Parents taking children on holiday in term time.

First world “problems”.

I think we should just stagger school holidays more in different areas

It's hot enough now for summer holidays to start in some areas, I don't know why September has to be a universal start

It does impact teaching, a lot of things are steps so if a step is missed that child will struggle with the next thing which can hold up the whole class. If 30 children missed a week each, that could be a horrendous outcome.

Grammaretto You're completely out of touch with holiday prices. I've just checked out a holiday to Spain, flying out from Midlands Airport, next week, half board, family of 2 adults and 2 children. Total cost including taxes is £1827. Same holiday, same airport, same hotel and board, for the first week in August is £3411.

No one is questioning the length of time of school holidays. The issue is the cost if holidaying within those parameters.

nanna8

My GC went to live in Japan for 3 months when they were all in primary school. The teacher commented that they would learn much more in that3 months than they ever did in school. She was very wise. They don’t fine people here for their children missing school - in certain areas there is a big problem with this but the parents wouldn’t pay anyone anything and are not expected to.

My grandson was in Australia for 4 months, enrolled in local Australian school for that time, primary. So saw Australia and still had schooling. Made new friends, adapted well, win win he says, years since.

Extended visits of several months can't be classed as holidays so aren't really relevant to this discussion.

Taking children out of school for the convenience of parents does imply disrespect however compelling the financial arguments. Not just disrespect for the teachers but also for the importance of work turning up and adhering to rules.

The idea of "I wouldn't be learning anything worthwhile so I'm going to take myself off, never mind the rest of you" isn't one we would like children to take with them into their working lives.

VioletSky

I think we should just stagger school holidays more in different areas

It's hot enough now for summer holidays to start in some areas, I don't know why September has to be a universal start

It does impact teaching, a lot of things are steps so if a step is missed that child will struggle with the next thing which can hold up the whole class. If 30 children missed a week each, that could be a horrendous outcome.

Holidays aren't staggered because if external exams dominate in both primary and secondary, which is not just pupils taking exams, but getting the exam data back to the schools and parents.
Siblings being educated in different areas would cause parents chaos. And with fewer teachers living close to their place of work, many teachers might have different breaks from their children/spouses (total guess 200k teachers with school age children?)

There are so many good and apparently very sensible reasons for taking children out when you look at it from any given individual's point of view, but NanaNana puts it very well above.

The accumulative effect of every family having that right would result in chaos in learning as children come and go from the classroom and no way could each absence be caught up with for each individual child and their needs, especially given the current structures and assessments systems and even more pressures on teachers.

The individual cry, "but its different for ME" - well everyone can come up with reasons, can't they?

I agree about leeway post age 16 exams once done - that makes sense.
There is a little leeway I've noticed atm when different authorities have different half term weeks - this might be looked at to slightly extend the summer period so more families get to go away and a little less pressure on key booking times.

So given the current situation, it's a no. My family wouldn't dream of it.

I did the same Beetlejuice after i'd posted and see you are quite correct. I gasped at the cost of a week in Lanzarote!

I was thinking more, dividing the country into 3 and staggering by a few weeks so that local schools were in sync

It might make holidays cheaper for all too

Never mind, most solutions have unwanted side effects I guess

Why do holidays have to be educational ? An element of snobbery maybe?

I am obviously in the minority but I honestly cannot see what is wrong with a one week family holiday in the sun during term time.

Families need time out, they need to recharge their batteries, they need to just play together, away from the stresses and strains of every day life.

Holidays are staggered in the Netherlands so it can be done. The regions take it in turns to be earlier or later. It does not seem to affect exams. Also the finish around the end of June and go back around the middle of August.
Nobody ever took their children out of school for holidays.

Well the wiggle room depends on the formal exams, it might be small, but a week or so either way would help out - if you could make the total "holiday period" 9 weeks over the country instead of 6 for example.

You cant really make it longer - as well as exams, you have families in different parts of the country wanting to meet up and go on holiday together and so on.

GrannyGravy13

Why do holidays have to be educational ? An element of snobbery maybe?

I am obviously in the minority but I honestly cannot see what is wrong with a one week family holiday in the sun during term time.

Families need time out, they need to recharge their batteries, they need to just play together, away from the stresses and strains of every day life.

But Granny my point remains - say if half a class's families decide to do that through the year, how on earth is a teacher supposed to manage all the comings and goings? One has to look at the wider picture? Its not just the learning interrupted, its other things like school plays, trips, on-going projects like science projects depending on a sequential sequence of teaching each week significant and so on.

I have mixed feelings about this. We took our youngest dc out of school once for a trip to America and I think the o,destntwo missed a Friday once to travel to a family wedding. However, the school showed very little concern or care when one of my DC was chronically ill as a child and missed between 25-30% of each school year. ‘They’ll catch up when they come back’ was the overriding message so how that squares with lifelong damage from a week’s holiday, I don’t know.

It’s also hard to take when children of traveller families miss weeks of school, with no fines rendered, while Joe Blogg’s children get fined for missing a day, as happens at my GC’s school.

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.

Of course not. It's everyone's birthright, innit?🙄

Meanwhile, the planet is burning up and a significant contributory factor is air travel.

