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 still think compulsory PE is wicked. And in my school was certainly a source of immense humiliation and distress for many children. And I don't know a single adult who plays netball or lacrosse! Sport is a ghasty thing IMO and should have no place in education. By all means provide facilities for those who want to kick balls (and ideally for those to whom competitive activities are anathema - eg yoga) but compulsory table
tennis??? For 16 year olds??
BTW those 'weird stickers' were provided by the NUT during a pay dispute and were very widely displayed.
School isn't good for everyone you know, and IMO many children (esp at primary level) would benefit far more from a family holiday than a week in the classroom. I know I would have done, which is why I am entitled to that opinion and you are entitled to disagree with me. I also stand by my statement that I, personally, learned nothing from ages five to seven that I couldn't have learned later.

But primarily I cannot understand why, if it is not compulsory to send your child to school at all, you can be fined for taking your child out for a week. That simply makes no sense and is more about being seen to do something that doing something. There's lots of government crap about encouraging exercise, but most schools no longer have a swimming pool or playing fields as all the grounds have been sold off for housing estates. Also the thing that would make most difference IMO - and maybe even help stem the middle class exodus from state education - would be reducing class sizes drastically. But that aint a priority funnily enough.

Of course you are entitled to your opinion - just as I am entitled to think that books telling you how to write a novel are rubbish. It is just a shame that you are so negative in your views of schools. Many of us enjoy very much working with pupils and their parents in order to make it a happy environment.

I don't think that compulsory PE can be considered 'wicked'. Killing people, child abuse and allowing people to starve from poverty are wicked. PE was for me horrible but wicked strikes me as a bit of an over kill . And I was a persistant PE lesson avoider when I was in school.

However things have improved since my day. The KS3 national curriculum states that children must be taught:- (copied from the nationa curriculum web site)

During the key stage, pupils should be taught the Knowledge, skills and understanding through four areas of activity. These should include:
games activities
and three of the following, at least one of which must be dance or gymnastic activities :

dance activities
gymnastic activities
swimming activities and water safety
athletic activities
outdoor and adventurous activities.

So it isn't all competative sports these days. I think that you are letting all your views on present day education be clouded by your own experiences, which sound dreadful. I don't know when you went to school, I went from 1966 to 1980 and I can assure you that things have changed since my day. A lot!

I thought that there had been real research which showed that children who get a certain minimum amount of exercise tend to (on average) do better in school. They are more alert, have more energy, etc. There are historical reasons why P.E. came into fashion in schools, but I thought it had been backed up by later studies of actual children and their academic performance, too.

I think that it has something to do with increasing the blood flow and the degree of oxygen in the blood. It is coming back into vogue in the form of Brain Gym (which is a trade marked scheme). Teachers are encouraged to 'warm up' kids at the start of lessons using thing and physical skills. We had an INSET trainer at the end of last therm who thought that the fielf of the neurobiology of learning was the coming thing and thought that brain gym and things like it would become standard in lessons.

Participation in sport reduces risk of criminal activity and truancy, from the Scottish Executive .

US research: Schools that offer intense physical activity programs see positive effects on academic achievement, including increased concentration; improved mathematics, reading, and writing test scores; and reduced disruptive behavior, even when time for physical education classes reduces the time for academics. (Symons, Cynthia Wolford. "Bridging Student Health Risks and Academic Achievement through Comprehensive School Health Programs." Journal of School Health, vol. 67, no. 6 (August 1997), 224.)

A few more in the last vein, can't be bothered to keep looking, must be dozens of studies with similar conclusions!:

• Shephard, R.J., Volle, M., Lavalee, M., LaBarre, R., Jequier, J.C., Rajic, M. Required physical activity and academic grades: a controlled longitudinal study. In: Limarinen and Valimaki, editors. Children and Sport. Berlin: Springer Verlag; 1984. 58-63;
• Shephard, R.J. Curricular physical activity and academic performance. Pediatric Exercise Science, 1997;9:113-126;

And also I think that PE should be taught in schools so that kids who are good at sports should get a chance to shine and be the best in the class! Blimey, if teachers said that PE should be banned we'd be shouted down as educational elitists who only value the intelectual side of school and devalue the physical development of our children!

I was your typical nerdy girl, great at science, crap at PE. I loathed it. But why the hell should girls in my class who loved it be denied the chance to do it? I dare say that quite a few of them hated science. I'd have been well pissed of if any of them had tried to get it banned just because they didn't like it. And I know several girls who still play competative sport into their 30s and 40s. One is my boss.

I know a keen field hockey player in her late 30s...
When I was 14, we were supposed to run a mile once a week. Most of the girls cheated and pretended to have done 4 quarter-mile laps when we had only done 3 or even just 2 laps, just to get it over with. But a few girls were genuinely keen and really went for it, competing to be first.

Thing is, for some reason I got stubborn one day. Decided I would go for it. Really do the whole mile. And a friend went with me, what's more! She just pipped me at the end, we were the last ones out there and the P.E. teacher noted our times down with open disgust (10 minutes, I still don't run any faster!). But thing is, I did it. Neither I nor my friend ever would have tried if we weren't being dragged out there daily. That was the era in my life when I actually started to be interested in exercise. In spite of stupid P.E. coach, and years and years of always being bottom of the class before that... it was a good thing for me, in the end.

And funny enough, it's also the period of my life when I did start to do well academically -- more to do with starting to give a toss than improved blood flow, however!

custardo - so agree with you when you say 'I really do not think I am missing the point by being infuriated at the prices charged by holiday companies in peak times'. The government stance on the fine is not about parents v teachers.

