To ask if you agree with term time holidays to please sign this petition...

[TermTimeHolidays]

here

It needs 100,000 signatures before it can be discussed in parliament.

I would do him........over

marmalade, the facts speak for themselves. You would not beleive the lobbying going on to raise awareness for probation. But honestly, you se a bunch of probation staff in the street, you gonna go chat to them? It's not anywhere near as emotive as school holidays, because people don't want to involve themselves in things slightly bigger than their own little world.

You ask the general public what probation do - you think they even have a clue?

If I started a thread about it, do you think that a) MN would allow it to run and b) it would send people yawning off somewhere else?

Everyone is far too fickle, apart from the odd person here and there.

I half agree with it. Like others have said what's to stop others taking advantage and using just a few more days. I agree that their education is very important and holidays are not a right but having said that I will probably take DD out for a week next year. My DHs shift pattern allocated non negotiable summer holiday is a week in June.

No, sorry, I just couldn't. Wrong on so many levels!

Maybe they do have us over a barrel, Marmelade, but since the free education my dses have had has got one a place to read Law at Reading, and the other a place to read Applied Maths at Edinburgh (one of his four unconditional offers), it is a price I was happy to pay.

But education isn't free - we pay for it, whether we home school or not - and school isn't compulsory, so I don't quite see the justification for fining those who remove their children for a few days from somewhere they are paying for anyway, but to which they don't actually have to send them.

This is becoming an age old debate on MN!! We had one last year which got quite heated. I think the answer to this is the government should crack down on holiday companies exhorbitantly raising their prices because its the school holidays, like Center Parcs! Half -term 3 bed woodland lodge is £699 an up for 4 nights, a week later the price can drop by £200. I challenged CP about his and they said they dont inflate their prices in school holidays, they lower them the rest of the year <img loading="lazy" class="inline-flex mumsnet-emoji" alt="Confused" src="https://www.mumsnet.com/build/assets/confused-DVrVQwAF.png">. I dont like my kid to miss school for the sake of it but there should be some discretion used in special circumstances. We havent had a real holiday since 2007, we took the trio to America. In 2008 my dh was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer, since then and up until this summer its been endless chemo/surgery etc and its been very stressful for us all. Last year I asked for the children to have one day off of school to go to CP for a w/end for their birthday in January, it was refused. I was told they couldnt make an exception even in our circumstances. I took them out, never heard another word. I could have lied and phoned in and said they were all sick, but I told the truth. My three constantly have attendance record of 98-100%. In our position we can never pre book as we live from scan to scan, we cannot get him travel insurance to cover the cancer, if we did then we could risk booking ahead without the fear of losing our money.

I am allowed as many jokes as I please, Mini. I just didn't find yours very funny.

People claiming that their kids learn more getting sunburnt and eating burgers in Mallorca than they do in school? Now that is pretty amusing.

Flatiron - I still think that complying with the schools' rules was a small price to pay for the education they got. And I know we could not have afforded to buy the quality of education out dses got, even if we hadn't been paying that portion of income tax, so their education was as good as free, as far as I am concerned.

Why do threads like this always turn into a discussion about who is the hardest done by? It's like the Monty Python sketch about living in a box in the middle of the road, working eight days a week and being glad of it.

Personally I have no problem with going on holiday in the school holidays. But I have friends who work in the emergency services who get no say over the timing of their leave, and sometimes get no time off at all in school holidays. Previously, head teachers could deal with this sensibly. Now they can't.

I also have some friends who have taken their children out of school for two years to cycle through South America. They're learning so much from the experience and the school was 100% supportive. Goodness knows how they'd react now.

Bloody stupid idea.

DS1 has now left school and DS 2 is in High School.

I have never taken the off school for a holiday.

The ears that we didn't have much money we went to a cottage in the UK during the May break when things were still cheap.
We often had a couple of week ends away to fairly local places like Arnside or the Dales.A two week holiday at peak season is not compulsory or

"Well you cope I'm sure with those going ski-ing etc with school."

Our school does the ski trip at February half term.

This is such a first world problem isn't it.

Are people really trying to convince me that there are lots of people who work 7 days a week every week for the 13 weeks that schools have off each year?
Yes some people work shifts and yes some people don't get time off during the school holidays but I very much doubt that the majority of those people also work 7 days per week every week. So most people will have some time off with their children, albeit perhaps not periods of several consecutive days .
People understand their working patterns when they take on the job, they also understand that school is 3 terms per year. People do have the choice to home educate or try to change their job.

What do we suggest teachers who have partners who don't get school holidays off work do? I would be mighty peeved if a teacher decided to take off some term time to go on holiday because her partners shift pattern means that they'd not get a holiday otherwise. Fortunately most of the teachers posted on here seems very reasonable and wouldn't behave in such a selfish way.
People arguing that teachers sign up to the holiday restrictions should also accept that those in jobs where they don't get school holidays also sign up to those restrictions.
Teachers are always slated about having lots of holidays etc, but teachers also miss out on their own children being in school plays and sports days etc, but they just accept it as a downside of the job and get on with it.
I'm not a teacher BTW, just a parent who has witnessed some very dedicated teachers and would not choose to make their job more difficult by flouting the rules.

