Children holidaying during term time.

So this is based wholly on snobbery, in effect?
How know earth would anyone know which children are likely to be home schooled?

One of my exes home schooled his daughter; the one who crawled around on top of the table, helping herself to her doting middle class grandparents' dinners.

His point was that that sort of stuff was pointless, manmade rules, which she would sort out in her own mind as she grew up.

She did, too!

She didn't take anything off my plate, once I'd poked her little hand with my fork a couple of times.
Imagine if she had been in the cruise, broadening her horizons?!?

Our daughter and SIL are very lucky, they have taken their children on holidays we could only dream of.
However she is desperate to return with our grandchildren to the very special place where we holidayed for 18 consecutive years in Scotland.
Spending a day building dens, collecting firewood for the evening beach bonfire, harvesting mussels for dinner,and wading out to conquer the little island at low tide was far more exciting than a “kids club” in Barbados!
It’s a very popular spot and booked for years in advance now.

Grammaretto both of our grandchildren have been on school camp, I think they were age 10, the school still does the trips to the New Forest now. Building camps, nature projects, keeping a journal and orienteering with a map.
I’m wondering how many of the (cheaper) holidays in term time are for the parents benefit rather than their children’s. It’s also admirable no children of anyone on GN have suffered any detrimental effects and gone on to heightened academia.

I'm glad to hear that Jax.
The camp was very popular and especially important for city kids to experience the great outdoors.
They went in the final year of primary school.

MissAdventure

So this is based wholly on snobbery, in effect?
How know earth would anyone know which children are likely to be home schooled?

One of my exes home schooled his daughter; the one who crawled around on top of the table, helping herself to her doting middle class grandparents' dinners.

His point was that that sort of stuff was pointless, manmade rules, which she would sort out in her own mind as she grew up.

She did, too!

She didn't take anything off my plate, once I'd poked her little hand with my fork a couple of times.
Imagine if she had been in the cruise, broadening her horizons?!?

Well I was in a lift with one family, mother asked the son who had a number of piercings and his hair in a top knot where his phone was, he was about 9 or 10.
He responded that his phone was a bag of shite and was too embarrassed to carry it.

Children are such funny little people because all they want is an adventure. It doesn't really matter where, and it doesn't necessarily have to be an expensive trip. My DGC were with me here in Cornwall this weekend. It was a cold 10 degrees, pouring with rain, all the attractions closed, empty beaches, but we did so much together that they didn't want to leave on Sunday evening!
If term time holidays are the only way for families to achieve the shared experiences they want at a reasonable price, then the occasional time-out from school isn't really that detrimental to their children's education.

That must have been wonderful Joseann for all of you.

Yes, and as you said earlier Grammaretto, there is something to be said for simplicity as an antidote to modern living!
Perhaps a good remedy for the boy who didn't like his phone would have been to encourage him to go for a swim or to join in some of the activities?

Just popped in to ask how some parents/grandparents would feel if little Charlie came home saying his teacher was off for 2 weeks taking his/her children away on holiday?

Teachers get long times off minus the kids as it is. What would happen is they would get a supply teacher who would follow the work put down by the permanent one. Plenty of supply teachers around and some are extremely capable, they just don’t want to be tied to a permanent position. Same applies if they take extended sick leave.

Chardy

Just popped in to ask how some parents/grandparents would feel if little Charlie came home saying his teacher was off for 2 weeks taking his/her children away on holiday?

If parents were told that that was why the teacher was absent, there would be talk about whether they were being paid, or fined for the children’s absence and comments about the bad example being set by said teacher, or welcoming of his/her implied support for absence during term time.

What is the point of having rules if people don't stick to them? You can't have everyone just doing as they please.
Quite apart from the disruption to a child's education, many of us choose to take holidays during term time because we don't want to have to tolerate children.

Curtaintwitcher with the abundance of adult only hotels it is extremely easy to avoid children if you wish.

For me as a teacher it created extra work when pupils went on holiday. Parents often expected that I should set work for their children so they could catch up. Teachers also of course have children. Would it be acceptable for them to remove their children and go on holiday in term time?

nanna8

Teachers get long times off minus the kids as it is. What would happen is they would get a supply teacher who would follow the work put down by the permanent one. Plenty of supply teachers around and some are extremely capable, they just don’t want to be tied to a permanent position. Same applies if they take extended sick leave.

