holidays

I am amazed how some people appear to jump to the conclusion that a child being taken out of school for a few days a year means that they have irresponsible parents who want a cheap holiday where they can laze on the beach or around a pool. My grandson was 5 years old when he was taken to America with his other grandparents . He returned to school just before the class started a project about space and the planets and my (usually very quiet) grandson went to school in a full space suit his nana had bought him at the Kennedy space centre. This was then tried on by every other child in his class and the photos (together with some blown up photos my son had taken of an Apollo rocket) were given pride of place in the school hall with the paintings the children had done . Not sure how this could not be seen as educational?

There was no way this whole trip could have taken place during the regulated school holidays as the other 10 people on the trip had to organize their (4 weeks per year) holidays accordingly. As it happened it overlapped by 5 days. Who in their right mind could say that this was not educationally valuable ?

I stand by my original comment that children who fail at school usually do so for reasons other than being taken out of school to go on holiday. Obviously, if children are regularly missing days or whole whole weeks off school for reasons other than illness this to me indicates a family with problems and that would need to be addressed in a different way.

There are significant numbers of children who have never had a holiday - even a day out to the seaside - who are probably more likely to fail at school for hundreds of other reasons.

nina, DD took Maths and additional maths, English Language. English literature, French, German, Latin, Russian, Chemistry, Physics, Biology and music. She had an hour travelling to school and hour home again plus a few hours homework and she was studying for her Grade 8 piano too. We didn't see an awful lot of her and I have often asked her if she thought it was too much but she says she would do it again in a heartbeat. It did help that she loved the school and made friends that she keeps in touch with even though they are all over the world.
She got all A grades and went on to get five A levels at A grade . She got a double first honours degree in applied chemistry.
At home she is just DD who loves to play classical music on the piano and played keyboards in rock bands.
When people say missing school a few weeks every year is not important on the scale of things, I get quite cross. Education is everything and you only have one chance at getting it right.

Eleothan you are quite right, another point is that it is much easier to deal with the parents who want to take their child on holiday than to tackle the families with consistent absentees. The former want to stick to the rules and will change their behaviour accordingly, the latter don't care and will find ways around anything.

When my children were small my husband had his holidays allocated by his employer so we often went on holiday in term time. Schools did not mind back then. One of my sons still has an employer like this and, if he had children, would not be able to have a family holiday. There seems to be no allowance for this issue.

I have got to agree with you. I often used to take my children on holiday during school time, mainly due to cost, but I think its important children visit new places, meet new people. But it isn't just about cost, a lot of people have holiday dictated and it is really unfair if they can't go when the parents can. Its always all right though for the children to go on school holidays, that cost a fortune, or for teachers to strike etc, and miss school then. I never took my children out at important time, and it never done them any harm.

I would generally expect that children in private education would do better than children in the state system simply because of the class sizes and the financial position of the parents (enabling every extra tuition and activities etc) . My DGC's school is in quite a deprived area where most children probably won't know what a "holiday" away from home is. Having said that I didn't think this thread was a bragging thread about how "little Johnny got 15 O levels , in his private school" but a thread about children having a holiday with their family ( or not as the case maybe) . I would put my DGC into private education in a heartbeat but like most people we are not in the financial position to do so .

I am sorry if you think I was bragging gilly, this is the first time I have actually mentioned DD's exam results, nina said she didn't think there were 12 subjects you could take at O level. Yes DD was at a private school but we went without holidays and DH and I went without to provide for the children.

To borrow a cliché, it's a 'first world problem'.

You weren't bragging Harrigran. You were stating facts.

Well, we would never have taken the children out of school - I think it's irresponsible apart from in exceptional circumstances such as family funerals or illness etc, We were both teachers so it was never an option in any case, and our holidays were always in the school holidays, usually in the UK , often just staying with grandparents.
If a child misses an important introductory lesson (fractions is a good example) it's often difficult for them to catch up afterwards, and it's difficult for the teacher who just doesn't have time to go through every lesson missed with every pupil individually especially when teaching 6 or 7 classes of 30 pupils. So we usually resorted to getting them to copy up from another pupil and coming to ask if they didn't understand. Asking for holiday work is also a lot of trouble for the teacher (I am talking secondary school here) - extra time sourcing, and photocopying appropriate work and then marking it afterwards on top of the usual ongoing preparation and marking.
It may be different for primary school pupils and I concede that not a lot of academic work is done in the FB days before the endof the Summer term or just before Christmas so absence at those times is less serious.
If pupils miss introductions to GCSE course work it is a really serious matter!

Even going without holidays and luxuries,a private education is beyond the pockets of most ordinary families.

Exactly annsixty. More and more people are finding it difficult just to pay their rent/mortgage.

I wasn't accusing any individual of bragging harri so apologies if you think this was some kind of "dig" at you. It wasn't meant to be. I was just trying (unsuccessfully ) to say that taking a child out of primary school (once) for a week to go on a family trip could hardly be the difference between achieving 15 O levels or failing miserably.

i did go on to say that if I could have afforded it I would have sent my DC to private school in a heartbeat (my DGC too) but like annsixty said it wouldn't be a just case of going without luxuries or holidays. For me it would have to be going without food, clothes and probably a roof over our heads.

Took all three of ours out of school at primary age. One ended up at Exeter, one at Cambridge, and one at Bangor. Did such a lot of harm to their overall education didn't it?

Traditionally, in rural areas, primary school children were allowed to take the first week of the academic year off because their parents had to work throughout the school holidays. You certainly couldn't book a holiday in late July/August because of the harvest.

We used to take advantage of this and it didn't interfere at all with their learning.

There are always exceptions jingl but some children would struggle if they missed important work.
We are going to try and put GC through private education too and gilly if I thought I could help another child I would do that too. I am passionate about giving children the best chance at life.

Some of you perhaps miss the point some of us have been making. It's not just the effect on the individual child or children- but the effect on the whole class- if three are constantly several children away for some holiday or other. Every time the teacher has to help children catch up, go over those fraction, or the construction of the 'passé composé', or how the Magna Carta is still influencing the world today, etc, etc- is time taken from the whole class- or other children who need support.
That's why the GVT stepped in- because classes were constantly disturbed - not by 1 child or 2 being away- but lots of children, week in, week out ...

That is the only reform by the GVT I am totally in support of.

As a Senior Teacher and Governor, I would certainly support not giving a place to younger sibblings at the school- never mind the tiny fine.

15 GCSEs!!! (they're not O levels any more, gillybob). Not even today's pupils get that many - not in one year, anyway...

I would never take a child out of school after the age of about 9 or 10 but I don't see the harm in taking a 4, 5 or 6 year old child out for the last two weeks of the summer term.
Some parents find it impossible to take holidays just when they wish.

How would the parents feel if teacher took a week off during term time to go on holiday? Some have been known to, none in any of my DC's schools.

When DD2 was in 4th year juniors (Year 6) the HT took a term off for some reason or other (a course?), her teacher took over as acting head, a supply was drafted in who had already booked three weeks holiday so another supply (lovely but useless) was drafted in for the last part of the year.
The same thing happened to DS when he was in Year 3 - his teacher took over as Acting Head because the HT had taken a term off to go overseas, and the class had a supply teacher - who was the best thing that happened to the class I must say!

none in any of my DC's schools I was not contradicting myself in the second paragraph because the Head Teachers had valid reasons for taking a term off.

There are some excellent supply teachers.

There are sadly an awful lot of bad ones too.

Yes, but that particular one did more good in one term that the permanent teacher had done in 1 year 2 terms!!