Parents taking children on holiday in term time.

I don’t approve either. It’s something I never did and I can’t condone loss of education/disruption of everyone else’s education and the teacher’s time for the sake of a cheaper holiday.

During my last year of teaching, 17 out of 32 children in my class had holidays during term time of one week or more; two children had three weeks and 8 children had two weeks. It is disruptive for the rest of the class, and class time has to be spent in covering essential work that has been missed, particularly in maths, English and science. Whether the families were fined I do not know.That was 11 years ago.

Now I am aware that more families are taking holidays in term time, building in the cost of the fines which is far less than the extra cost during school holidays. I don't approve; the curriculum is very tightly focused and there is little allowance for catch-up time. The idea that they don't do anything towards the end of term is wrong, they prepare for the next year's curriculum; other pupils give the holiday makers a hard time when they return, accusing them of skiving.
However, it is hard to argue the case when teachers have disrupted education deliberately during the past year.

Not long ago dd took the elder (primary age) Gdcs out of school for a week before half term - she was anxious to visit a very old friend a very long flight away, who’d recently had a diagnosis of cancer, with a very poor prognosis.
She did clear it with the head teacher first, who in the circs made no objection.
IIRC the Gdcs were encouraged to keep diaries of their nearly-fortnight away.

Complain to the travel companies not the school.Perhaps if people said right this year we stay here the travel companies would do something about their pricing. Of course it wont happen, but please do not blame the schools who have more than enough rules and regs to cope with set by the powers that be.
Schools have changed hugely since I was teaching, but I do know that in secondary at least the education programme keeps rolling , so comparing it with my time at school ,or even my daughter's is pointless.

MaizieD

Of course, another solution would be for holiday prices to remain the same over the course of the year. But we couldn't do that, could we?

Children being taken out of school for holidays is a nuisance for the school and the children will miss work that may not be repeated. But it becomes even more of a problem when parents who are separated each insist on taking their children on holiday during term time.

I suppose it all boils down to judging which is most important, the school work or the holiday.

I don't see any problem with the fining apart from the fact that I think the money should go to the school, not into the general government coffers.

I also must confess that my liberal views don't extend to thinking that there is a god given right for everyone to take a holiday abroad every year.

Of course, another solution would be for holiday prices to remain the same over the course of the year. But we couldn't do that, could we?

It's Capitalism, innit - that's how the 'market' works!

Of course, parents could, en masse, refuse to purchase these over-priced holidays, then the market would be compelled to review its pricing structure...

But why does the fine-money not go into the school coffers? It's almost like the government has found another way to gouge money out of the less well off!

I’ve only read the first two pages so far but wanted to thank Chardy for standing up for teaching staff. My daughter is a secondary English teacher (head of faculty it happens). She has not been on strike, not because she doesn’t believe in it but because there are children that needed looking after during the strike days. We do need people to support the teachers and help schools get the budgets needed. Having to fund everything (including huge energy costs) from the same budget simply means that staff have to do every more (most days my daughter does not even have a single break, all her “frees” which are for prep, management work, etc are taken up covering for teachers who are not there. Some support would be nice.

Chardy

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.

Further to teacher strikes and underfunding, the National Audit Office released their report this morning
"Following years of underinvestment, the estate’s overall condition is declining and around 700,000 pupils are learning in a school that the responsible body or DfE believes needs major rebuilding or refurbishment."
BBC breakfast did 2 pieces on this (one about 7.45 Head of school where raw sewage has been flooding corridors on and off since 2015 in area used by 5yr olds
8.02 Head explaining about building problems that apparently she us responsible for)

This is part of the underinvestment in school funding that the strikes are addressing.

The price difference between a term time holiday and one that is within the school holidays for many families is the overriding factor.

Why should only the wealthiest children have a holiday?

As for where they go on holiday, that is nobody’s business other than the family concerned.

