Children holidaying during term time.

The IT chap who maintains our business equipment home- tutored his 4 primary age children.
He told us most of the schooling was done over the weekend’s, leaving time in the week when it was quieter or cheaper for educational trips, social trips, holidays etc.

They all went on to grammar schools.

The only time we did it was in 1991 - they missed the final 2 days of term, when they were winding down anyway and were allowed to take videos (remember those) in to watch.
DD1 was 12 and DD2 8 - we went to Florida.
Friends with a business did it every year.

I don't think any of the kids at my secondary modern school were taken out of school for holidays. None of them could afford to go away anyway and most of the dads (few mums had permanent paid jobs) worked in agriculture so the summer holidays were spent picking fruit and potatoes and harvesting.

We took our kids out of school at the end of summer term, once we could afford Eurocamp holidays in France. It gave us a head start on the traffic to cross the channel. They missed virtually no actual schooling and all have done well with their lives.

My DS paid the fine and took DGS out of school for the last week of summer term last year so he could afford to take him to the Normandy landings beaches and the memorials. He's also had a day off to visit HMS Belfast. The days he took off were at the end of terms and he missed nothing at school.

My other DC can afford to go in school holidays. However, DGD3 had quite a lot of time off due to breaking her arm and they've all lost time due to strikes. Their parents made sure they didn't miss out or get behind.

I think a couple of weeks off during term time would do no real harm, and would help bring prices down. It's just not fair that at present prices are hiked so much during holidays.

But the price of everything reflects demand!
Perhaps the school holidays are a normal price and out of term is cheaper!
At the end of the day of the cruise you want is 5K in August but only affordable at 2K in April then you are looking at holidays out of your budget.
We never flew with our 3, the best we did was pile in the car and go self catering in France and Italy, in the early days it was a tent in Scotland.

MissAdventure

Do you think it has adversely affected the rest of her life, though?

Oh no, not the missing tense 😱

Since when did a holiday, particularly abroad, become a necessity?
I know plenty of people who don’t have a ‘holiday’, but days out, often free or costing little, that’s people of all age groups, with or without children.

Agree with Sago. School is not an option. Unauthorised absence for holidays can encourage a bunking off attitude to work when older.

Children don’t need to be taken abroad. They can do that themselves when they’re older. If the parents can’t get away everyone stays at home and the children attend various day camps.

These years soon pass.

Well, I am obviously in the minority as I think that family holidays are important for both parents, children and sometimes grandparents.

Different countries, food, customs and even the travelling there whether it be plane, ferry or train.

All adds up to life experiences and enrichment.

When I was at school in the 50s, a whole week's holiday to start with, we always took our holiday in term time because my parents didn't like crowds. In those days it wasn't a problem and I didn't seem to have any problem catching up. The month I was off with measles was more of a problem as I went from coming top in Latin to dropping it all together.

My grandchildren have sometimes had an extra couple of days added to official school holidays but it hasn't caused problems. I'm not sure about the educational value of some holidays. Is there much value in a trip to Disneyland? On the other hand the week DD spent in Kenya before she had children would have been hugely educational, baby elephants, local meals and a tribal wedding.

I think two weeks out of the school year were not questioned by schools in the 70s/80s. There was never a problem.
We usually added a week onto the whitsun holidays.

We travelled throughout Europe by train so needed two weeks to make it worth while as train travel was a lot longer than flying, my two first view when they were 16 and 14.
What they learned from their travels made up for what they may have missed in the one week we took them out of school, but we stopped when they started studying for their exams. Both went to grammar school.

My dh holiday was allocated to him and he never got July or August but frankly that suited us as the increased summer holiday Costs meant we woukdnt have been able to go away at all. We took school work with us and they had to keep a diary.

My dd won’t take her child ren out of school, not even for a day.

First flew …typo

How do you know or how can you judge what adverse effects removal from school has on the individual child?

We twice took our DD out of school. Once in p5 for a trip to visit her brother in NZ . Mostly Easter holidays but a bit of termtime. It was all good. I think we told the school rather than asked because the policy was to refuse permission.

The following year we sent her to stay with her DGP in France for a term. The Scottish school were not pleased and told us she would miss out on a lot.
She was given school work particularly maths and English.
Since DGF was an engineer and DGM a retired English teacher, DD excelled and she spoke beautiful French as she attended the village school.
She looks back on that time as magical.

Her brothers never had those opportunities. We took DS1 in P1 out for a day at the seaside when some friends were visiting. Unfortunately for us, he wrote all about it in his "news" and we got a telling.

I do see that it makes difficulties for the class teachers but occasional arrranged absences when in primary school, I don't think are too bad.

I don’t agree with taking a child out of school order to take a holiday. Nor do I agree that life experiences should be gained at the expense of formal education. I wonder what enriching life experiences the kids on Sago’s cruise had, which will be of any use to them? None by the sound of it.

I think we only took our children out of school once during term time, and that was only for a couple of days when they were both at primary school. Generally speaking, I think children should be at school during term time. However, I do think it's a tough choice for some families though - in some jobs/careers, it can be very difficult to always get time off during the holidays, so what are they supposed to do?

