Expensive holidays during school breaks. What do we think.

Pass the bucket !

Not that kind of 'feeling ill' Gilly

Lots of "affordable half-term breaks" in the paper this am. All more than we could ever have afforded when ours were young! Always tried to do something with them which was usually a day or two out or a visit to granny. It's a different world out there now (for many, not all)

Our grandkids are coming over for half-term (with dd1 and sil). The queues at our local ski slopes (they will be staying with us and travel to resort every day by car) will be massive, the ski classes full to the brim, the restaurants full to the brim, the car-parking a nightmare- ski hire and passes prices hiked, Channel Tunnel too and Motorway through France stupidly busy. It would be so much nicer if they could come the week before or after- but a/ parents would not dream of taking kids out of school (4 + 7) and b/ they would be fined and c/as a Governor sil would be in big trouble too for setting such a poor example.

I think it's sad (ridiculous even) when it is thought problematic for a four or seven year old to miss a week of school in order to take the best advantage of seeing grandparents. Children don't even start formal schooling until they are six or seven in some countries.

Mine are coming in March/April, they come for 4/5 weeks, as it is 12, 000 miles . Cannot come during long holidays because it is impossible with the business. DGS will be 6, I hope he will learn something of his British and European heritage while he is here and return to school with newly acquired knowledge to share with his lovely teacher and fellow pupils. Many children at his school do this and they seem to accommodate this well.

It's part of his education, margaret. I hope it's a wonderful visit for you all.

Thankyou, can't wait!

It's controversial and both sides of the debate are compelling, but flexibility and reasonableness are all that is needed, not heavy-handedness. This school governor doesn't seem to feel his children would miss out when circumstances led him to take the holiday had had organised.

www.closeronline.co.uk/2014/01/enraged-parents-hit-out-at-hypocrite-school-governor-who-took-daughter-on-two-week-sunshine-holiday-despite-fines

I don't think, in fact, that most schools do exact fines. But open season is not tenable. We are a much more affluent country these days than 30 or 40 years ago and many more people can afford holidays - some go many times a year.
Who would bear the brunt of a flexible policy - the head and the governors, that's who. A flexible system (one in which schools authorised absences for some holidays but not others) would mean an application process whereby the head would have to consider the request and the governors deal with appeals. It is already an arduous job being a governor let alone a head. I would not have welcomed another meeting involving a 20 mile round trip, to hear a succession of parents complaining that "it wasn't fair". Oh and another night on which the head has to stay on in school for most of the evening.

I don't want to seem flippant, but it does seem bizarre that parents are fined for taking their children out of school for holidays, but schools can exclude a child for four days for having a packet of illicit snacks in his lunchbox.

Yes!

So true JessM. One reason why it is near on impossible for schools to recruit Governors among teachers, parents or community (totally unpaid of course, and no expenses) meetings, after meetings and more- several times a month late into the night. Would it not be better for them to discuss the education of our children and grand-children? Perhaps? Rather than whether a child is wearing 1 ring or 2, nailvarnish or a strange hairdo, whether their socks have stripes or a logo, and umpteen such?

I am on the education board here- and this is what we talk about- education and nothing else. A breath of fresh air- and I am sure best for the children (and society).

Yes well it would be the same in a good governing body in the UK granjura but this requires good governors and good chairing wherever you are. Lots of meetings and committees in all walks of life are poorly conducted and go on too long!

I think anyone who has worked for a big organisation will tell you that the big problem is not so much the cost of the holidays but the fact that all the parents of school age children want to take them in the same six weeks! If you are working in retail it is a nightmare trying to organise holidays without half your staff disappearing. Then there is the problem of the mother working for one company trying to sychronise her fortnight off with what her husband is allowed by his employer. By the time all this has been negotiated the actual cost pales into insignificance.

Exactly Grannyactivist this makes my blood boil. My DGD's have a packed lunch twice a week as they take part in a scheme where they befriend a less able child. The eldest (7) is terrified that grandma might put something in that is on the "forbidden list". It makes me so angry. My GC are super fit, they are built like whippets,they eat healthy food. How dare some stupid teacher (and they must be stupid) tell a 7 year old that they cannot eat the carrot cake that grandma put in the lunch box. I do hope that same teacher isn't smoking,drinking, eating chocolate, burgers or biscuits.

Hey don't knock the poor teachers - it's the Headteacher and the Governing Body who make these rules.

PS are you sure you're on the correct thread Gilly ???

With 10 weeks in total of school holidays to cover many parents cannot overlap their holiday allowance but instead, have to take their own hols. separately, at different times meaning that they have no whole family holidays at all. Also, think of the self employed for whom a fortnight's holiday is also a fortnight with no pay. Dh, in the building trade, often had no work to do during January, having worked non-stop up to Christmas/New Year but once the DDs were at school we could not go on holiday then. Same bind for owners of B&Bs, in fact anyone in the holiday trade - no chance of a fortnight in the sun during the winter for them either.

I was always under the impression that one week off school and a pupil feels they've missed a month of work. I was told this early on in life. I suspect it hasn't changed. I am totally against school trips abroad in term time. My DD 2, and I know this is 18 years ago, but I am still enraged by it, was doing As French, German and Latin. The Latin teacher was taking a party to Rome, the French teacher to France and ditto the German teacher. As she was the only one doing that combination the school felt shock at my indignation.!they said she could study on her own in the library. As the following term was all study leave until the exams I was appalled.
My DGD aged 10 is going on a ski trip in ski week which evidently all Swiss schools do. The teacher has added a new dimension by saying that there is a party and all the girls have to have a "cavalier". I don't think anyone has the right to have a holiday abroad or at home in term time. I think the fine should be realistic,the true cost of a weeks education. Because it is free it is not valued. In every class room ,every staff room there should be a poster Think Malala. Apologise for the ranting and I know Gillybob is having a bad time over her GDs education. Useless teachers tarnish the rest.

I see no real reason why different counties can't stagger their holiday periods. There can't be that many parents with children in different schools crossing county boundaries. If some started their summer break nearer the beginning of July - or even June after exams finish - and went back earlier it would spread the load so to speak. And some of the new Free schools are already going over to a four term system I believe.

Well I was only responding to a post by Grannyactivist at 17.07.40 (Saturday 1st) so I assumed I was. Aka

We live on the borders, and My DC had different half terms for a while, it was difficult as DH worked away, luckily my work was flexible

NfkDumpling- half-term here will be 2nd and 3rd week in March, and in France the country is split into 3 zones, with overlapping holiday dates (like one zone will have week 1 and 2, zone 2 week 2 and 3, and zone 3 week 3 and 4) to ease the situation and road congestion (as the majority of French still tend to holiday in France).

When our kids were little, we were lucky to have the Textile fortnight, first 2 weeks in July- so when we went on hols for those 2 weeks, either camping in France or YHA or cottage rental, it was just us and the Scotts on the beaches. Sadly that was done with some years back. I also had colleagues who lived in different areas to where they taught with totally different holiday dates, which was a nightmare.

Stansgran, a huge difference between ski trips for uk schools and Swiss ones. Kids from our school will be on ski trip in a few weeks. Not just those who can pay, but ALL THE KIDS AND ALL THE TEACHERS (apart from one who has a young baby). Partially subsidised by the Council and local Gvt, partly paid for by fundraising by kids with the support of their teachers, and by us the Governors and local councillors fund-raising effort. Not ONE single child will not be able to go due to lack of funds or equipment.

And of course teachers are preparing a whole programme of educational acitivities to be done around the trip in the Alps, geography, culture, sociology (eg change of lifestyles over past century from traditional farming to tourism) environment, etc.