I think the big problem with this current legislation is that it removes the ability for headteachers to authorise an absence - which in my experience they did when it was sensible to do so.

If an HT thought a cheap 2 week break in Majorca was an unreasonable request, they didn't have to authorise it. Now they have no choice but to refuse all requests.

Of course it is still up to parents what they do, but it makes things harder for schools if their volume of unauthorised absences goes up. So it's more of a problem for schools than parents. If as a parent you were fined for the unauthorised absence, it's likely that the fine would still be less than it would have cost to go away in the main holiday period.

It's yet another example of the govt 'tackling' a problem from the wrong end - a bit like the imposing the bedroom tax supposedly to solve the problem of the waiting list for affordable housing, instead of looking at rent control legislation. The real problem in most cases is the price of holidays rocketing in peak holiday times. But there's no appetite in this administration for meddling in market forces.

Yes there are groups of people who do work seven days a week for the rest of the year, such as my Dairy farmer DH, getting another job is just not an option !

I think parents are getting fed up with being dictated to by a gov full of people who only care about the wealthy and constantly take,take ,take from your average family whilst their kids have the best of everything.

In this together,I think not.

Tell you what Dave considering your kids enjoyed several holidays this year how about we swap and you have to tell your dc that even a week in rainy Cornwall come August is too expensive.

My kids benefited massively from France this year and I want them to experience a different culture just like yours do.

When a system stops children with a father suffering from cancer 1 day off school it is wrong.

And I say again,many schools do have holidays in term time for the wealthy(I have friends who organise them so I know it happens). Kind of hypocritical but then Gove et al will be the type whose kids go on every single one of them.

Wordsmith - head teachers do still have the authority to grant leave in 'exceptional circumstances', which is not defined. The DfE guidance says this is 'unlikely' to be granted for a family holiday, but not that it is impossible.

Definitely agree that a petition against the greedy price hikes during the holidays would be better. There is no justification.
Of course it won't be allowed to happen given that greed is a religion and those who can't afford anything are just seen as whining layabouts in the uk, but would be nice to see some more exposure of the issue.
On the other hand, back when I was a kid, schools were less worried about this, especially junior schools, so my parents did take a week out of school to go camping in October a few times. That was all we could afford, camping out of season. Didn't do me any harm, I have a degree. Education is worse now so kids would be missing less now. i will think about it.

Regulating holiday price hikes simply wouldn't work, unless it was at least Europe-wide.

If hoteliers in France had to cut their rates to English travellers, they'd simply sell more to non-English holiday makers at the higher price.

I've just signed.

I think we have forgotten the immense value of family holidays in supporting families, and also their great educational benefit. Those with family abroad also benefit culturally from visiting their families home country. For everyone visiting other countries brings educational and cultural benefits and widens our experience, attitudes, and tolerance.

I think more flexibility in the system, and more trust in parent's judgement is desperately needed.
I've been fortunate to receive permission for my daughter to leave school early on the last afternoon of school to attend youth holiday events, but even this sort of thing is becoming increasingly under pressure which is very frustrating.
At present children and families are missing out on valuable experiences, which would both broaden their education and strengthen their family and/or friendship networks.

We were lucky enough to spend a few days in the Lakes this summer with friends and then go on to the Highlands for a few days as a family, both experiences were really important to us all, and especially to the children.
I'm sure they learnt just as much as they would have done in two weeks at school.

OttilieKnackered, sure, that is funny but who are we to question the cultural life of the masses. What is dumb and stooopid to you might be considered the zenith of sophisticated culture by others. It is a little like saying that Opera is better than pop music. I hate both but I'm not going to convince others that folk music is more culturally important.

Thanks for the clarification Rustybear.

Jugglingfromheretothere - completely agree. Education doesn't just take place in school.

Jenaimorris - we sometimes go to a gite in Brittany that costs the same any week of the year. There are a lot like that in France. But it costs vastly more for the ferry crossing in the school holidays than any other time of year!

I think the argument made by some here that they can't take time off work to take their holiday during school holidays is missing a vital point. The fault is with the employers who clearly aren't 'family friendly'. If holidays in term time are now banned by law then the employers need to rethink their policy for those with school-aged children otherwise they risk losing employees and finding recruitment harder. I can understand restrictions on holidays at certain times such as Christmas and Easter but that still leaves many other weeks in the year of school holidays.

I also think that giving back school Heads the discretion to allow a holiday just makes it hard for them to say no or needing to waste time verifying claims made that an employer won't give time off during school holidays.

Ah - Wordsmith, I'd missed that. If HTs aren't going to be allowed to use any discretion, that's a poor use of an expensive resource. I've already commented that I don't think it's a good idea to take kids out of school just for a holiday, but there are always extenuating circs and it would be silly to ignore those. HTs should be allowed to decide. goes to re-read badly-worded petition

Flatiron - you're wrong there surely? I did think schooling was compulsory, though you can register to say you're home ed'ing