We took ours out of school to some fairly far flung places, usually around the half terms, we did always write for permission. Some of the pupils where our children went to school came from from overseas, for example when my children were at infants/juniors there were a number of children from Japan and there didn't seem to be such a strict protocol as to travelling in term time, I know it's frowned upon now. A teacher friend of ours is of the opinion that time away with the family on holiday is a great learning curve for children anyway, I echo Granny Gravy's thoughts, time spent with the family is very important. Quite often when our kids visit us now they head for certain cupboards and drawers where they know the photos are and wistfully reminisce about those experiences whilst flicking through our albums. In retrospect, places they've visited directed their desires to learn more about the history, politics and culture as they got older. I think now they absorbed quite a bit subliminally as children even if it didn't seem so at the time. I know of at least two families who actually took their children out of school to literally travel the world. I seem to remember there was an awful lot of time spent winding down at the end of term, particularly the one that preceded the long six week break.

Jaxjacky

Since when did a holiday, particularly abroad, become a necessity?
I know plenty of people who don’t have a ‘holiday’, but days out, often free or costing little, that’s people of all age groups, with or without children.

I admit to being quite shocked by this thread.

Growing up I never went on holday between the ages of five to fifteen. Yes, days out even weekends here and there but a holiday? Not affordable by my hard working parents.
Some here would feel sorry for me for 'missing out' on these experiences but I never felt that I missed out on anything.

When my kids were at school in the 80s and 90s despite what some claim here- we still didn't take them on holiday unless in classic 'shut-down weeks' when their dad had two weeks off.

Later we couldn't take tem-term holidays when I was teaching either- we paid the same as everyone else in peak season.

No one has mentioned why holidays cost so much less in term-time? This surely has to be mentioned as travel companies could reduce their peak season tariffs?

Private school also have longer holidays, so wealthier parents benefit from this 'perk' too.

In some ways I shouldn't be surprised that education is valued so little that it is seen ok, even advisable, for children to miss out on their education.

It's just another symptom of why this country is going rapidly down the drain.

DS is taking DGS out of school for a few weeks next month. The family live in NZ and are travelling to Japan and to Europe.
I think he will benefit. He always writes a blog/ a journal of his travels. He is still at primary school - just.
I don't think they will take him out of High school

TerriBull

We took ours out of school to some fairly far flung places, usually around the half terms, we did always write for permission. Some of the pupils where our children went to school came from from overseas, for example when my children were at infants/juniors there were a number of children from Japan and there didn't seem to be such a strict protocol as to travelling in term time, I know it's frowned upon now. A teacher friend of ours is of the opinion that time away with the family on holiday is a great learning curve for children anyway, I echo Granny Gravy's thoughts, time spent with the family is very important. Quite often when our kids visit us now they head for certain cupboards and drawers where they know the photos are and wistfully reminisce about those experiences whilst flicking through our albums. In retrospect, places they've visited directed their desires to learn more about the history, politics and culture as they got older. I think now they absorbed quite a bit subliminally as children even if it didn't seem so at the time. I know of at least two families who actually took their children out of school to literally travel the world. I seem to remember there was an awful lot of time spent winding down at the end of term, particularly the one that preceded the long six week break.

Does time with the family have to be spent during term time? Do places have to be visited during term time?

Of our five children, two have degrees, two left after A levels and one hated every single second of school, but have their own successful business employing many people.

My first holiday abroad was when I was 11 (the day after my birthday) apart from the Covid year and with one pregnancy I have been abroad every year since then. Even now we sometimes travel with AC and GC.

My family home was in mainland Europe for many years and I flew with various children of various ages between there and our home here multiple times a year, one was at nursery there and here in U.K.

We have travelled to Australia numerous times, twice for two months with children they learnt a lot on these trips.

If I had my time over again I would still remove them from school as and when.

Schools suffer whichever way you do it.
OFSTED judge on attendances and on achievement.
They don’t blame the parents who enable the truancy and contribute to the poor attendance figures. They don’t tackle the parents whose children’s lower achievement is due to truancy because they’ve missed essential teaching of new concepts or activities.
They hold the school responsible for absences and the teachers responsible for the lower achievement of children who deliberately miss teaching.
A parent governor with 5 children said at a meeting, that we had no idea how expensive holidays during school holiday periods were.
We staff governors were astounded by the fact that she thought we didn’t know.
I was astounded that she didn’t think 5 children were a contributory fact to the cost.

Mollygo we were and are fortunate that we have easily afforded to raise our five children.

It was our business commitments that governed when DH and I could both be away from our desks at the same time, which was rarely in the six weeks summer or May half term holidays.

Christmas was our best opportunity which is why we went further afield and for longer, or added on an extra week either side of the Easter holiday.

A lot of interesting perspectives here.
It would be great if the cost of family holidays were the same in July and August as they are in term time, but things don't work like that. It's all down to demand. We charged 3 times as much for our properties in the school holidays because we could have filled them 20 times over in those weeks. Those who came in term time, and paid far less, didn't get an inferior holiday, but some of the local attractions weren't open. I'm guessing the lady on Sago's cruise thought she was getting the best possible value for money in terms of an identical family holiday.

Private school also have longer holidays, so wealthier parents benefit from this 'perk' too.
In my experience, parents paying over £20k a year for school fees aren't desperately looking for perks when it comes to booking holidays.

So, it seems that anyone who "only" took their children out is the problem.

Not our own children.

Two day absences here and there?
No problem if its us doing it.
A week from someone else?
That's terrible!!

I also think, for a child, Bognor Regis or Bangkok makes no difference.
If we are talking from the practical point of view about missing school, and potentially holding back other pupils, then it makes absolutely no difference where a child was taken.