Education doesn’t only take place in the classroom. Different sounds, sights, smells, languages, scenery, tastes and so much more will expand young minds.
Just a matter of being careful not to clash with exams.

I had quite a lot of time off school due to illness and the school didn't do much to supply me with off site materials in the 60s. But I eventually came out with the best A level results of my year. So I think a lot depends on the child's ability. It can be said that an early experience of foreign holidays, especially when they involve interaction with other language speakers and visits to historic sites, museums and so on could be more valuable than soaking up another bit of the national curriculum, possible more so than organised school camps and cadet activities. Meeting foreigners when young might obviate 'othering' attitudes to asylum seekers and refugees later. The Blairs took their children out of school and I'm sure their Tuscan experiences more than made up for a few missed lessons.

MaizieD

^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.^

Of course not. It's everyone's birthright, innit?🙄

Meanwhile, the planet is burning up and a significant contributory factor is air travel.

There are other ways to travel abroad than flying.

It’s everyone’s birthright, innit

Really MaizieD ?

Good post Chardy at. 25:38 today. So many points that need to be made.

I read with interest the idea of staggering holidays by area.
That already happens, where schools in the LEA where I teach take different holidays and some schools have 2 week half terms where others only have one. It makes life difficult even in summer where we finish a week to ten days before my daughter’s school in a different LEA. Our DC have to work hard to ensure our DGC meet up.

It would benefit travel destinations though. They would simply extend their highest costs over a longer period.

Our school term ends this week in Scottish schools, and some finished last week. The autumn term begins in mid August which means Scots families, including my DC race off this weekend to beat the high prices and crowds

GrannyGravy13

MaizieD

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.

Of course not. It's everyone's birthright, innit?🙄

Meanwhile, the planet is burning up and a significant contributory factor is air travel.

There are other ways to travel abroad than flying.

It’s everyone’s birthright, innit

Really MaizieD ?

There aren't any other ways to travel to many of the Brits' favourite sunshine spots, which just happen to be islands...

Travel by train or car cuts down the distance one can travel in the course of a holiday

So flying is the preferred mode of travel. And how many flights a day are there to holiday destinations?

It's seriously disturbing when people are acting as though depriving children of a week beside a foreign swimming pool is a huge injustice and even flagging up criticism of that sort of holiday as a perpetuation of the rich/poor divide.

I don't know how we fix the mess that is climate change, but ignoring it feels irresponsible.

It's far cheaper (and less crowded) to holiday in term time, even with paying fines, so that's when my grandchildren and many of their friends go. It just makes a nonsense of the system, really. My local authority is very keen to issue fines, always to both parents. I wonder where that money goes? In other parts of the country, there are more warnings - and less fines.

As a retired teacher, of course I believe that attendance is important. I also see holidays as vital. I doubt that quality of education is really impacted - except, perhaps, for those already struggling. Add up all the days off sick, arriving late etc. instead and they really do matter far more, as does a positive attitude.

Nana8 I hope your DGC didn’t learn about the pressures of Japanese education whilst on holiday in Japan.

I totally disagree with fines being imposed by schools. I don't approve of any form of control that differentiates between those with money and those without - I feel the same about charging old cars to enter city centres or congestion charges that allow the better off freedom of movement denied to the poor. Also, fines should be imposed for criminal activity at the discretion of the courts, not for saving money on holidays at the discretion of a school Head. I don't see why 'educational' holidays should be exempt either. I agree that this attitude is simply snobbery. Either there is a rule or there isn't, and it should apply whether you are tramping round ancient ruins or playing bingo in Blackpool.

We always had family holidays in school holidays, as I was marking or attending Exam Boards in term time, and the only time I could realistically have taken leave out of the school holiday period would have been in September, which would have meant the children missing the start of term and getting to know new teachers, timetables etc, so it didn't happen. We always managed a holiday, but it was sometimes a struggle for my husband to get time off in August as his colleagues had children too, and they all wanted time off in school holidays.

When I was a child there were holiday forms that parents filled in to get authorised absence for 2 weeks of the year. I always thought it was very exotic when friends got them, but never got to ask for one as my parents didn't believe in taking holidays in term time and my father could take leave when he wanted (my mum didn't work). AFAIK, the children who did go away didn't suffer though.

MaizieD

GrannyGravy13

MaizieD

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.

Of course not. It's everyone's birthright, innit?🙄

Meanwhile, the planet is burning up and a significant contributory factor is air travel.

There are other ways to travel abroad than flying.

It’s everyone’s birthright, innit

Really MaizieD ?

There aren't any other ways to travel to many of the Brits' favourite sunshine spots, which just happen to be islands...

Travel by train or car cuts down the distance one can travel in the course of a holiday

So flying is the preferred mode of travel. And how many flights a day are there to holiday destinations?

It's seriously disturbing when people are acting as though depriving children of a week beside a foreign swimming pool is a huge injustice and even flagging up criticism of that sort of holiday as a perpetuation of the rich/poor divide.

I don't know how we fix the mess that is climate change, but ignoring it feels irresponsible.

But that's their choice. Plenty of people on here are flying off to all sorts of destinations on holiday - do they get criticised for it? How do you know that many of those families flying off on what they may feel is a much-needed family break aren't doing their bit to tackle climate change in other ways?