At what point did I mention aircraft?!?
By way of my working example, the sentiment of which is readily portable - this year, we could not have accessed a proper break together almost all year, even if we’d wanted to. Regardless of whether we wanted time to be spent at Butlins or Barbados.
I became the primary carer for Nan with Alzheimer’s. The diagnosis process began at the very beginning of the year after an especially traumatic incident. By the end of January we had a diagnosis from the memory team….then it took until mid-October for everything else to be finalised as we navigated the various NHS and local authority teams for care to be in place that she would accept.
if I wasn’t readily available to support her, she was at great risk on many fronts that I’ll not bore you with.
Then we overlay the fact that my husband is a solo self-employed chartered accountant who can never take off the last or first weeks of each month due to legal HMRC deadlines. So the Oct half term, which always falls on the last week of term, was out of reach to us.
So here we are. A family that had managed to achieve just four days in a row together all year.
My daughter’s deserve our time. My daughter’s deserve time together. My daughter’s deserve to benefit from time with their Daddy.
Sound like a piss-take to you?? Does it sound like I care where we spend that time? Have I mentioned cost or exotic destinations? Heck, do I even care if it’s ‘educational’ as has been so sarcastically scoffed in this thread? Nope. None of the above. It was purely the importance of us all accessing time together that would not have been possible during a school holiday.
And here’s the crux of it. My eldest daughter’s school supported us. They used some flex in the system to allow us to have a well-deserved and much-needed break together. But because of the inconsistency of how the punitive policy is applied, MANY headteachers fail to do this. So I was ok. Great. Hardly a ‘win’ though is it?
Seeing as the poor mum whose cancer diagnosis and subsequent chemo wiped out most of her year DID get fined. That’s why we campaign. Because that’s not a lottery I’m comfortable with.