tuition because she is less academically able than her peers, or take her out of school and home school her yourself.

I am not a teacher BTW. I support them because they do a fantastic job in difficult circumstances. The last thing they need is unhelpful parents like yourself thinking you can do better.

Oh, and don't vote Tory.

Do any other countries fine parents for taking kids out in term time?

Oh, go on then, I'll Google it for you if you can't be bothered to do that yourself. 🙄
https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/03/11/travelling-during-school-time-here-are-the-fines-parents-could-face-across-europe

I suppose you're one of those people who asks their local Facebook group what time the supermarket closes too.

Yellin, "holidays closer to home" are literally the ones most subject to price spikes during school holidays! It is a big factor pushing people to fly overseas.

Allowing people to take holidays term time would make it easier to have holidays closer to home. I can see arguments against it, absolutely, but it would be better in environmental terms.

No fines in Scotland so we've regularly gone during term time

We often meet English families on holiday who've factored the cost of the fines into the holiday price.

If you want to go just go.

YANBU, I'm from NZ and I regularly got taken out for holidays, once to the USA for 4 weeks, over my 9th grade end of year exams too. Didn't impact me at all, I just did the exams when I came back, made sure I was up to date, got top grades all throughout high school and have just finished up with my law degree. The experiences from these holidays were unmatched. If your kids struggle, maybe not, but thats family dependent

"Oh, go on then, I'll Google it for you if you can't be bothered to do that yourself. 🙄
www.euronews.com/travel/2023/03/11/travelling-during-school-time-here-are-the-fines-parents-could-face-across-europe

I suppose you're one of those people who asks their local Facebook group what time the supermarket closes too."

Brilliant response. Exactly what I was t looking for. 😂

Misses the point of the thread but...

You're from NZ and you did '9th grade exams'?

The Netherlands has the police at the airports forcibly stopping children getting on planes outside of school holidays. The holidays are only approved in very rare circumstances

Then they just increase it the rest of the year as well. You are only restricted by school holidays for 14-20ish years, you will be able to benefit from cheaper holidays late/ were in the past so why make them disappear completely.

@LiquoriceAllsorts2 Wow!

I wonder if families there have the same issue of high holiday prices, or at least to the same extent as us?

I was looking back over this thread and wondering if anyone from previous gens knows whether a few decades ago, when it seems family holidays abroad were less common, so people holidayed at home:

• was it cheaper as it was more 'the norm', or actually still quite expensive due to high demand?
• did more families just not have a holiday* anywhere in the UK at all, maybe ever?

*holiday = at least one night stayed away from home

Based on what I’ve heard I think they do have the same issues especially in terms of flights and accommodation. There is the advantage of being able to easily drive to more places in Europe though compared to the UK.

School staff can never benefit from cheaper holidays, no matter how old their children are.

Which is why there needs to be a common sense approach to allowing children two weeks off a year for a holiday. It's a supply and demand issue, reduce demand in August and the prices will even out.

I've just booked a week's camping in August and the cost is £467.00 ....that's camping not glamping. So on top of that there's money needed for a couple of days out and a couple of pub meals, fuel etc...I'd say there's at least a 1000 notes there.

How much does a TA earn, 14 pounds an hour tops.....I honestly don't know how they could fund two weeks holiday in today's money when the average mortgage is over a 1000 a month and bills top 300...

They can when they retire

@Kokeshi123 I agree completely. The lack of textbooks in this country is baffling. It would be so much easier for kids to catch up as well as for parents to take an active role in their kids education with them.
This no taking kids out of school is very much a UK thing. My family in Poland and Germany find it completely baffling. They can take their kids out whenever, as long as they come back with the work for that time period covered. This is extremely easy to do seeing as they have textbooks and workbooks for every subject.

This also makes studying for tests easier, and generally just helping your child catch up or get a bit ahead in the holidays if they find school tough. It's so much easier all-around.

