holidays

I know this is a bit off the point, but I see red when people complain about teachers' long holidays. my daughbter is a primaary school teacher and during term time she works a long day at school, spends a grfeat deal of her free time planning lessons and looking out for ideas for making her lessons interesting. Several days during the holidays are also spent at school doing preparation. I do not think she is unique. By the way, we only took our children out of school twice, for one day each for special family celebrations. We couldn't afford to go on holiday when they were young.They both say that they didn't mind not going abroad as what they really liked to do during the holidays was playing with their friends and visiting their favourite auntie! Yes, less sophisticated times!

When my grandad was young he had to share a pair of shoes with his younger brother.

The reason this law was brought in was because of the riots a few years ago. A report stated that these were caused or exacerbated by young people truanting. However this law does nothing about the children who do not attend school because their parents cannot be bothered to get out of bed to take them or ensure that they go. Also I do not think that there would have been many primary school children rioting. It is another case of laws being based on incorrect statistics.

Hear hear carolmary. I see my teacher daughter working herself into the ground during term times and hardly stopping during school holidays. The reality of teachers' holidays is far from the general public's view. Added to that, she is never able to take her child to school or pick him up, take a day's holiday to attend sports day or any other school occasion, struggles to attend parents' evening etc. etc. Teaching has to be one of the least flexible professions and in many ways the least family friendly.

Back to the OP, I think the rigid way in which the 'no time off outside school holidays' is imposed, certainly where I live, is wrong. I think family time is vitally important and if circumstances dictate that holidays can only be arranged in term time then so be it. As others have said, there is far more to education than just time spent in school.

I think there is one law for us one for schools nothing is said locally when school is shut for voting inset days and such like last weeks of term I found were weeks where nothing much taught eg Xmas nativity plays parties etc I see schools closed when a centimetre of snow falls I used to work for health service and walked miles to work on bad weather days . I don't agree with taking kids out all the time but surely occasional few days especially with young children is not such a big problem if child as a good attendance record . My daughter rarely missed school but one year had 5supply teachers in one term no consistency there as for teachers having to go when hols They know that when they enter profession like I understood I would have to miss a lot of family get togethers eg Xmas and bank hols because of job I had chosen !

As a former headteacher and education consultant I have always believed valuable time with the family and the opportunity to travel to be very valuable for children. The travel companies and the education system make it so difficult for poorer parents to take these opportunities. As a headteacher, if a child needed to go on a long haul trip to the Far East we provided them with a workbook with ideas for activities at the airport, what differences to notice in the country being visited and country-related tasks. As a staff we believed this enhanced the education experience and we were able to make up the odd week or two on their return. As long as the travel companies cynically exploit the school holidays for profit there will always be a dilemma.

This is obviously a very contentious issue with some very determined and eloquent arguments on both sides. This no longer affects me personally as all my 4 are grown up now and it wasn't such an issue when they were at school. All of them have July/August birthdays so in effect had a year less at school then some of their contemporaries but none of them suffered from this, I also had the opportunity to take the oldest 2 to Canada for 6 weeks when they were aged 6 and 4, the school (a village school) backed me all the way and the kids both kept scrapbook diaries of their trip which was used as an educational tool in their classes when they were back. The younger 2 at the age of 12 and 5 then had the opportunity for a family trip to Australia for 5 weeks, yet again both of their schools supported me and they too did the scrapbook/diary thing. All 4 of them have very happy memories of their trips, they have all done well in school and lead fulfilling lives. I think so much depends on the attitude of the teachers, parents and children and they are all different with different needs, ideas and perspectives, unfortunately no one size ever fits all.

I remember being taken out of school for a two week holiday (my first as a child), and the class did fractions. It took me ages to get the hang of them and even to this day I can remember being annoyed at my parents. Teachers haven't got the time to ensure catch up and some parents don't have the skills or knowledge to help at home. Saying that, they somehow manage to work out how much they are saving on their holiday. There is no price on education.

As long as they have good memories and a scrapbook.......right?

As children, we were taken out of school every June to go on holiday. My dad was convinced that June was the most settled month with the best weather. All I knew was that when I returned to school, my friends had found new friends and I was out in the cold again. It was hard breaking back into friendship groups. I was a shy child and wasn't helped by this situation.

As a primary school teacher, teaching a Year 1/Year 2 class, I didn't worry too much about children missing out in English and Maths. Lessons cover a wide ability range and new work, missed by a child on holiday, will be revisited and practised continuously. It's the carefully planned topic work, which broadly follows a six week plan that may be disrupted for some children who miss a week or two at the beginning. This work won't be covered when they get back.

Missing the teaching of important mathematical concepts or principles in physics or chemistry at GCSE and A level could have a devastating effect on confidence and eventual grades. We moved house, changing schools many times when we were children. Different areas of the country inevitably followed a different syllabus and taught important concepts at different times in the school year. This certainly had a bad effect on my secondary education in both maths and science. I did OK but could have done better.