This £100 fine is a rubbish media gesture IMO. I would so like the government to do something - anything - about the huge increase in the cost of a holiday outside term time. Over christmas I read the papers with dismay - reports on this goverment fine and then reports that the government considers that lack of an annual holiday is a sign of childhood deprivation. What's all that about?

I don't just the goverment should come down hard on the holiday companies. I realise there are practical reasons against this. August, school or not, is the peak season across Europe. But even so, surely 100% upping of prices in August is wrong? Surely there are other ways to help make family holidays a bit more affordable? Then IMO it makes more sense to impose fines on families who persistantly holiday in term time. What about this scheme of 6 smaller school terms a year (hasn't happened in our area yet - just talk) or as someone mentioned, making it law that employers compensate those workers who can't take leave during school holidays.

The annual holiday being a deprivation indicator refers to kids who don't even get weekends at granny's or Butlins or soggy camping in mid-Wales, doesn;t have to be in Corfu!

Tigermoth - not sure the 6 terms a year would make any difference. Most schools will have the same holidays as each other so there will still be the same high prices. The holiday companies will just alter their prices to match the new dates.

zebra, I know - and I'n not talking about holidays in the med necessarily. IT'S just that IME almost any holiday away in peak season costs a lot more than a low season, with the exception of youth hostelling where prices stay the same. Perhaps that's the answer!

hulababy, I also have no idea if the six terms a year thing would bring down holiday prices, but surely someone, somewhere can come up with a more creative and effective solution to parents taking children off school for holidays than imposing an ineffective fine?

zebra, not sure but I had the impression that the 5/6 terms a year dates would be set by the LEAs, not the Govt - so there could a lot more holiday weeks nationally and it would be harder for the hol co's to jack their prices right up for all of them?

Probably being naive though.

Just wanted to add. My son knows plenty of children his age, ( so I know them too) both in this neighbourhood and in our previous SE london neighbourhood who have a holiday once in a blue moon, and never, ever go anywhere at all for day visits, except with the school. If they visit their aunty, it's becuase she lives in the next road. I don't think (and I can say this from my own experience too) that most families, as it stands, can somehow afford to go away annually in the school holidays. If you can then you are lucky.

Custardo

Totally agree with your comments - the Government should be directing their policies towards the travel industry. Funnily enough, I posted on the BBCs News "Have your Say" column slating the Government and ABTA - but for some reason my comments haven't been added!!!

Just to add to follow up about PE - I swam competitively up until the age of 18 and was playing netball in a local team up until my mid-20s.

Have to say that I don't think the fine thing will work at all and that what is needed is more about changing people's attitudes towards educational values rather than anything else. People are currently 'allowed' 10 days holiday (agreed in advance with a headteacher so as not to interrupt exams, work experience, etc.) on top of the standard 13 weeks holiday. That is 15 weeks (out of 52) of holiday time allowed. Surely this is enough without people needed more time - other than in extreme/special reasons.

Rather than argueing about that though what we need to be doing is getting together and dealing with holiday companies. Then this wouldn't even be an issue for the majority of people.

JanH - the 6 week plan I had proposed to me (via teaching press) had holidays at set times based on terms being a given set length. And because of exams being at a set time for everyone the final two terms are pretty much determined. Working back from this the rest would have to be too. Unless the government are going to change everything about the educatonal system but I doubt they have even thoughti it out that far.

As someone who worked in the travel industry I can say that the prices rise when the companies know there is demand for the holidays (therefore no need to cut prices when they know the holiday will sell.) It is a business like any other and looking to profit rather than to cater to customer needs in regards to when the holidays are.

Although I have a couple of years before the boys go to school I would take them out during term time if we couldn't afford not to. And as a low-income family yet again we would be hit hardest. Of course I would ask permission and from what I've heard and seen they would learn more from a holiday than being at school! Sorry if I offend any teachers but it is true!

We don't do the sitting in loungers by the pool and I would rather my ds twins had knowledge of other places and languages. During December we took them to Germany for the Christmas Markets, even though they are only 2 they came back knowing some words in German. But I bet those who go on loungers by the pool holidays could justify them. (And before anyone asks how low-income families can go on holiday, answer, Ryanair and Squeezyjet!)

So that is my tuppenceworth.

Again the government will take the opportunity to raise airport taxes during term time and screw us all! Again.

There's a curious situation at dd's senior school atm. Letters have been sent out warning that holidays in termtime will be treated as truancy (apparently not even 10 days will be granted) and covering work will not be issued. Yet in the latest newsletter, there's a long item about a pupil who has been given several months leave from school, with full educational back-up, so he can compete in winter sports! Talk about sending mixed messages.

Argh, if schools didn't do PE it would mean I'd have to do it with my daughter. Or worse, pay someone else to!

suedonim, schools love having a sports star. There are some national standard skiers and tennis players at ds1's school - nothing to do with school, they do it anyway - but the school is always boasting about them and would presumably bend over backwards for them. (Though having said that they tend to be academic high-fliers too and very conscientious.)

I agree with Paula71 when she says the travel industry "is a business like any other and looking to profit rather than to cater to customer needs in regards to when the holidays are".

IMHO it's none of the government's business - would you really rather they harass the travel industry rather than putting their energies into sorting out the NHS and state education?? (not that they are putting their energies into these, mind) Demand sets the price for virtually everything in life and the fact is that demand for holidays will be highest in school holidays whether there be 3 terms or 6.

I had no qualms taking DS1 out of school for a week recently. His teacher agreed that they'd probably be covering any of the work he missed at some other point during his reception year