Holidays in school time

[nutcracker]

Did anyone know that if you take your child on holiday in school time then you can now be fined ???????????? Personally i think it's ridiculous, I have only ever taken dd1 out of school for holiday once but i asked for books and worksheets for her to do. What do you think ????

I can see how persistant term time holiday-goers must really annoy teachers, especially in secondary school. It must make it hard to do your job well. If you are helping a child catch up, that's less time you have to teach their classmates, so the whole class can suffer.

I don't think this fine will stop families who can afford lots of holidays a year from taking ones in term time. But I just don't like the implication that any parent who takes their child for any holiday in term time is irresponsible. The press reporting of it really grated on me for some reason. Slapped wrists for those naughty parents, while on other pages recently we saw pictures of Prince Harry on his gap year as well as lots of articles about spiralling consumer debt. As even the cheapest family trip in the school holidays costs well into the hundreds if not the thousands, I find it totally insensitive that this government schemed do not recognise that some families can afford ANY holiday at the 'correct' times of year.

I know of two families, neighbours of ours. Each has 5 children. They are not on benefits but they are not rich. Taking all those children for any day out will be an effort both physically and financially. Visits to cinemas, theatres, circuses, seasides, swimming pools, into central London etc, are extremely rare. For example, one of the 8 year olds has never been to Greenwich (a half hours bus journey away). I know this because my son plays with them. The children spend most weekends playing out on the street or in their houses. One of the families sometimes takes a week's break in May during school time - their only holiday. Just a sun and sea holiday, but IMO the experience of just going away from their usual environment is really important and if it can only be done in term time, then so be it.

I think most holidays to most children and especially primary aged ones who don't go away much are educational and it's easy for us as adults to underestimate the novelty and value of the experience for them.

Packing up, travelling on trains and planes, buying tickets, seeing inside an airport, then arriving in a place with a different climate, different trees and flowers and animals, a different language, (even if it's in England, a different type of landscape), going to a restaurant, eating different types of food, making new friends, seeing a little of other people's daily lives is something that no book, or video or computer game can replicate. Being a stranger in a strange land, looking at your home from a distance, being thrown together with new people and all the other things you associate with having a holiday (even if you travel 25 miles away from home) are experiences children should have IMO and parents should not be discourged to give them, even if this means school takes second place for a week or two.

Aloha, I know lots of primary teachers that would disagree with you when you said 'I never learned anything useful during those years - and certainly nothing vital that couldn't be easily learned at another time. ' Constraints on their time are as bad as they are in secondary school. It is so hard to get kids to catch up on missed work. If parents do it in the knowledge that their kids are missing out on education, fine. They are their kids, it's their call. But the buck stops with them if the children underperform in exams. If that doesn't worry the parents (and up to GCSE lewvel I have sympathy with this thought) OK. But what they can't do is take kids out of class and then later on complain. And trust me, this happens all the time. Especially with course work requirements.

I had a kid tell me that it was my fault that he did badly in a test because he hadn't covered the work. And the reason? He was in New York with his family at the time. Did he try to catch up? Did he hell.

I feel that the issue is less to do with whether Holidays are more or less important or educational than school. If the government is saying that children should be in school and that it is very important, then parents ignore that and take their children out of school they are telling the children that 'obeying' laws is something you can choose not to do....also that school is less important than saving money...not something I would want DD to think. IYSWIM

I totally agree with what teachers have said on this thread. I frequently have kids out of class for weeks on end ( I teach years 7 - 13) and it is a real pain in the arse.One time a boy went off to Florida for 6 weeks and the school wasn't even told until after his flight had left!!!!I think the holiday companies have a great deal to answer for as they will shaft parents any way they can, but parents also need to decide how important and 'educational' the in term time holiday really is. And my other point - maybe parents who denigrate the education system so frequently ( on this board sometimes,I might add)should put their money where their mouth is and educate their own children at home.That's my opinion!

Imo, it's just another example of govt inteference in, and their desire for control of, our lives. I don't need the govt to tell me what to do with my family and whilst I acknowledge that a minority of parents need help, why not concentrate on them and leave the rest of us alone? They'll be monitoring our supermarket shopping next, in case we're feeding the wrong food to our children, or checking up to make sure they go to bed at 7pm. I wish the govt would get off our backs and instead, applaud the majority of parents who make a decent fist of the task of child-rearing.