This ^
When I was doing OLD some men wouldn't date me because of only being to go on holiday during school hols.
Maybe if pupils are allowed to go on holiday during term time, teachers and TAs could too? Can you imagine the outcry from parents if told Mrs X won't be in for the next two weeks as she's on holiday 😂

It's because our state schools are so desperately underfunded.
There is nothing in the budget to pay for text books.

@RampantIvy Did they ever have textbooks? I remember them very very briefly in KS3.

I completely agree-it’s only been in the last few years that it’s been so demonised-it was always ok for term time holidays and people generally didn’t take the piss.

I teach at a school in a high area of socio-economic deprivation and the children I teach didn’t generally ever go on holiday in the summer as it was too expensive for the families. The ones that did, used to do things like a caravan holiday with grandma with Sun vouchers in May/June or September which was the absolute highlight of their time at school. Banning term time holidays just meant our children weren’t able to go away on holiday anymore at all.

Children attending private schools can, of course, be taken away on holiday whenever they want-no restrictions, no fines. They often have longer holidays as well so can get away when it’s cheap.

Bans and fines are just for the rest of us…

School staff can go in term time when they retire.

Families can go on holiday in term time when all of the children have left school.

Same logic.

There are no fines in Ireland.

Children attending private schools can, of course, be taken away on holiday whenever they want-no restrictions, no fines. They often have longer holidays as well so can get away when it’s cheap.

Independent schools generally have longer days, so the total number of hours in school is much the same as for pupils attending state schools.

An independent school can't fine parents for poor attendance, but the idea there are no restrictions is simply wrong. Most independent schools are aware that research has shown there is a direct link between pupils being taken out of school for holidays in term time and reduced life chances, so you will often find that their terms and conditions require pupils to attend every day unless they are unwell and permit the school to suspend or expel pupils with unsatisfactory attendance.

I'll be honest, schools are underfunded in Japan too. Too many pensioners eating up the national budgets

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/education-spending-highest-school-brazil-chile-italy-mexico/

Very similar levels of spending for primary kids; Japan's looks a bit lower.

It's partly about prioritization. School systems that think of textbooks as an unthinkable part of education that can't simply be opted out of, spend on them and not on other things; Japanese public schools are really dingy looking, so much grubbier looking than UK ones, have bigger classes (35-40 is usual) and have less tech - actually, close to no tech at all, frankly. They do have textbooks and it's just seen as something which you can't "do" education without; a school with no textbooks would be the next thing to "a school with no teachers."

UK schools, which I've also spent a fair bit of time in, do not have textbooks much in evidence; they are smarter looking (at any rate, a lot less dingy and run down looking than Japanese public schools), have nicer playgrounds and a lot more technology, and the classes are quite a bit smaller.

Personally, I think the textbooks are a better use of money, but I guess different cultures prioritize different things.

When a country has a curriculum set in stone, setting out in concrete detail the actual content to be covered at each level (not just aims/skills), this means private industry is able to produce things like workbook that align 100% with the curriculum. I can go to a bookstore here, grab a 5th grade science workbook, maths workbook and literacy ("kokugo") workbook off the shelf, and know that everything's aligned with what they are doing at school. I've never actually taken my child out for a long break, but do know parents who did do this, and there were no issues, and the teachers did not need to do anything in particular. I've always used the shop-bought curriculum-aligned workbooks to support my child's learning anyway, so they usually know stuff before it's covered at school, as do most remotely competent parents in Japan, including foreigners. So if I suddenly did take my did out for a bit, no big deal.

FWIW, I think English schools are mostly really good and the teachers do a sterling job in pretty hard circumstances, but if I had to make one criticism, I do think the lack of textbooks, lack of books coming home daily for parents to see, and lack of a really content-specific curriculum is one weak point. It encourages a very infantilized attitude among parents, where they don't really know what's going on in their child's curriculum, don't take charge of their kids' education, and just sort of expect the teachers to do everything for them.

They had them in year 11 for English literature and year 12 for psychology. I bought the CGP revision guides for most subjects in years 10 and 11.

With most stuff being available online I can see that there is less requirement for textbooks, but you can't beat a hard copy for some subjects.

DD didn't need to buy any books for her degree as everything was online.