Taking children out of school.

The trouble is with the policy of no children being taken out of school for holidays is of course the expense. It is so much cheaper in term time, and many parents have decided that it is far cheaper to risk the fine (£60 I think) and go term time and still save money.

Yes, another year older. Thank you

Hi nanaej

My son in law gets private health insurance through his job for all his family and I have lifetime private cover as a pensioner from my previous employment.
The only thing is there is a £500 excess on the policy and myself and the other grandparents paid it between us.
My daughter and her husband got a little less spent on them this christmas but the grandchildren suffered no loss.
I was retired early in London and got a low grade job with the council and a manager thought it was wrong that I lived in an expensive house and I used my private health insurance.
I did however know my pension combined with my salary was more than what he was being paid.
We have never taken our daughters and our granddaughters out of school for a holiday.

Frank

My grandchildren will be taken out of school for a holiday this year. It is either that or no holiday at all as their parents both have strict 20 day enforced holiday allowances.

I really don't see the problem when children are small and often there is so much to gain from the trip.

Travel is a learning experience. Apart from new sights and new experiences there is the more mundane but equally important stuff. What shall we pack? Have we packed enough/too much? Weighing the cases if flying. Timetables, passports, airports/train stations/ferries, suncream, time differences...tbh the list is endless.

New experiences trigger more questions and lead to more learning. Even if there is not a lot of discussion a child still sees, hears, smell, feels, tastes new things. Can you remember when you first saw an airplane close up? Were you surprised by the size? Imagine being a child having only seen pictures and planes flying high in the sky then you see the real thing.

The modern education system with it's hoops to jump through has narrowed learning rather than broadening it.

Exactly vampirequeen I remembe watching something on TV fairly recently talking about how many children in this country have never seen the Seaside only pictures of it, which I found terribly sad.

We all learn things through experience. It's why we travel as adults....we want to see and do new things. Why should it be any different for children? I know it's my soapbox but we need to take the pressure of in school and allow children the freedom to learn for themselves as well as being taught.

Totally agree with you vampirequeen

Just to let everybody know I got my granddaughter to school at 9.40am. I did get her a drink at the hospital so I supose I could have got her to school 5 minutes before.
Considering 3 days of school could have been lost plus time for a follow up appointment I did not think that was bad.
The doctor said this was the final appointment but to come back if we have any more concerns.

Frank

HunterF I do not understand why you got an ear bashing. It is your choice what Hospital you wish your family to go to and not up for discussion with the school.

I think sometimes the green eyed Monster appears were you least expect it to. In my opinion you have done nothing at all wrong and should be proud that you have managed to be in the brilliant position of being able to provide private help for your loved ones.

I would like to mention here though that having worked for a Doctor in the past. I can tell you that alot of the time a Doctor that is willing to take a large payment for his expertise is also happy to give it for free in an NHS Hospital, which basically means that you are usually getting the same Doctor, however as you say waiting lists are an issue with the NHS as are in my opinion, condition of Hospitals in terms of cleanliness etc.

Glad to here your GD is ok now.

PS Obviously not FREE but much much cheaper.

Hi Mey

Oddly enough I spoke to an off duty nurse from the Birmingham Childrens Hospital and she said her husband has private medical insurance like my son in law.
She did say that if there had not been much of a difference in waiting time and it had been her daughter she would have prefered her to have gone to the Birmingham Childrens hospital.
That said the doctor did mainly work at the Birmingham Childrens Hospital and all the nurses she came in contact with were mothers ( oddly evough one of them told me all of them on duty that day only had sons ).
All I can say my granddaughter was happy that day and she did get a couple of goodies which I think the nurses dipped into their own pockets for.
Yes both lots of grandparents paid £250 each for the excess on the insurance but it was a small price to have our granddaughter put right.

Frank

1n the 1970s when my children were at primary school we had to take our children out of school for a family holidays regularly as my husband worked in the then new and burgeoning offshore oil industry and between April and September was rarely home for more than a couple of uncertain days a week. One year we realised that his summer schedule was particularly tight so we had our annual holiday in early March.

