Indeed tallulah - when I was at school it was only people whose parents were at the mercy of the factory rota who ever went on holiday in term-time. And no-one went abroad, I didn't go abroad at all until I was 15. Oh, no, that's not true, , Mum, Dad and us 3 kids went to a campsite in Brittany in our Mini when I was 10.
I still harbour some of the value-judgements from that ethos, tbh. That it was irresponsible to 'waste' valuable weeks in school, that education should be valued, that you never missed a day of school unless you were too ill to stand up.
The argument that they are our children , we can do what we like, provokes a little voice in me saying 'yes, but as a society we have set up a free public education system which aims to educate children for their benefit, and for the benefit of us all'. Schools and teachers put in a lot of effort and personal time to make schools work well. OUr education system, for better for worse, is set up around a certain number of weeks tuition. It is not durprising to me that Hulababy says two weeks absence can cause a drop in grades - and in the primary schools round us the ones that do really well in SATS etc etc, and are the ones that are most difficult to get into, are the ones that are ferocious in not just agreeing 'you can have two weeks off', but stick to the spirit of the law, which implies that under extreme circumstances it might be allowed.