I have only just caught up with this thread....
Wish I had stayed out of the way now!!
HMB has said eveything that I would want to say
Apart from the fact there where she is a secondary teachers, i am a primary teacher
I will say no more folks....

I have friends though who moan when the staff are off for a day on a course or the reading book isnt changed on time... BUT they see school as less important when they take their kid away.

I think that they need to set an example of commitment and not take regular holidays in term time. obv a one off is more understandable fro aspecial event/reason.

Ithink you are all barking up the wrong tree about prices. Yes it is cheaper to go aboriad when the rest of hte world is at school but that is not the point!

try, as a teacher planning a honeymoon in school hols!

It's good to hear so many teachers highlighting this problem which I do think illustrates some parents' attitude to school. We teachers need to be supported by the pupils' parents - if parents tell their children missing school is fine or that you don't learn anything important there anyway how can we teach effectively. I am a secondary school teacher but I think the idea that you don't learn anything of use in primary school is insulting in the extreme to the teachers.

yes am suprised bY alohas comment - i thought we learned reading and writing in primary school?

i am glad that someone said that for me mimm!
you put it far nicer than I could

Just try booking a holiday! Once, in our childfree days after a particularly stressful term, we asked a travel agent to find us a holiday where we would be away from kids. "ah" he said "you've chosen the wrong time of year for that." So we had to explain that the timing of our holiday and the need to avoid children at all costs were directly related!

Actually, why am I moaning, I get 53 weeks holiday a year!

ooops, forgot to refresh - went off to get a glass of wine, and then came back to reply to Coddy's comment of 10 mins ago!

totally agree, suedomim, that this fine is an example of government meddling. Government should have more targeted measures to stop parents taking children away from school for frequent holidays.

As for the message it gives to children about parents putting money before their schooling, I think that's only true of some and very definitely not true of others, so I think it's unfair that all parents are lumped together as 'bad'.

If a family can only afford a modest holiday in May or September, then that's all they can afford. No choice of holiday time, simple fact. TBH I think my son would get the message 'my mum and dad put my happiness before school - though it's a special treat that won't be repeated.' He missed a week of school for a holiday when he started year 4 and I really don't think he now believes we will take him out every year for the same reason or that his schooling is unimportant to us.

I wouldn't be cross about this fine if it was targeted more. If, for instance, those parents who took their children on tri-annual holidays in term time were fined more or whatever, I could see the reasoning behind it. I can see how annoying it is for teachers, believe me.

It's just that I can't believe that most of you teachers would really frown upon a child who you knew hardly went anywhere or did anything, went away on a special one-off holiday in term time. Surely the benefits to that child would balance the missed schooling? And if holidays in term time are so bad, why are week long school trips now so common in primary schools?

its not that kids cant have holidays - they do have 6 weeks in the summer to have al the "educational experiences" they like!!!

I go on the holiday I can afford in the holidays.

Blimey, I'm surprised this thread is so heated!

I don't really see the problem, personally, since children will still be able to go on holiday in term time with the school's permission. I imagine the fine will not be used much but its existence will underline the fact that education is the responsibility of the parents as well as the school.

Yes, holidays are educational, but then so are day trips to the forest 10 miles down the road.

Of course we wouldn't, Tigermoth, but when you're teaching you do get to see the whole range ... and (as has already been mentioned on this thread) there are a lot of parents who really take the p*ss, taking several holidays in a year, and saving a few pounds by going a few weeks earlier or later. And while of course we don't know their full financial details, you would generally guess that these parents could afford it if education was what they valued.

agree - fof going to thailand in January for 2 weeks because its cheaper then. she of moaning about reading book

Of couse it bloody is!

Often the peoople who book hols at this time do have enpugh money and for them its the difference between one or two weeks holiday a year - harldy a hardship.

If you cant afford it then go somewhere else

As for the family of 5.. Tm that is somehting you have to take into account when you are planning to have 5 children!

thats why I am sticking with three and thats costly enough

It's not the 'one off' parents can't afford any other time that worries me. It is the large number of children who frequently miss school, for several weeks at a time. I worry about the kids who make no attempt to catch up the missing work and who's parents don't make any attempt to limit the 'damage' (like the parents of the year 10 child who took her away for a month so she missed a GCSE modular exam). And they do then turn round an blame the school when the kids fail to get an A-C at GCSE.

