Term time holidays are we alone?

[rs82uk]

My wife and I are quite old school, we believe that during term time the kids are at school and we go on whatever holiday we can afford during the breaks.
The only time they have had time off school is to attend a funeral.
However it would appear we are firmly in the minority now, not a week goes by without one of our boys saying that x or y is off this week on holiday, it must be terribly disrupting for the teacher, and potentially our kids if the teacher is having to keep going over topics.
Are we the only ones that are still sticking to the rules? we are beginning to think we should just join them and save some cash every year.

I think old school is thinking that you have up to 2 weeks in the school year to take as holiday! New thinking is that school attendance is essential.

We've taken our primary age kids out for 2 weeks (tacked on to school holidays) every couple of years. We've had several brilliant (and, I'd argue, educational) holidays that way - road trips in Europe and most recently a month in Australasia. We'd have paid a fine if we had to (the Europe holidays would still have been cheaper than they would have in school holidays!), but our school has thus far been supportive. My kids otherwise have very good attendance and are all doing well in school.

Eldest child is in Y6, and I suspect things will change once we're at secondary school. We feel very lucky that our kids attend a school where they take a holistic view of education (it was one of the reasons we applied for the school), and I think my kids and our family have definitely benefitted from the times we've spent on holiday together.

We take our dc our of school for 1 week every year to go away on a nice family holiday.

I work for the emergency services and struggle to take time off in the school holidays and we can't afford a holiday otherwise

We have taken one or two days at the end of the term in a few ocassions as flights are cheaper. It is less disruptive in the early primary school years. My oldest daughter who is in year 6 does not like to miss any day of school she said she misses a lot in one day. I think is fine in the Infant years as long as is only a few days and not all the time. I don't think the teachers will be repeating everything again because a child or two missed a few days of school.

We stick to the rules, partly in principle, partly practical. DH and I both work, we struggle enough to cover school holidays as it is, let alone us both taking 5/10 days during term time! (That’s potentially 20 days of childcare we’d have to find from somewhere else). I also think it must be really annoying for the teacher - imagine being at work and someone on a project team has missed 5 meetings! It’ll take a while for them to get up to speed again- My DB is a teacher and he corroborates this.

We don't do termtime holidays - hang over from the years when I was teaching so never had the option really - it's just never occurred to me as an idea I could do to be honest. Plus my youngest misses the odd couple of hours of school fairly regularly for medical appointments (I get her back into school as soon as we're done but it's still usually the better chunk of a morning or afternoon session) so I try to keep her attendance as high as possible the rest of the time.

There are a lot who've had time off in their classes though - but whatever. We don't generally have the budget to take them away anyway - grandparents tend to take them caravaning for a week in the summer and then they go stay with them which is enough of a "holiday" really when they're small.

I wouldn’t say that’s old school, quite the opposite Term time fines are a new thing, I’m 43 and I was taken out once or twice for holidays by my parents it was fairly common when I was at school.
I don’t have strong feelings either way tbh., at primary age I honestly don’t think it’s that disruptive to learning.

If it makes you feel better, as a teacher I don't go over topics of a child has been off on a holiday - the lessons were there, they were provided, and as they chose to not attend it's up to the parents to do the catch up work. They can bring the book home to do it if they like.

I do it sometimes, we usually leave a day or 2 earlier at half term
We own a property abroad and go as often as we can but it’s not really about the cost as we are self employed so if we don’t work we don’t get paid and the costs of a lost days work is usually more than what we save on flights. It’s more about time, if the dc break up on a Friday we can’t leave until next day and then I prefer to be back at least one day before school starts so taking away the day we spend getting there and the one getting home we only get 5 days proper holiday.
Dd will be in Year 9 soon and we won’t do it then and I’m quite careful about what we miss, dd finishes for summer 10 days before DS so that would mean a much cheaper holiday but I won’t take him out of school at the end of the year
I’ve never been fined ( dd School approves it and DS School doesn’t but hasn’t yet referred me to the LA) but if I was I would pay it without complaint.

I’m with you op. It drives me mad people think they are above the rules. It’s a terrible message to set your kids that rules don’t apply to them. Just sit smug that their kid will be behind and also that they’ll struggle in the school holidays to get enough leave to see their kid (as they’ll have used up their annual leave going on holiday in school time).

I don’t think it’s going to damage their education too much at primary level.

That's funny. When I was a kid someone was always off school on holiday, especially in winter, often skiiing. Including us. Every year. 1970s-1980s. Completely utterly normal. Never seemed to a problem to anyone (kids themselves or teachers).

Now I live somewhere it's a big bad taboo. Silly.

We went away for 2 weeks in January, it's not something I've done before but a family member had organised the holiday as a Christmas present and I was hardly going to say no. It's not something I would do every year since two weeks is a lot to catch up on

My parents did it every year when I was in primary, usually 3-4 weeks in America at Easter so missing a week, and then maybe a day or two round Autumn half-term. Teachers didn't care, just said don't tell everyone.

I've only taken mine out for 2 days in 5 years so far, but mainly because if we didn't have our holiday in school holidays, we'd have to pay for an extra week of holiday childcare x3, which would wipe out the savings.