May half term - holiday for child doing GCSEs

[Madamlulu]

Hi

We normally go away May half term and next year my oldest child is doing his GCSEs so other parents have told me 'you can't go away'.

I totally get this and don't want to be a bad parent but I also love our holiday away. DS never studies. He is super creative and loves his art but finds all the other subjects challenging. We are dealing with this with him having extra study time at school and he does a homework club 4 days a week but at home he just never studies. I'm wondering if this might change in the run up but extremely doubtful.

AIBU to take my child away for a break in the middle of half term (and have a break myself)?

Any advise from parents who have been through the GCSEs would be so appreciated.. at the moment I'm feeling like everyone is telling me that life has to be on hold form Spring to June next year and that's fine but I also don't want to put too much pressure on my otherwise happy (but lazy) DS.

Thanks in advance x

Yes. I did a GCSE maths resit at my 6th form alongside my A Levels for the first year. I was surprised this was no longer allowed. You can do a functional skills qualification alongside a L3 apprenticeship. It does irritate me that I suspect everything has been made much harder and more prescriptive just to pander to Daily Mail/ Telegraph readers who pontificate about the ' dumbing down' of education, despite not being in school or having children in school for 20-40 years.

Don't do it op.

It only takes one freak storm, one plane veering off a runway, one air traffic controller's strike, one volcanic eruption (never mind a million far more trivial reasons) for flights to be cancelled/delayed/re-routed and he misses 3 or 4 exams.

In the last 12 months I/a colleague/family have had a 4 hour delay, an overnight delay, a re-route to an airport 120 miles away, 3 days delay return from Mexico, local airport closed this weekend due to emergency landing.

Plus schools put on revision sessions in may half term. You've got 12 other weeks of school holidays, or go early July.

Your kid needs all the help he can get, by your own account, don't give him any excuse to blame your need for a holiday and inability to support his revision on his crap results.

We went away over hols, just took books and ds spent some time each day doing work - hour in the morning and hour in the afternoon. He got mostly 9's but is clever and had me to organise him.

Not the case. All Eng Lang exams are always after May HT and usually 2 Maths, 2 science and most MFLs. I've been running about 6 sessions every May HT for years (apart from in COVID). Always well attended.

I agree they shouldn't be necessary, but course content is way bigger than it used to be and pressure on results is huge. If your neighbouring school is doing it, you end up doing it. Plus, the days I get back in leiu provide my only flexible time off, so I suck it up.

And the students are massively appreciative.

My daughter had all her exams after half term!

They are right, you can't go. Dd was furious with us for taking her away in the January of her GCSE year. Yes I think lfe pretty much does have to go on hold Jan- June.

By May half term she had done the vast majority of her exams.

@Longma that is unusual tho, even before Covid stretched out the timetable. was this post GCSE reforms - bc these have meant more exams for a lot of DC (eg more MFL papers, drama exam etc)

DS2 took exams in 2019 under the new spec (so the number of papers is more relevant than DD in 2017 as she sat fewer papers) and his last exam was on 12 June IIRC. He had a lot before half term, for sure, but he also had a lot after. It was a roughly 60-40 split - he certainly had a week with about 8 papers after the half term break.

Some history was after the holiday and so was some Spanish; Eng lang as well and some maths and deffo some science as the last paper was physics. People who took German had all their MFL in June. Maybe your DD did subjects that were all in May (DS had CS and PE in May as well as Eng Lit). But I think for most DC (especially now) there will still be a significant number of papers to sit in June.

Apologies I see you say it was 2018 so post-reform.

Just checked AQA and papers after half term in 2018 included both eng lang, three Spanish, one history, two geography, two maths, one chemistry, one biology, one physics and three German. Obviously not all students will sit all of those. DS2 would have sat 11 of those if that had been his year.

Maybe your DD took PE, CS and French and no humanity. She still will have sat 3 x science, 2 x maths and 2 x Eng lang in June tho.

Absolutely not. We go away every may half term also but this year we stayed at home so that add could revise- she had 8 exams the week after half term and 7 the week after. It is a vital time and I would consider it selfish to go away just because you love your holidays.

Having been through this a couple of times no I wouldn't go away at half term but this year we have one doing GCSEs and one doing A levels. Contingency day is 26th June I believe this year so we are planning to go away straight after that. Still 'term time' so holidays are cheaper and quieter and it's something to look forward to when it's all over. I'm sure there are a lot more exams now than when I did them, several papers for each subject and definitely seems more pressure these days.

I would never have gone in the spring of either GCSEs or A-levels. They need to be revising. You could plan one or two day trips maybe. It is a real pain in the neck when kids have exams and the effect on the wider family, but you have no choice but to put up with it. You also need to give a message that you take it seriously.

Not fair to go away. They will miss revision sessions at school and will need to spend the week revising at home.

Don't do this. Instead, book a lovely holiday for after the exams finish. It's only one year, but GCSE results could affect opportunities available going forward.

Just a reminder for those booking summer holidays to check dates of results weeks as well. Depending on whether the results are as expected, there may be a lot of rethinking required following results, so while they can get them remotely I wouldn’t advise it (had one dd who went through clearing and we absolutely spent all day on phones)

Absolutely not. I had a reluctant reviser. It was actually a big O birthday for me in that May half term and I’d have loved to have been sipping a cocktail on a beach rather than ferrying him to extra revision sessions and policing his revision time at home, but I didn’t as I put his GCSES over a nice holiday and my own celebrations.
You sound like you’ve given up even trying to push him on revising and the holiday is far more important to you.
At the end of the day only you know in your heart if it’s the right thing to do and you will have to live with the consequences if the results aren’t as good as they could have been. There will always be that doubt as to if you had stayed at home, the results might have been better.
Personally I couldn’t live with that ‘what if’ feeling.

The provisional timetable for the exams is available on line, so you can see what exams fall before and after the half term. I’ve also got a Y11 and not planning to go away that week.

Interestingly enough my Ds was like this. Wanted the champagne lifestyle on a brown ale income!
By really knuckling down and studying he achieved results beyond his (and my) wildest dreams. He now sees that hard work brings rewards and opens doors and is doing A levels with a decent career path to aim for. But it was hell getting him to that point!! And could do easily have gone the other way…

My DS2 wasn’t academic, we would have taken a holiday, chance to relax from the pressure of school.

Highly unusual. All major exam boards timetable their exams in the same slots, so Eng Lang for example is always after May half term in the same slots regardless of whether you're doing AQA, Edexcel, OCR or Eduqas. Has been the case for at least 10 years.