Schools are struggling to find supply teachers currently.
Many parents and grandparents here seem to think it's acceptable to take children out of school because it's cheaper, so why shouldn't teachers take advantage too?
By the way, having done supply, it's completely different from being their regular teacher, because you don't know the pupils, no matter how capable you are.

I can totally understand why teachers would be resentful of being expected having to put in extra work to help children catch up if they have missed something vital.
Why should they?
I do speak from experience. I went to 7 schools and must have missed at least a year of education. When I was at the beginning of my GCE years I had the first term at a school in England. It had a different examination board so I couldn’t do French, I missed more than one tense.
This was common, we all missed a lot, friends went on leave with their parents and returned 6months later. Quite honestly, now I look back, I’m amazed any of us are vaguely literate!

The difference between then and now is that our teachers took it all in their stride. They didn’t bother to catch us up, it was up to us. No OFSTEAD in those days. Sink or swim, most of us managed the doggy paddle.
It probably wasn’t ideal but, judging from others that I know in that position, we seem to have done reasonably with the skills we developed.
BTW the teachers were employed by the Government so they all got their leave too.

Whilst our son was growing up, we were never able to go on holiday as a family.
My husband is a Teacher.
And, obviously, he couldn’t take term time to away ( I wonder what would have happened if he did?) and too expensive for us to go away during the school holidays.
The first time our son had a holiday was at 17, when he went abroad with friends.

Saving money is not the only reason children are taken out of school for family holidays.

When our DC were in primary school the nature of DH's work strictly limited the amount of leave he could take between April and September and in several years the only gap in work demands for a family holiday was late September.

I spoke to their head teacher, who was understandably reluctant to have children out of school, but understood our problem, but commented that the problem was, our 2 children were clever and were academically ahead of other children in their form and would quickly pick up anything they missed on their return, but that most requests - or absences without seeking consent were among families whose children were not so able, or whose parents were not as supportive of education and that they did go backwards educationally and did not easily catch up.

I disagree profoundly with PamelaJ1's nonchalance about children managing whether they missed school or not.

I, too, had a fractured education, 10 schools, plus several long periods in hospital. And, yes, I coped with it all and went to university. But then I was a clever child and quickly caught up with what I had missed, or taught myself.

Life was not so easy for those who learned more slowly. When the BBC started running literacy programmes on tv in the 1970s, On the Move and Your Move, I quickly noticed how many of those on these programmes, like me, had parents in the Services and had had a childhood like mine, of constant moves and school absences.

I also saw how the less academic of my friend's children struggled when their education was disrupted bjs chool changes and absences.

If you are clever and intelligent, then a fractured eductaion is a minor problem, but for less able children it can severely limit their opportunities in life.

When I retired from teaching, fines for parents taking children out of school for holidays were just beginning to be introduced. One issue, which I don’t think has been mentioned in this thread, is that of families where parents have split up but each wants to take the child on a term time holiday thus doubling the amount of schooling missed.

I had bad asthma as a child and was frequently away from school as a consequence - there weren’t the medicines then that we have now. I missed the first lessons in geometry and trigonometry and never caught up.

Germanshepherdsmum

I had bad asthma as a child and was frequently away from school as a consequence - there weren’t the medicines then that we have now. I missed the first lessons in geometry and trigonometry and never caught up.

I too had a month off school due to illness, it was long division that I never caught up on!

Hahaha when we were children it was one parent and one child at a time for a holiday which was a visit to relatives distance away by plane and train.
I had no qualms about taking mine out of school ( just once ) with permission for a family holiday. It was educational and entertaining and so much cheaper. I would do it again in a heartbeat. If you don’t like children book adult only.

I think we all knew our own children when they were school age and their capabilities, as do our AC with our GC.

One size does not fit all, and if due to work commitments, family living abroad etc or even not being able to afford the prices in the school summer holidays (even the most basic camp site in U.K. hikes its prices in school holidays) it’s unfair ( in my opinion ) to demonise parents for taking a well earned break/visit relatives/family event (which could be birth, death, marriage etc.,)

GrannyGravy13

I think we all knew our own children when they were school age and their capabilities, as do our AC with our GC.

One size does not fit all, and if due to work commitments, family living abroad etc or even not being able to afford the prices in the school summer holidays (even the most basic camp site in U.K. hikes its prices in school holidays) it’s unfair ( in my opinion ) to demonise parents for taking a well earned break/visit relatives/family event (which could be birth, death, marriage etc.,)

Totally agree with you. Some people are very judgemental without knowing what any particular family's circumstances may be. At the end of the day, it's up to each set of parents to decide what's best for them.