Parents taking children on holiday in term time.

I’m afraid we did this, but only when ours were little. With the type of holidays we had though and the places we took them to while we were away, they were learning although possibly they were unaware of just how much was sinking in!
We never had a ‘laying around a hotel pool’ type of holiday as we would have been bored stiff, never mind the children.

Once they were older though we only went away during the school holidays, but by then we were lucky enough to have bought our holiday home in the West Country.

As the daughter of ex pats I missed a lot of school, every 3 years we came to the U.K. for 6months. We stayed with our grandparents and went to school where ever they were.
On one leave my dad bought a caravan ( mum refused to stay with G&G for the whole leave) we toured the U.K. for 3 months.
Our teachers never helped us catch up. They couldn’t possibly with the ever changing children in their classes.
I missed the autumn term of my first year of GCEs, the school I went to in Lancashire had a completely different curriculum.

Somehow we all managed, 2 of us got degrees, 2 got HND’s and we all had useful and reasonably successful careers.
You can guess that I don’t think that missing a couple of weeks is disastrous.

We took ours out of school, our children take theirs out of school. Normal to me, not everyone can holiday at certain times, for various excellent reasons. Holidays as a family are precious.

Norah

We took ours out of school, our children take theirs out of school. Normal to me, not everyone can holiday at certain times, for various excellent reasons. Holidays as a family are precious.

I totally agree Norah

No, it is not time to ditch the fines!

Just you try teaching a class where children are taken out of school whenever their parents please! You always have some child who wasn't there when something important was taught, so you have to try to reach that child whatever it was while teaching the remainder of the class interestingly as well.

Parents MUST be made to realise that their children's schooling is of paramount importance if the same children are to have a chance of a decent further education and a good job.

We all know that travelling is more expensive during the school holidays then outwith them, but that is no excuse.

No-one says you have to go away on an expensive holiday - use your imagination and have a cheaper holiday.

Or if you really feel everyone should have holidays abroad, badger the airlines and travel agents to provide these at the same price all year round.

Don't jepordise children's futures by making it harder for them to get proper schooling.

Marmite1953

As a grandparent I am disgusted at the situation of schools striking and not considering the impact on parents having to find childcare or use their annual leave or unpaid leave ,there are long school holidays and teachers training days that need cover, yet if parents try to take their children on holiday(obviously not on a regular basis)on dates when the holiday companies don’t increase the prices they fine the parents !

Couldn’t agree more 👏

I never took mine out of school in term time, neither does my daughter with hers, I think it’s disrespectful.
It’s happening more and more, in one class locally six children were missing from a class as their parents, all friends, holidayed together during term time.
If you feel your children were ‘educated’, I’m sure the places visited were available the rest of the year, aka school holidays.

My granddaughter, a single parent, takes her two children out of school for overseas holidays, which, as it happens, would be cheaper than U.K. holidays. She always asks for permission, which is readily given as they have such good attendance the rest of the year. She pays the required fines, but it is still cheaper than paying for a holiday during school breaks.

Parents MUST be made to realise that their children's schooling is of paramount importance if the same children are to have a chance of a decent further education and a good job.

Can we assume that children’s schooling was NOT of paramount importance when teachers took strike action, leaving children with no formal education and parents scrabbling around trying to find emergency child care on those days?

Don't jepordise children's futures by making it harder for them to get proper schooling.

And yet teachers considered their industrial action was more important than providing their pupils with proper schooling?
You can't really demand 100% compliance and responsibility from parents when teaching staff arbitrarily go on strike leaving both children and parents adrift.

^ She pays the required fines, but it is still cheaper than paying for a holiday during school breaks.^

I suspected that that might be the case.

I'm sorry, but I can't go with this 'foreign holidays are a valuable experience for children' notion. I see no reason why foreign travel can't be deferred until people are adult and able to fit it around their own commitments.

And, frankly, most of the 'holidays' taken during term time are not nice middle class valuable experiences of foreign cultures, they are a week or two round a pool in a hot country. As I'm sure many school teachers will tell you.

We forget that the demographic of posters on Gnet (or certainly on this forum) is mostly middle class, educated professionals or business people. Our experiences and expectations are not necessarily reflective of those of the population at large.

MaizieD are you saying that those who cannot afford to go away in school holidays should just accept it. Should they settle for a wet week in a tent in Skegness (apologies for any Skeggie GN posters)?

Surely this just increases the divide between those who can and those who can’t, those who have and those who have not.

Parents MUST be made to realise that their children's schooling is of paramount importance if the same children are to have a chance of a decent further education and a good job. ........... Don't jepordise children's futures by making it harder for them to get proper schooling.

The problem lies in the fact that the national curriculum is a complete stranglehold on real education and parents have to retain the freedom to make choices about what is best for their children. If parents feel that their child will learn more from a foreign trip then they have to have the freedom to make that decision. We are not yet in a police state.

They should also retain the freedom to make decisions about their own finances and home circumstances which might make them feel that the trip needs to be in termtime. They are grown adults in a free country.

None of my children lost out from being taken out to another country for 2 weeks each year. They all have good educations and good careers - and broad minds.

I do realise that it is hard for teachers when children take this sort of time out as they too are bound by the strict curriculum; but in my experience they understand perfectly well why parents do this as they too are parents themselves in the main.

Exaggerating the situation by implying that children will find it hard to get a proper job on the back of 2 weeks less education a year is clearly crazy! There is a lot more to education than school.

