holidays

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!

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.

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

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%

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.

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.

Jaycee5 nothing would surprise me. I do feel that the previous arrangements for children in Primary school where the Head Teacher could make the decision, work well. The last time my little family in Australia came over it was at Christmas - their summer holiday - so they didn't need more time but they are coming in the summer this year and they are having a week off. They are five and eight and the teachers are used to people going to see families in the UK and seem to take it in their stride. I know we have all commented on when they or rather when my DGD reaches secondary school things will change - or possibly before then as their education comes first.

I know I have said this before but this government "knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" and if you can't put a price on it they do not value it at all.

Its nothing to do with fundraising its a fine with the aim of deterring truancy!

DS1 and DiL never take the children out of school during term time. Why? Because she is a secondary school teacher. Their holidays are usually caravanning or camping except for a week at February half term when they have their annual skiing trip. There must be many thousands of teachers in the same position who surely feel frustrated when they see children being taken out of school when they know they never could . Not that they would, because they, of all people, know the value of a good education. My XH and I were both in adult and further ed, so were in the same position.

Indeed- but far far too low to be a deterrent. As the OP says, parents just factor it in as they would parking, or any other extras. To be a deterrent, it should truly reflect the amount of saving on a holiday taken in term-time.

The ski châlet we booked for the family at half-term, to celebrate DH's 70th bd, would have been about 50% of cost had we gone in January or March. But that is the way it is.

Exactly. Everyone else just has to pay up or save up and plan ahead.

Most annoyingly, some parents ask for the teachers to supply the missed work! As a retired teacher, it was always difficult if children missed time as they needed to be given 1:1 time to catch up. But what did make me see red was those parents you knew were lying...what message does this give the children. Our family could only ever have holidays in the school holidays as we were both teachers. Many people do not realise how much teachers miss by putting school first.....my husband would not take 1/2 day in term time to watch our son play at a university final at Twickenham, he was not at his mother's side when she died because OFSTED were in and he was head, I could not attend a very close friends funeral because it was term time....I could go on and on!

We had to take our children out of school ,30 odd years ago as DH was a junior manager in the team and the senior staff had secondary school kids, so they had priority . Our DC had good attendance records and the head teacher gave them projects to do and a diary . But nowadays there is so much more pressure on teachers and children , I think if we were in the same position now , we probably would not have had holidays sadly

Regalo - reading the list of important events your headteacher husband missed I am genuinely saddened and respect his undoubted dedication. I then reflected that as a lowly worker in the banking sector, I have missed my mum's death, my 18 year old son's heart operation and my dog's euthanasia. Work (and conscience) gets in the way regardless of your occupation ....

And yet, and yet, it's always said that, on their death bed, people never say I wish I'd spent more time at work!
Feeling a bit reflective after a lovely funeral today.

I will just add that if I had spent 365 days a year in school I would still never have passed Maths O'level I was suprised when I looked at an old school magazine and realised only a handful passed 7 or 8, most people only seemed to manage 4 or 5 . The only way we could take more than 8 subjects was to fit another one in with our A Levels.

I would have thought that nowadays, when parents are under so much pressure, with both of them working full time and children in after school clubs , it is even more important for families to have time away together.

My DC took French and Maths O level a year early which allowed them to concentrate on the other ten subjects.

I'd struggle to name you 12 O level subjects harrigran

How would the parents feel if teacher took a week off during term time to go on holiday?

No wonder there are some schools that need more dicipline.

We never took the lads away from school, neither did any in their class.
But my parents sometimes used to take me away during the first two weeks in September. But they had a reason as my father had a hotel, so the summer holidays was one of the busiest times of the year and I went to private school so soon caught up.

well said * Newquay* !

My ex DiL has just now rung to say she has booked for the family (3children) to go to Florida over Easter next year. She will be taking the 2 younger ones out of school for part of the second week as the cost is £10,100 to cover the complete school holiday against £6500 to take them out for 4 days.

