Children holidaying during term time.

School education is so precious, we never took our children out of school for a holiday and neither did my parents take us out of school. We went camping during school holidays

I was a school bursar for 10 years and even before that only took my children away in school time on the very odd occasion when for eg a flight was on a Monday or Friday at the start or end of a school holiday.
However. It soon became obvious that the only reason holidaying in school time was an issue was that the local authority could fine headteachers if the attendance figures dropped below a certain level. Without exception all the teachers did not believe that a couple of weeks out would make any difference in the long term learning outcomes of the children. In fact one part time teacher always took her children away the week before exams because, as she says, if they don’t know it now they never will and at least they’ll be relaxed.
So I have U turned my view and if my children were of school age now I wouldn’t worry at all about taking them away in term time.

Not all lessons are learnt in the classroom. 🌸

The ones which get you through exams tend to be.

If a child goes on holiday during term time, will the teacher be expected to give her private, unpaid tuition during lunch times to help her catch up?

And in a class of 30 children, if each child misses 1 week of school per term, will their teacher be expected to provide 30 weeks of unpaid tuition to help the whole class catch up?

Are teachers allowed to take a week off during term time to take their families on holiday to take advantage of cheaper rates?

I wonder how,all the time my grandson missed was dealt with.

The school couldn't have cared less, then.

I really don’t see how the holiday companies are to be blamed, its supply and demand..
Bus and train travel is more expensive at peak times, hotels are cheaper during the week, leisure facilities and gyms have peak and off peak prices.

Imagine if there was no high and low holiday season, there would many families complaining that people without school age children were taking all the bookings.

Well, if the same holiday, with the same facilities is £3000 cheaper during term time, then something is amiss, i reckon.

Companies rely on higher prices at peak times - if prices weren’t higher then, they would increase during off-peak times.

A lot of fuss over absolutely nothing. Individual decision. And as long as it does not detrimentally affect others..

Both my parents were headteachers. No chance of holidays in term time but the second day of our holiday we boarded a ferry to France and either did a Home Swap (very unusual in the 60,s) or camped. Answering the question of what do you learn, I passed more time with my parents than I ever did at home, spoke fluent fairly French by the time I went to senior school and experienced a totally different culture. I used my French in 2 different jobs afterwards.

Ah yes the value of a holiday in Disneyland10 out of 10. The value of education 0 out of 10.
I despair of this country. I watched children in India coming out of one room huts with their sparkling clean clothes and their eagerness to learn and then I look at the scruffy children arriving at my local school if their parents haven’t dropped them off parking on double yellow lines to do so . It’s free so it’s rubbish isn’t it….

Ooh noooo!
Not Disneyland.

It's only allowed during term time if it's in a tent.

The irony is that, depending on location, the off-peak times can cost the provider more than the high season weeks. Our out of season self-catering guests expected the central heating, additional logs too, and they stayed in more so used more electricity. Even the tumble driers got used more with wet clothes! So, in a way, the guests paying the higher prices (double) in summer were actually subsidising the others.
We wouldn't have had a business if we had charged the lower rate for the properties all year round.

I taught for 36 years and never went on holiday out of school holidays! Always had to pay full price !!!!
I don’t know of any teachers who took time off to go on holiday unless they took unpaid leave 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

We had to on occasion take our AC out of school to holiday. We struggled to co-ordinate our own leave together due to hubby's inflexible occupation. It was very rare, but yes we did do it. We'd tag a couple of days onto the end or the start of term. Our AC's are physicians now. Admittedly our school was understanding. It was a state school. I think the reasons can so vary. I've heard of children being punished though. A friend's daughter was told she couldn't attend the end of school prom, after going to the USA for her cousin's wedding - aunt & uncle live in the USA. So fined by the council and then punished by the school. Seemed very harsh

Sago We have booked such a holiday in Wales for summer next year - under pressure ftom my adult children who are delighted.

A few years ago we had a family holiday in one of my favourite places in Italy... I would have been happy with a weekend in Wales and then go to Italy - however my children want to take their children on holiday where I went as a girl and where we later took them.

The fairly basic (but still clean and tidy) Welsh holiday cottages are much more expensive than the luxury villa with 20 metre private pool. More than twice as much - nearly 3 times actually - for the same week in August.
I think this is why so many choose to go abroad. In my day, taking 5 children abroad was out of our budget. We took them to Wales or to visit friends and family.

We were lucky to have had a network of friends across the UK where we could go - and they came to us. Often this involved camping in gardens.

My DH had holidays allocated to him, no choice. 1st allocation say in May, next year middle, late May. And on it went. Only way it could be changed was if a colleague of equal status was willing to swop. So, we did have children on holiday outwith term times like it or not. Don't know about the rules in Wales but Scotland has no financial penalties for taking children out of school for holidays.

Joseann

^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.

May family spend every single spare penny on their daughter's education, so yes is always looking for bargains despite paying £20k+ a year for my granddaughters education. People do not necessarily need to be wealthy to afford private education, they just have other priorities, and save on everything else.

Germanshepherdsmum

The ones which get you through exams tend to be.

Quite.

Took mine out each January for family ski trip. Could not have afforded it any other time. Not ideal, but they have fond and lasting memories of those trips with their mum. Didn’t harm their prospects. Good degrees, now good jobs.

My husband also worked abroad for much of the time and it was very difficult to find a date in the school holidays that we could safely book in advance.
In the end we bought a small holiday home in this country and used to go there in the holidays whether or not my husband was around. Running costs over the years have been less than many foreign holidays would have been (we have four children) and my children are now enjoying beach holidays with their own families.
I would never have taken a holiday in term-time. In fact my children used to complain that they had to be virtually unconcious to avoid being sent to school!

As a school teacher I would assuredly say that children should never be taken out of school during term time just for a holiday, unless the parents really have no possiblity of going away during any of the school holidays.

Having children out of class for even a week causes a disrubtion mainly when they come back again and every single teacher who has that class has to explain to the holiday makers what the rest of the class learned while they were away.

When I was a child child, butren were not taken out of school for holidays during term time. Of course, parents only had a fortnight's summer holidays then, and few left the country bu t the main reason for term time being term time and holidays holidays was the schooling was considered far more important than it is today, where the attitude seems to be that having a good time away from home is far more benificial to the child and the family as such, as everyone doing their work as well as possible - and children¨s work is after all their schooling.