(It’s not the lowest income group who have the largest carbon footprint by the way)

We chose not to fine, following a discussion at a governing body meeting, the parent governors said they thought some parents would see it as being able to buy their way to a cheaper holiday and this might lead to more parents taking that option. Also we wanted parents to work with us in providing the best education for all our children and whilst some parents could afford to pay the fine others certainly could not. The school did do extra curricular activities in the last week of the summer term, put on special plays, choirs etc at Christmas and the children loved taking part so those parents who cut the term short were actually depriving them of useful and happy educational experiences.

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.

There are big savings to be had holidaying in term time....my DD took her 2 DDs away last year in early July to Greece....she saved £1100 .....the fine would have been £60 ( one GD is in nyrsery) ....the HT said he couldn't authorise it but said there would be no fine .

I want to reiterate- the fines are set by the local authority or the academy trust. They are not set by the individual HT nor do they benefit the school. Ill feeling by parents on this matter should be not be directed to the school staff or governors.

I suppose, MaizieD the truth is there are different types of holiday. It's cheaper to rent a cottage, hire a caravan, book a room in a hotel or even a camping spot virtually anywhere "out of season".

Whilst it may involve a car/train/ coach journey it doesn't necessarily involve a flight. Also, if I were to drive (say) to the Welsh coast with my family and camp by a beach (as we did when I was a child) I may spend less fuel there-and-back than I would spend ferrying them locally to school and out-of-school activities for a week or two.

Not saying that we should or shouldn't. Not sure Benidorm is a right.

The climate change debate is something for another thread.

Well, I don't agree.

How can people reconcile saying that children have the right to go and sit on a beach in Benidorm every year with the fact that flying is a significant factor in global warming and that the more people who do it the worse it will be for the environment?

Just because people have been doing this since the inception of cheap foreign holidays doesn't make it acceptable in the light of what we know now. Nor do I believe for one moment that most of the people who do it are offsetting its carbon cost in other ways.

However, I'll leave it there.

I never took my children out of school for holidays, except for one year when the summer term finished on a Tuesday, not the previous Friday as I'd thought. Not to go abroad, we couldn't afford that, but self catering in a holiday cottage in Devon or Cornwall. Some years we didn't have a choice over which 2 weeks we could have after others had booked their leave, but I can only recall one year when we could only get one week.

Where one of my children works there are 15 people in the department. The rules state that no more than two people can be on annual leave at a time. It was reasonably OK when some didn't have children or only pre-school age ones. Now the majority have at least one school age child so the competition to take leave during the 6 week summer holiday period is intense. Some inevitably miss out, should they not even contemplate a family holiday? While I sympathise with teachers and the problems child absences may cause they do get 6 weeks of summer to take a holiday with their own families.

Blondiescot

I'm well aware of the facts and figures, thanks. But these threads always get derailed in some way. It's about taking children out of school and how that does or doesn't affect their education. The climate change debate is something for another thread.

My apologies, you’re right Blondiescot

Norah

foxie48

As a previous Chair of Governors of a village primary school, I cannot tell you how many hours we spent discussing this. Our children came from every sort of home, some very well off and some definitely on the breadline, some who jetted off to exotic places, some who didn't have the money for tomorrow (let alone a holiday). We struggled to keep our attendance up because of the better off families taking holidays in term time (it's so good for the children to experience different cultures), poor families who weren't that invested in education (not all, just some) and some families, who were just disorganised and chaotic. How do you teach children that education is important if you just substitute it with two weeks in the sun or a week of skiiing in France, is totally beyond me. If parents think experience is so important, save up and take them during the holidays but please don't try to excuse your behaviour by pretending that you are doing the children a favour.

We told our children education was important, brought studies along, they learned whist away. They all went to Uni, they all finished. Works for me.