The headmistress knowing the circumstances never caused any problems with us taking them out of school for a week, but did say that this was partly because both our children were bright and they would on their return, quickly catch up on anything they had missed. She said that if they had been struggling in any way she would have been less willing for us to take them out of school.

HunterF pleased to hear that all is now well with your GD.
However I was surprised to hear the amount of the 'excess', but then I know little about healthcare insurance.
The attitude of the person to whom you spoke when you phoned the school was unacceptable.

gillybob - have you found out what the penalties are in your area for taking kids out of school for 2 weeks?

Problem is, it is impossible for schools to say OK for some and not for others. Impossible for them to say yes for someone who says something like 'we are taking the kids to France and we will be studying the geology of the Alps, some French, and history of the Provence and do lots of interesting sports, etc' (eg we are middle classe and will ensure the kids benefit a lot from the trip) and 'we are going Benidorm and the kids will stay by the pool all day and watch us drink beer - and we won't be eating any of that foreign much, ta or speak any of that weird language either' (eg we are working class). Nor between children who are doing well at school and will soon catch up, and those who have difficulty or special needs, and will find that they will be even further behind.

The above examples are of course stereotypical, and yes, maybe sound patronizing. And yet ...

I have known children with severe difficulties taking the kids out of school, and basically condemn them to failure. As a teacher I often spent my lunchtimes, free periods and after school teaching children who required extra help - then found out it was all ruined by a holiday at a crucial times. Even in the middle of GCSEs. Teachers, Heads and Boards of Governors cannot spend hours agonizing over the rights and wrongs of a family holiday in term - so the answer is a NO for all. My husband could not take much time in school hols, so we often missed out. If they have 20 days = 4 weeks, what is the problem?

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but I am just trying to show the other side of the coin. For me and my colleagues, the ultimate insult was the 'we are going away for 2 weeks in term-time' could you ask all the teachers for my children to prepare lessons for them to do whilst we are away'. And then find out they had not done because they never had time (the teachers having spent 1-2 hours for each child preparing work!).

Sorry - off soap box now

Granjura my granddaughters will be 5 and 7 when they are taken out of school for their holiday. Grandson only 3 and in nursery so no problem there. Both granddaughters are extremely bright and doing very well at school. The little one not yet 5 has the reading age of a 7 year old and could read very well before she started school. I honestly fail to see what the problem is taking them away on what would be their only chance of family holiday given their parents working patterns.

Our local authority leave it up to the discretion of individual head teachers and thankfully the head at my granddaughters school is quite reasonable and open minded so there will be no fine.

Forgot to add Granjura as a teacher you probably don't have a clue what it is like to have 20 days holiday per year, 15 of which you have no choice when to take.

Hi Oldgreymare

The policy is provided by my son in law's company and it covers the whole of the family and runs from September 1st to August 31st.
If a member of the family has a claim in a policy year then they have to pay an £500 excess but if the same person has another claim in the same policy year then they do not have to pay any excess for the second claim.
As this policy covers 2 adults and 2 children if they all had a claim in 1 policy year a total of £2,000 would have to be paid ie 4 x £500.
There is also another slight problem in the fact that if say my granddaughters treatment ran from say 14th August to 14 September the claim would come into 2 policy years and we would have had to pay £1,000.
Private medical insurance is expensive. For a family it could easily amount to £3,000 per year. It is unlikely that all persons covered on the policy would have a claim in 1 insurance year but even if this happens it is cheaper than taking out their own cover.
Even though my granddaughters operation was fairly low cost in medical terms the total claim amounted to over £4,000.

Frank

Gillybob, if you re-read my post, you'll see that my OH was very restricted as to when he took his holidays, and of course, although I had long holidays, I couldn't take any outside school holidays. The combined effect was that it was very difficult to have time together.