Schools have to keep an eye on the time children take out of school for reasons other than educational, especially where there are safeguarding concerns about the family circumstances; but, other than this special circumstance, they should not have to police parental decisions about their own children's best interests.

GrannyGravy13 that divide has existed for time immemorial, it did in the bygone days of The Grand Tour’ in the 1800’s to private jets now.

There are circular elements to this discussion. Over the past 20 yrs or so education and the teaching profession have been treated with little respect by govt and the general public. Perceived problems with young people are seen as due to the failings of their teachers, not their parents. School buildings are falling down around their occupants. Education budgets are cut and cut.
Then when teachers take action they are hounded and excoriated to a degree not extended to doctors and nurses.

that divide has existed for time immemorial, it did in the bygone days of The Grand Tour’ in the 1800’s to private jets now.

Then it's high time that division was ended don't you think?

Jaxjacky

GrannyGravy13 that divide has existed for time immemorial, it did in the bygone days of The Grand Tour’ in the 1800’s to private jets now.

Agree, but there is no need to continue it in the 21st Century.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a weeks foreign holiday in the sun where the children can play in the pool or on the beach.

What about children who are home schooled? They can go on holiday whenever they please, for however long they please. No-one's claiming their futures will be irreparably damaged.

Our daughter works in a school. She never took her own child out for holidays. She now says that the children do very little learning in the last week or so before the summer so it doesn't do too much harm.

What is the cost of a foreign package holiday? It's probably almost as expensive in termtime as in the holidays.
Having 4 DC there was no way we could think of going abroad with them all. We did once camp in France and took my mum. It was August and it was boiling hot.
Our DC now holiday abroad although one doesn't want to leave his dog though I have offered to dog sit.

The school holidays are long enough to keep your time away within those boundaries.

We always had to holiday at the expensive (and often hot) times of the year as we were both teachers so the question did not arise about taking the children out of school. Most professions/jobs allow people to choose when they want to take a holiday. Teaching and other education focussed work does not. I would have felt it wrong to take the children out of school. We felt very guilty when we took our grandchildren (they lived with us) out of school 3 days before the official lockdown as DH was CEV.
Nobody minded but it didn’t seem right.

Grammaretto

What is the cost of a foreign package holiday? It's probably almost as expensive in termtime as in the holidays.
Having 4 DC there was no way we could think of going abroad with them all. We did once camp in France and took my mum. It was August and it was boiling hot.
Our DC now holiday abroad although one doesn't want to leave his dog though I have offered to dog sit.

The school holidays are long enough to keep your time away within those boundaries.

The cost can vary quite considerably. We always tried to stick to the school holidays and certainly never took our two out of school during high school. I remember one year though we ended up flying from Newcastle because the exact same holiday would have cost us £800 more to fly from Scotland. The English school holidays hadn't started then, which is why it was so much cheaper to go from Newcastle. The minute the school holidays begin, the holiday companies hike up the prices. You can save a fortune by booking everything independently, but I know many people don't feel comfortable doing that.

The cost can more than double.

The law of supply and demand is so embedded in our economy that I'm afraid we're stuck with prices going sky high during school holidays. So whilst I quite understand the pressures as regards taking children out of school during term time in order to save money, I'm uncomfortable with the idea. Removal from the education stream, albeit relatively short term, not only impacts on the particular child, but can also have a detrimental knock on effect on other children in the class when the absentee returns and the teacher then has to give that child undue attention to catch up on something important they may have missed. It's all very well to say, "Well we did it regularly, and our children certainly haven't lost out", but how can you possibly know that for a fact? The educational equation is highly complex, and there can be certain key and relatively short term stimuli which can be triggers for movement in a particular direction, or birth of a specific interest, which can have far-reaching consequences for the rest of a child's life.. even leading to career choices. So if a child just isn't there when that stimulus presents itself, the opportunity is missed. Yes, that can happen during absences for illness too, but there is no choice where that's concerned. Removing a child to go on holiday during term time is a choice, and that choice may well have outcomes which are not in the child's best interests. In my own case, I certainly recognise a key moment when I was in my first year at Grammar School, when a very special teacher lit the blue touch paper which set me on course towards a rewarding career which I followed for my entire working life. If I hadn't been there on that day, would it have happened again? Possibly, possibly not, but what's important is that I was there, and it did happen. Potential key moments in time. We need to be present for them, and so do our children.

A recently-retired friend and I were talking yesterday about the old chestnut of 'It doesn't matter, it's the end of term'! Both of us agreed that our secondary pupils worked until the end of every term.
As for the teachers' strike, two points
▪︎the teacher will endeavour to adjust lesson plans so that the same amount of learning takes place in fewer lessons. Not ideal, but neither is having not enough teachers.
▪︎the strikes are about teacher recruitment and retention, school funding - that's classroom resources, paying for buildings to be clean and hygienic, computers, training for health & safety, child protection etc and a promise that salary increases will be paid for from money not currently in school.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-63283289
"Unions want above-inflation increases, plus extra money to ensure any pay rises do not come from schools' existing budgets.

Most state school teachers in England had a 5% pay rise for the year 2022-23.

After intensive talks, the government offered an additional one-off payment of £1,000. It also increased the offer for most teachers next year to 4.3%, with starting salaries reaching £30,000.

The Department for Education described it as a "fair and reasonable offer"."

I'm very surprised if grandparents don't feel their grandchildren deserve as good an education as their own children received 25 years ago.

Good post Chardy. Spot on!