School term time holiday

[Justinajj]

Hey
I was wondering if anyone could help me.
my husband gets rostered leave meaning his annual leave is given to him he has set dates where he is off
so this year all of his holiday is in term time theres not much he can do he has tried to swap but no luck so if we want to take the kids on a family holiday it has to be in term time as this is the only time work will allow?
what’s the rules on this I can’t seem to find any information on it.
I’m not going to take my kids and leave my husband at home to go away it’s just ridiculous to be honest.

any advice?

thank you!

A sessions is a half a day, so 10 half days or 5 full days.

Teacher here - just be honest. If you do get a fine then it'll be cancellled out by how much cheaper it will be to go away.

MN is ridiculous about term time holidays 🙄

OP I did a term time holiday every year with my children, apart from the GCSE years. I usually tacked a few days on at the ends of half terms/terms though, rather than a whole week in the middle of term, although one year did two weeks at the end of September after they'd just gone back <<collective shriek of horror from MNetters >> was a holiday of a lifetime.

Just do it, if their attendance is otherwise excellent you're unlikely to be fined. If you are just pay it and move on. It's not a big deal.

I can understand you feeling put out by this, I think that's fairly ridiculous for a company to not allocate any in the holidays for those who need it. The schools don't have much say in it either really, they don't make those rules.

It's just one year and you don't need to go away somewhere on holiday, you could just make the most of the weekends and do several shorter trips maybe. If you miss a few Fridays there'll be less imapct on learning and you won't get the fines. Or, you pay the fine and accept that your children will miss a chunk of learning. Remember, the fines are to stop children missing lots of learning, which they never really catch up on. They aren't to make people miss out on holidays.

Just work around the rules, thats what we did. Either find a week with an inset day and take that week off or just go Monday night to Sunday. If they are in school on Monday you only miss 8 sessions so don't get fined.

With the new rules you pay half the fine for a first offence (if paid quickly) second offence is full fine and third prosecution and it's now tracked for a few years so just one to watch if this is going to be a reoccurring issue.

I worked in an infant school for over 10 years and I can honestly tell you, that it is so disruptive to the class when children are away on holiday for a week or two.
When they come back, they have missed so much of the current learning topics and that therefore means that they have no idea what the rest of the class has been taught during their absence. This in turn, means that invariably, the TA then needs to be their 1:1 to try to get them up to speed but there's no way you can teach them as effectively as if they'd been in the class. The knock on from this as well, is that the TA is then not available to support the other 29 children in the class, especially the children that need lots of extra support.
It really annoys me here on MN when people (who probably don't work in a school), encourage others to just 'go for it'. Oh and the kids tell us all about their holidays (when we've been told they're ill!)
I agree that it's annoying that you'll potentially get a fine and your husband's holiday allocation is rubbish but school staff can't take holidays during term time either!

Your options are :

1. Talk to the head , explain the circumstances and if your kids generally have good attendance, hope they might authorise it. It's very likely they won’t.

1. Holidays terms time are much cheaper , so you should be able to offset the cost of the fines. Just count it in when costing it all up and put the money aside.

1. Fiddle with the days using inset /occasional days or bank holidays or have a shorter holiday.

1. Lie, but odds are everyone will know and it puts a lot of pressure on your kids to try and keep it quiet from everyone.

Check out when the school have scheduled inset days. If any match up to a week your DH is off, you could take that week without hitting the 5 day trigger to get fined. Or maybe may-day bank holiday? Assuming both kids and DH would have it off

It is unfair when you have no control on the annual leave but the LA rules are final. We have the same with DHs assigned holidays and have chosen not to go away in term time from Y4 onwards. We are not used to annual holidays anymore so it doesn't sting.

I think a life without holidays and experiences to look forward to is pretty miserable

I have taken DD out of school. I have not had a fine yet but would pay one if it was put my way.

It’s hardly a life without holidays because one year one parents holiday doesn’t line up.

DH struggles with leave (military) 2 headteachers authorised absences for holidays on the basis of struggling with leave around deployments (and they didn't have to, the official guidelines are useless, they say holidays just prior to the deployment which few military families would risk as you have to be available 4 months before in case you can brought forward to go earlier, we always holiday AFTER deployment).

But one headteacher wouldn't authorise one day when the dates only slightly slipped out of half term, it was a school with a challenging population with an abysmal absence rate so she took a much harder line with requests.

So never been fined meant to add, as it was only one day although it was referred to the LA that wasn't within the parameters for fining.

Be aware that if this is an annual thing you can get away with it twice with fines but rules have changed to say three times it will be a prosecution.

She knows that and is suggesting they take 4 days off school and is including the weekend in the 6 days.

Here are the rules, there is very little leeway! Even if parents are only allowed leave on certain dates the school is unlikely to approve it

Forgot to add image!

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£80 per week per child per parent, rising to £160 if not paid within a certain tome. Just got a nice big fine through my door for my winter holiday.

When DH was unable to get leave to match school holidays, I took the kids away on my own.

That is a different version to those I've seen suggested. It won't suit everyone, but just throwing out another suggestion.

Also, look at the rolling requirements for consequetive years. It's not as straight forward as pay and forget any more. You might need to keep a track of where you have removed them from school incase the happens again.

It seemed acceptable when schools were closed during COVID, so what education did my children miss then? I’m really frustrated that a short holiday isn’t considered as valuable as a week in school, especially in the early years. The rules feel overly strict. I understand there are families who might take advantage, but some of us should be allowed a week off each year if attendance is generally good, children are on track, and there are valid reasons—like parental work commitments or family holidays.

As a nurse, it’s impossible for all nurses with families to take holidays during school breaks, or who would care for patients? It feels unfair that our circumstances aren’t given flexibility, even though we’re responsible and our children’s learning isn’t being compromised.

Much as the head would like to say no, I bet they will feel they can’t authorise. Even before the new rules came in, this is a situation faced at our school (I’m a governor) and I know the head has said they were not allowed to authorise, even tho they sympathised greatly with the familys situation.