holidays

How would all you supporters of taking children out of school to get a cheaper holiday feel if teachers did the same thing? If you value education then children should always be in school during term time. Parental wealth is irrelevant in the context of this debate.

My former husband and I both worked but we did have a low income. We were never in a position to afford foreign holidays or, go away during the school holidays. We therefore asked their school to allow one weeks holiday during June or early July, which was spent in a caravan somewhere in this country. I really believe that our children don't just learn within the School environment and, by June it will be clear if the children have reached an attendance level of 95%

I shall never forget the battle I had to take my DD2 out of school on the last day of the Easter term. It was to acommodate a flight She was hard working and high achieving ;her class teacher suggested I called her in sick. I pointed out that I hadn't brought my children up to tell lies.I admit it was her GCSE year
They changed their tune whenI pointed out that the previous term all pupils had finished school at lunch time so the staff could have a party for the departing head and threatened to take it to the governing bodyv.Said DD went on to get 12 top grade GCSEs and subsequently a first class honours degree from a RG university

I personally don't think children should be taken out of school during term time, unless it is unavoidable as in when factories have shut downs at certain times of the year. Although I assume the shut downs would be known well in advance so if they were during the holidays it wouldn't be a problem and if they weren't the school should be able to accommodate a week out.

However, it is only a recent phenomenon (ie since Victorian times) where we view holidays as a right. There are 13 weeks where you can have holidays in a year outside of term time and holidays are not REALLY expensive except during the longer summer break.

With regard to the fines - it is actually set by the government and enforced by local authorities. Headteachers have very limited options as to whether or not they can authorise a holiday request.

I never took my eldest (now 32) out of school during term time and I was a single parent during the last Tory administration - I just saved up all year to go away for a week. I now have two younger children (14 and 12) and we have never taken them out during term time either. We don't have a lot of money, in fact we haven't had a holiday for 5 years, but we make sure we avoid the summer hols and we manage.

With the amount of pressure on children in schools now, taking them out during term time is never the right solution.

When I was a child there was something called the Coventry holiday fortnight. This was always started one week before end of term where we lived. Up to the age of 10 (when my father became seriously ill with his heart) we always went away on holiday always to Great Yarmouth. In a marquee bought off the scouts (perhaps should mention I'm one of 9). It didn't appear to do us any harm missing one week of schooling. My school friends were well jealous but then invariably they were far better off than my family - holidaying in France etc.so the jealousy was reciprocated!

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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 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,

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.