I'm pleased your children were successful, I' sure they would have been equally successful if you had taken holidays in term time. Having seen it from a Head teacher's POV, that's not true of all children though. Lots of children need to be at school for the whole year, slip back in their progress during the summer break and don't have parents who encourage their learning when they are out of school. It's really difficult to have one rule for the children who will succeed no matter what and those who need a lot of help and I believe that parents should accept the school rules (even when it's inconvenient). We asked parents to sign a school contract, thankfully most parents were prepared to work with the school but of course, there are always those who didn't.

I don't think that anyone other than courts should be able to fine people. Fair enough, have things like parking fines that everyone knows would be enforced by the courts - they are saving on costs.

Schools fining parents changes the collaborative relationship that should be the aim, I think. Also, as I said, I think it is very unfair that people can effectively buy themselves out of obeying rules that apply to those who can't afford to break them. It's just so unjust.

I think schools fining parents is outrageous, and way oversteps their role.
Fining hurts the families who can least afford holidays in school holidays, but how can you regulate that and should you be able to do so? The fines are often less than a quarter of the savings made on the term-time holiday.
Penalties aren't totally a school decision, and they don't benefit the school at all, which is one of the biggest complaints we get from parents.
Schools are slated by that wonderful organisation OFSTED for attendance figures which include holidays. Unauthorised absences can also be linked to safeguarding. Would any school willingly leave itself open to attack on safeguarding issues?
The policy should be set by School Governors together with the head. They authorise the head to grant a certain length of leave, subject to conditions e.g. how many times the leave has been requested, does it affect a child's transition to a new class, what the child's general attendance is like.
I've no idea what an answer totally acceptable to all would be.

When I was a child we always had holidays in term time because my parents didn't like the crowds in August. Of course in those days the summer holiday was usually only a week. I was a teenager by the time my father got two weeks holiday. I don't remember any problems catching up, I had far more trouble catching up after my regular illnesses. My father was a very heavy smoker and it did me no good at all.

When I had children we couldn't afford holidays but we lived in Cornwall so it really wasn't a problem. They just ran wild all summer. DS and I recently took his 9 year old away for a few days which included two school days. At the moment his ASD/ADHD means he is getting very little out of school and I suspect they were quite happy to not have to worry about him.

1Luckygirl I definitely agree with you about the stranglehold of the National Curriculum but regarding your comment

Parents need to retain some freedom to make their own decisions about what is best for their children

I would say that retaining freedoms to educate appropriately is why some of us home educated our children.

This had the added benefit of holidays in term time - though our holidays were almost always GB based or somewhere on the Island of Ireland.

Doodledog

*Also affordability of holidays by some, not all - another thread.*

Not if fines are being used to police it. Some can afford the holiday and the fine. Others struggle to pay for the holiday, and they are the ones more likely to benefit from the cheaper deals available if you can afford the fine. Both sets of children will have the same impact on their education if they holiday in school time.

Affordability of holidays is for another thread, but IMO the fines are very relevant to this one. I think schools fining parents is outrageous, and way oversteps their role.

Agreed.

I'd not considered the fine - we managed within days allowed.

I'm a bit confused now. Are we concerned about children being taken out of school for holidays in term time and the effects on their education, or the ecological responsibilities of Mr & Mrs Joe Soap flying to Benidorm with their kids?

Also affordability of holidays by some, not all - another thread.

Not if fines are being used to police it. Some can afford the holiday and the fine. Others struggle to pay for the holiday, and they are the ones more likely to benefit from the cheaper deals available if you can afford the fine. Both sets of children will have the same impact on their education if they holiday in school time.

Affordability of holidays is for another thread, but IMO the fines are very relevant to this one. I think schools fining parents is outrageous, and way oversteps their role.

Blondiescot these threads always get derailed in some way. It's about taking children out of school and how that does or doesn't affect their education. The climate change debate is something for another thread

Indeed

Also affordability of holidays by some, not all - another thread.

The climate change debate is something for another thread.
Agreed. And allowing those who can pay to have time off which is denied to those who can't is not about education - it's about elitism, however much it is dressed up as some holidays being more worthy than others.