Firstly, Elegran, what a brilliant analogy! The cupcakes comparison very succinctly reveals how a system which is set up to educate children simultaneously, is, by parents seceding from group education, forcing educationalists to provide private, individual tuition without contributing the resources to do so.

There are arguments to be had on both sides of the case, on the one hand children benefit from family time and often learn a lot on some sorts of holidays and on the other hand children might well miss essential schooling by being taken away in term time.

As a former teacher I have seen both extremes. One middle class couple took their children away on a yacht for a year and the children wrote up their experiences in a diary supervised by the well informed parents who were natural educators. Another child went on a week's break in the important run-up to the SATs and came back not even knowing the country she had been to as she'd spent a week by a pool in a hotel. And there are countless gradations in between.

What I can say without any doubt is that given the National Curriculum and the exam system any absence will result in gaps some of which might be crucial in understanding a whole topic or a half term's work.

The problem I see is this. That the parents and the children benefit from the holiday but the teachers are unfairly penalised for it as they are now quite punitively judged on their pupils' progress in a way which wasn't the case in the past.

A holiday which results in a 'borderline child' gaining a D grade at GCSE instead of a C grade affects the school's results and the teacher whose pupil 'slipped' will be targeted adversely. Pupils are now meant to make 'two levels of progress' between year seven entry and GCSE and this is hard enough without any absences because achieving level four at Key Stage Two SATs is not really sufficient to make a C grade without hard and focussed work.

My solution would be to make term-time holidays on a 'at your own risk' basis whereby parents would sign a form to excuse the school from having to reach the targets set for their child and the child would be taken off the school league table statistics.

This will never happen in a million years because the whole point of the attendance drive was to make teachers responsible for that which should be the responsibility of parents: their children's progress in school. It is not 'democratic' and 'equal' to tell parents the truth, i.e., that term time absence damages their child's education and that they should put that first for a few years while the children are in school.

However, if parents don't view education as an 'exam factory' and are relaxed about results why should they not spend a happy time with their children? Philip Larkin writes about 'that toad, work' squatting on our lives. However, he does conclude in the poem that, however much we dislike it, the alternatives are worse. I think that the important things are that parents make their decisions with their eyes open (and absence does damage learning, for sure) and that teachers are not blamed for what parents choose to do.

On another note. Independent schools have terms five weeks shorter than state schools and they get better results. There's a reason for that!

I have never seen a problem with children being taken on holiday in primary schools and I was a teacher. The regulations were brought in to try and improve attendance figures, so effectively those parents wanting to take their children on holiday are being punished because some parents have little respect for schools and keep their children at home for all sorts of dubious reasons which they usually excuse as 'illnesses'. A week away or even a fortnight will do very little harm in the long term. Teachers plan well in advance and if there is something crucial being taught in that time information can be given to parents as homework. On the aspect of paying, it is clearly discriminatory, but I wonder about the legal basis. It would seem to me to be quite OK to say you will pay it, take the child on holiday and just never cough up the cash.

We took our children out of school for a fortnight each June. We often went to France and had daily diary sessions where our activities were written up - and not just a paragraph or two, either. Our daily activities included visiting historical monuments, churches, museums and long walks where we looked at natural formations, plants etc and the odd beach, too. Our children always did very well at school and there was never a problem, wither with the school or their level of attainment.
DD1 is not allowed to take her children out of their school for even one day. It has been made very clear that if such an event should happen, a fine will be applied.
DD2's school is more than happy for children to have holidays in school time with no sanctions at all. Consequently, DD2 is able to use a few days here and there to ensure that they do not travel in the peak times of term time. Such a difference in policy!
DD1's first child is now at a senior independent school with longer holidays but she still can't take her younger child out of school or wrath from above will descend.
I realise our children were bright with supportive parents (and the loss of ten days of schooling did not show in their end of term exam results) and that this might not always be the case but as trisher says, the whole are being punished for the few irresponsible parents.