The point I was making is that for heads and school governors, it became a nightmare to pick and choose who was allowed and who was not. About constantly making value judgement about the educational quality of one holiday as against another. Then parents saying 'why are we not allowed, when xyz was- it's because their are posh/rich/middle class, etc? We therefore never took kids out of schooltime- in my 39 years in the UK we never had Christmas with my family, as OH couldn't take sufficient time off to travel.

As a teacher I also know that many parents used to take kids out of school for hairdresser's appointment (well ours is very popular we can only get time for full head of highlights i school time), shopping trips for trainers, nails, whatever. Often in key stages too. It's hard, I know - I've got granchildren coming here for half-term - and it would be a 1/3rd of the price or less if they came outside half-term, and the our local pistes would be quiet, the class sizes smaller, etc, etc. They are only 7 and 4 - but their parents wouldn't dream of taking them out of school- our of respect. We just came back from visiting out daughter who lives in the Canaries and the local hotels were absolutely full of British kids of all ages - I was amazed. Some parents are really showing very little respect for their kids education - and as always, that means all suffer. A Head can't say yes to some, and no to others, or it is pandemonium.

BTW where I live taking children out of school is an absolute NO - and nobody would even consider it. It is just not done,

Hi granjura

I never took my daughters out of school in term time for holidays.
One of them had some problems with her teeth and I think she had to have about a dozen appointments.
We did arrange about half of them outside school hours but we could not arrange all of them outside school hours as every school and every employer wanted doctors and dental appointments arranging outside school or working hours and there is simply not enough dental hours in the day to allow for this.
Yes I agree it must be annoying for the schools but sometimes these type of things can not be avoided.

Frank

My little ones are being taken out for an extra week at Easter. My DH and I are both celebrating the big one soon, (how did that happen? emoticon), and he is retiring, so he's treating the whole family to a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Florida. The schools have been fine about it, but we all feel a bit guilty. Educationally, I don't believe a week now and then would make too much difference at their very young age, but I do understand it's the principle of ensuring good attendance that causes most concern.

On the contrary Granjura I absolutely did read your entire post and I understood that your husband has restricted holidays. However as a teacher am I right in assuming you enjoy a vast amount more than 20 days holiday? Nearer 60 ?????? My son and daughter in law NEVER get to spend holiday time together ( this week will be the first since they had children) . They each have enforced holidays that they have no choice when to take. Sadly this is the REAL world for many families and I cannot see how taking 2 very bright young children out of primary school for one week will do them any harm whatsoever.

Incidentally my granddaughters school was newly built in 2011 and the children had an enforced 9 week summer holiday as the school was not finished in time for the beginning of the term.

I can't believe people are fined for taking their children out of school. When my two eldest were six and four we went overseas to the UK and Europe for four months. We had a lovely time travelling around, sightseeing and spending time with their English relatives. When our eldest returned to school in Australia and youngest started school their teachers often commented on how beneficial it was for children to have the opportunity to travel. Five years later when we had three children we also moved to England for a year and my children never had problems adjusting to their school in the UK and then back in Australia.

I notice my eldest granddaughter's school are happy for children to have the odd day off for what they call a family day. They also advise not to send young children who have recently started to school every day as they become too tired and can't concentrate. My GS6 also had time off when his brother was in hospital, sometimes other things are more important.

Frank, of course, it is very different for a hospital appointment - and I totally agree with you.

Again GB, yes I did have long holidays as a teacher - but my OH could not take much time in school holidays. But yes, we did have 2 weeks a year, and it must be awful if you can't have any. In which case I think I would have done the same, and taken a week out whilst they were still young. I sympathise.

Again, we all suffer due to the totally irresponsible behaviour of some. It is so sad to see children fail due to taking time off at a crucial time, and also frustrating when you have worked your socks off in your own time to help them get over difficulties- and then all the hard work ruined. You cannot believe the reasons given for taking time off, as said, hair, nails, trainers, etc. And for some, taking kids out of school for days and weeks to help with babysiting younger sibblings, or even working on the sewing machine, etc, to finish an order, for home workers.

It is sad that any child should be taken out of school to babysit a sibling but also absolute proof that child poverty still exists in the UK in 2013.