Thinking about taking your children out for a term-time holiday?

[roisin]

You might want to think again.
interesting article here

For students with 95% attendance or higher, 73% achieved five A* to Cs, including English and maths.
For students with 80-90% attendance, only 35% managed to achieve the benchmark.

Attendance below 90% equates to "just" 9 days sickness plus a 2-week familiy holiday.

Food for thought isn't it!

9 days sickness would be an awful lot! That's about 3 years worth for my dcs.

I agree though that dcs should not be taken out of school for holidays. It is harmful. A day here or there for family occasions - weddings/funerals is neither here nor there but two weeks in a block is a lot.

I think the thread title is misleading. I would bet that the link between attendance and low achievement is about a lot more than going on a week's holiday once in Yr 8.

It's easy to think your children don't have much time off sick but any child can have a run of ill health or something more serious.
Mine never had more than the odd day a year until this year. DS1 in year 10 so pretty important to have good attendance.
He had an accident in October and was in hospital for a few days. Then a bad cold, 1 day. Then in January swine flu and since then he's been floored by virus after virus.
He found that he missed stuff in a subject even after only a day off.

I don't think it is causual though. Students from difficult backgrounds generally do worse and also have poor attendance. It is not the poor attendance causing the lower exam results, but the dame social factors causing both.

I think it's partly causal.

If you're a bright student in yr10 and you miss two full weeks of school (in a block) for a family holiday, that is a lot of work to catch up in a lot of subjects. Some schools/teachers will put in a lot of support to facilitate this catch-up, but some won't. In subjects like Science you may have completely missed all the teaching on a particular topic, that won't be repeated, but may come up in the exam.

I agree 9 days off sick is a lot, but for some students/families it is not viewed as a lot.

I agree it's probably not causal. Children at ds's school seem to have loads of time off for cultural exchange trips, orchestra/choir trips, sports tournaments, CCF camps, music/drama rehearsals, visits here and there (which necessitate missing lessons) as well as the occasional term time holiday and some sick leave - it must be more than 90% for an awful lot of them but they seem to thrive on it and seem to do well enough come exams too. I expect it's largely because they are not from difficult backgrounds and there is the expectation they will catch up missed work.

If you are a bright student in year 10 and get less than a C, there is more going on than 80% attendance.

If a child has 80% attendance over the year they will have missed a fifth of lessons. That amount of playing catch up not only messes with their learning but stress levels too

I don't really understand holidays in term time in secondary really. Well I do- it just reflects parental regard for education or rather, lack of it. After about year 7 my kids wouldn't want to take time out themselves. When they are ill they don't even want to stay home- ds (15) tore a calf muscle playing rugby and could barely do stairs at home but could I convince him to have 2 days off- nope- he had one! ( bus travel and large school site).

It probably says more about parental attitudes than a child's ability. The parent who would value a cheap two week holiday in the sun over the child's education probably isn't doing a lot a home to support them in their school work anyway. Took the children out once when they were in yrs6, 4 and 2 for a family wedding abroad (after SATS) and was just relieved the wedding hadn't taken place the following year when DC1 was at secondary.