If you want to argue that the current system of education is too wedded to a 'set in stone' national curriculum, fine, I and almost every other teacher would applaud you and agree with you 100%. But we have the system we have. I'd get no end of abuse if I swanned off in the middle of the school term and left the kids high and dry. Dh is in the RAF so I know all about not being able to get holidays at the right time. If I went away because my kids needed time with me and dh (who they sometimes don't see him for months at a time) the parents of the kids I teach would want me sacked. And they would be right. So how is it that different when parents take their kids out to save a few bucks?

go hmb

I wanted to go away and re-read this thread and make a proper, considered response.
So here we go.
The thread started off being about parents being fined for taking kids on holiday in term time. I can understand both sides of this argument. As a mum, I think the prices of holidays are ludicrous and can see why, for many families, taking term time holidays is the only option. As a child, my father worked in the ship yards and my mum was a school cleaner. He got the same two weeks off each year ? the most expensive weeks of the year. We had very little money and did not have many holidays. Those we did have were to holiday camps which we loved and of which we have very fond memories. As a parent, I understand the money aspect of it all and can also understand why parents would get annoyed if they were fined for keeping children off school.

Now, with my teacher head on, I really don?t like the way that this thread has gone off at a tangent ? children are allowed two school weeks (ten days) a year for extra ?holiday? and, legally, any extra is ?unauthorised? as is any other absence without a legitimate reason. The school at which I teach has very little problems with truancy (we are very lucky) but does have a greater problem with children taking time off in term time for ?extended holidays? or several holidays a year. Most of the time, parents ask for work so that the child does not miss out. However, it is totally impossible to ensure that the child covers everything that they have missed. Inevitably, teachers give up there own lunchtimes to help children who have missed work (for whatever reason) as THEY CARE ABOUT THE CHILD?S EDUCATION (deliberate capital there). I speak for myself here, but I will bet that many other teachers agree with me. We break our backs to help children to learn to read, write, spell, learn and understand new concepts. Thinking they can simply catch up by doing a few bits of work on holiday insults the work that teachers do, day in, day out (and very often night in, night out aswell).

I teach in Year Six, which as many of you will know, is a SATs year, and whilst there are many political reasons why people shouldn?t get stressed out about this, the top and bottom of it is that our hands are tied. We want the children to do well ? yes, for the school, yes for our reputation, yes for their parents, but mostly FOR THEMSELVES. Due to timetable and curriculum constraints, missing a week or a fortnight can mean a large chunk of the course is missed. In many subjects, the knowledge is cumulative (i.e. you have to understand one concept before you can understand the next, more tricky concept). Missing school time can be a real problem. This is going off the subject slightly but I firmly believe that my DH is a really weak speller because he changed schools a few times at a crucial age.

To be honest, I don?t think fining anyone will work. However, when teachers are criticised, it makes me cross. Not many others jobs are criticised so publicly and readily by both the media and the public. I just wanted to put in my ?two penneth? into the debate.

BTW, I would genuinely give up a month of my holiday in exchange for a week?s holiday which I could take when I wanted it. I spent my honeymoon in the same hotel as two different families from the school in which I teach. Not my idea of fun!

I certainly do not want to upset anyone with this post but wanted to respond to some of the comments made on this thread,

Popsycal, I think you are very wise, and I agree.

One group we haven't really considered here are the children themselves. I know that I hated taking a day off sick when I was at school. And I still do - school is not like many workplaces where the same work will be there on Wednesday if you don't do it Tuesday. Everyone else moves on, and you have to somehow pick up that missed day.

I remember once having one afternoon off for a holiday. We had been given free tickets for hovercraft as conpensation for a spoilt holiday. As we were going to France and my Mum was the French teacher and so the head knew we would be speaking French there, we were allowed to go. I hated the thought of the three lessons I missed going on, with me perfectly healthy but not there learning them!

Good points, Popsycal, Codsy & HMB.
Not sure why Nutcracker (or others) are getting so het up about this if kids are allowed ten days of holiday during normal school time, anyway to which the fines wouldn't apply, am I right?? That surely must cover the holiday periods that Nutcracker or others are saying they might want their child taken out for missing more than 2 weeks of school, every year, just for holiday, does sound a bit excessive, no?

while I agree wholeheartedly with Tigermoth about the value of experiencing other ways of life...

I have to say it: having a holiday (away) isn't a right, it's a luxury. In our society, however, thankfully, education is a right.