My parents couldn't afford fancy holidays. We caught up with visiting family in our annual fortnight off school. Similarly, they couldn't send us on residential school trips. When my husband and I had our three children, we could afford for them to go on so called 'educational' trips to France or Austria, usually skiing trips. We never sent them on these jollies. My husband's reason was that he didn't trust anyone else to keep our children safe. Mine was a totally different reason. While any family couldn't afford for their child to take part, mine wouldn't go either. That kind of 'educational opportunity' is socially divisive and schools shouldn't be divisive. Children learn that there are 'haves' and 'have nots' in this world without it being thrown in their faces at school.

As a retired teacher I have no qualms about saying that what children, including my own, gain from visiting foreign countries and learning about other cultures is at least as important as classroom learning. My sons' visit to Greece when they were young, exploring the Acropolis, the museums and such sights as the Corinth canal and Delphi inspired the elder one to study classics at Oxford University!

Could there not be a compromise, for example say you can keep them out of school for a week with no penalties . A lot of people now just seem to go away for a week in the sun, or you could tag it onto say the first week or last week of the school hols, would keep the price down. I agree that a lot of holidays are an education in themselves but really, parents of small children often go abroad to the sun for their own benefit.

I think it's sad that from this my grandaughter learns that her friends mum and dad afford to pay the fine and go abroad etc. whilst her mum/dad can't , they cannot afford a holiday in the school holidays because it cost "too much". They have had only had one 4 day camping holiday ,in the last three years as a family , since DDG started school.

We take the children to seaside for day trips in the school holidays, and took mum and the children last year to a touring caravan in devon for 5 days, which they loved. But as a family the cost of going in the main school hols. Is just impossible.

Sad lesson learned, if you have money you can miss school for a week or two,

I think the travel companies should make it cheaper for families to fly in term time. I do not agree with children being taken out of school in term time though.

I used to be totally anti taking children out during term time for all the reasons well quoted but since illness means one D's family could not afford to go away if they didn't, it changed my attitude a bit. I would still say don't go at the start of a school year after listening to endless parental complaints about seating arrangements or broken friendships, or just before/during exams which are never approved where I work. We don't give holiday work other than to say practise tables and keep a scrap book about where you've been to show when you get back. Frequently neither gets done anyway. It's quite insulting to ask for work to keep them up to date as it implies that there is no value in the teaching that makes carrying out tasks possible. Best value to children are holidays which provide places to go and things to see and do with family, whether that's the beach or Disneyland. Saddest feedback from one child; all he noticed on a trip to America was that someone carried their cases to their room and he went shopping.

Just a thought, so if all those who feel the holiday companies should reduce the cost of the peak time school holiday weeks, would you all be equally prepared to pay an extra £200 on each of your own out of season holidays to redress the balance?

Sadly, for a lot of children, a holiday in the sun means a week or so of kids club rather than anything cultural.

When I was a child my father was unable to take his holiday in July or August because of business commitments so we always had our holiday in June with the permission of the headmistress. My sister and I both had top grades in School certificate. Maybe things are different these days.

Gracegran . If it's like sanctions the teachers will be given targets and people will be fined whether they take children out of school or not.

lizzypopbottle - spot on. Since I stopped teaching (as we could never have holidays together- me stuck with school hols and OH unable to take any during that time) - we have had many a holiday ruined, in June or September- but the kids' clubs doing the lambada and karoke, etc, around the pool- with the 'leaders' encouraging them to shout louder and louder to show they were all having such a good time (grrrr- I love kids but if we go away in term time, I don't expect to be surrounded by them screaming their heads off and 'bombing' in the pool). But that is another issue.

As for schools having INSET days, many people don't realise that the number of days pupils attend school remained the same when these were introduced. Teachers had to do an extra 5 days a week in exchange for a pay rise. Pupils (in England anyway) do 190 days and teachers 195. I'm sure such training days do inconvenience working parents at times but they were imposed. I realise too that many parents have to work but schools are not there as a minding service.

I once was given a note by a six year old who had been absent from Thursday to Tuesday. He said "It says wiv bin to a funeral but we ant, wiv bin to Butlins".

Having worked in a school for years, dealing with attendance, it was always the same parents who wanted extra holidays during every term - the point they seemed to ignore was that the children would never catch up with what they had missed being taught.
Also, government rulings mean that anyone with less than 97% attendance is on a sliding scale towards 'unsatisfactory'; imagine how a holiday in term time makes a dent in the good attendance percentage, all of which stays on record throughout the school career. I have no strong feelings one way or the other - we had holidays in this country while ours were in school - but missing great chunks of the syllabus is not an asset for a child.

Ninathenana, the system used to work perfectly for parents in your situation. You could take your child out for 10 school days if it was the only time parents could take holiday. That's been stopped and now it's 'exceptional circumstances' which headteachers seem very reluctant to use. I would have thought your your situation would fit that description.

When our children were at school we didn't take them out of school for holidays. My mum and dad lived by the sea and we didn't have to pay them anything at any time.
However when I was young we lived in Nigeria and then Hong Kong, plenty of time off school. We came "home" every 2and a half years for 6 months, most of the time by sea. I think that I am reasonably well educated, imagine what I could have achieved! None of us got any special treatment when we returned (there were a lot of us) and most of us went to school in the UK when we got here. I went to 3 senior schools and 7 primaries.
I only thought that I would reassure concerned grannies that their grandchildren may go on to have a successful career even with a week or two a year off.