holidays in term time parents win a victory over the lea

[zippitippitoes]

.........\link{http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/23/nedu23.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/23/ixuknews.html\ story here}

"When they returned home to Park Farm, Peterborough, from the visit to Cape Town to see Mrs Donaldson's family last Christmas, the local education authority ordered them to pay a £50 fine for each child. The penalty doubled after the fine was not paid within 42 days.

When that was not paid, they were ordered to appear before Peterborough magistrates, charged with failure to ensure their children's regular attendance at school. However, the couple were given an unconditional discharge, with no fine and no costs."

oh and no I never went aborad on family holidays as a kid. This one we are going too is to france in a chalet (if we are lucky and manage to save the pennies). However france or the bahamas shouldnt actually matter. Gov/LEA allow 10 days and is at discretion of school too. Re the disruptopn of class... I have never had ds come out of school complaining of class being disrupted due to a childs absence or return. Lighten up people and let the kids have a childhood. Yes in our day it was different, but so was a lot of things.

I fully agree that a child's place is in the classroom. Heaven forbid a child get to see the 'real world' when he could be in a class of 30 learning to swear; pick his nose and enjoy school dinners. How DARE those parents make decisions for their own children. Bloody ridiculous--if we aren't careful people may start having minds of their own.

Don't dare take your child out of school. Let the nanny state dictate precisely what you do every single day of your life, Awen!

lol

You get 13 weeks school holiday a year - plenty of time to 'see the real world', and there is no need to get on a plane to do it either.

no no this is all about railing against the system GDG .. a kind of 'they're my kids, I'll do what I want don't you tell me when and where'

yes the costs are unfair but I think you feel one way or another

I hate the concept of kids taking time off school to go on holidays .. I think its wrong ... big full stop

Ditto!

Oh yes and because my kids are bright it doesn't matter if they miss school - of course, if they were struggling I would suddenly find the extra £x and go in the hols.

Actually though if you can only afford England surely you would want to go in July/August in the vain hope of some relatively decent weather.

Really, Twiglett? I can see both sides of the argument, but I find it really hard to believe that you think it's wrong in every case "full stop." Do you really think people with family overseas, for instance, should deprive their children of meeting grandparents, aunts and uncles just so they can stay in school?

oooh, it's all changed since my day!

It's none of my business what other parents choose to do, but my own pov is that I want DS to learn that we put committment to school very high, that we have the pleasures we can afford, and not feel envious of what we can't afford / achieve.

I feel uneasy with our growing need to put pur personal wants before anything else. We MUST have cod in our fish fingers, even though stocks are at extinction level, we MUST have air travel and big cars, whatever their environmental effect, we must have designer clothing and nike trainers, however much we go into debt etc etc etc. I will be honest and say that for me this 'sense of entitlement' around holidays abroad is more noticable than a 'travel broadens the mind' attitude - handy as an excuse, but in all honesty, the kind of travel that REALLY braodens the mind isn't what most people view as a holiday.

Yes, I'm an old lefty meany, with a puritanical attitude - but the first time I went abroad was to work on a farm in Norway. Not quite true - we had had a family hol camping in brittany - but when I was 17, working was the only way I could have afforded to go abroad. I was driven by curiosity and adventure, but had I been trotting off all over the place from an early age, maybe I wouldn't have been arsed to work for 6 weeks, just to enable me to see the world.

More to the point, how the hell do you entertain them for the long stretch in the summer if you've already taken your main holiday in term time?!

(Another person who has "deprived" children because we're not going on a foreign holiday again this year... kids don't give a toss )

And you're all so NESH! Are we breeding a generation who can't swim in the sea in this country?

No poppadum, I don't think "people with family overseas, for instance, should deprive their children of meeting grandparents, aunts and uncles", but I think it should be done during the 13 weeks in which children are not at school.

people who live overseas can come over during term time .. you can go over there during holidays .. at least that's how I interpret it .. and yes I have family overseas

and whilst I have no idea what Blu's NESH means I am so aligned with her take on this I will say yeah

Just wondered how we would all feel if the teachers took time off to indulge in cheaper hols!!

Nesh = wussy, soft.
I am firmly in camp Blu Twiglett here. Would not dream of taking children out of school for a holiday of any sort. Think it gives them the wrong message about school and the teachers the wrong message about you as a family.
Although having learnt to swim by dodging gobbets of grimy seaweed in the sea off Whitstable I can quite see the appeal of the Med in June

I agree with Twigg about the 'they're my kids and I know what's best for them' position. Which I don't quite understand, myself, here or anywhere else - I mean I don't own them, they're people, and actually I have to concede that DD1's teacher is probably rather better at knowing her educational needs than me.

Like Blu, I have masses of family in countries it costs a lot to visit but don't plan to do so during school term.

nesh is wimpy, soft, peelywally- basically someone who wouldn't swim in the sea beacause "it's too cold, and I might tread on a sharp stone, and I don't like the tase of salt water...."

me too, camp BluTwiglettMarina

or raw sewage mixed with Thames detritus in the case of the North Kent coast tissy
We've agreed on this issue before I think...

AND ME ME ME ME ME

ooh great I've only been on MN 4 years, and this is my first clique