Taking kids out of school, for holidays.

[beorhthelm]

er, seems i'll be the first to say i thought they do stagger half terms. im certain its different between LEAs and boroughs. maybe it changed? anyway, what difference does it make, it would only spread out over a two/three week period, little difference in demand overall (taking account of all those that dont go on holidays in half term...).

My Dad is a governor at a large Secondry school in West Sussex. If you divide the total budget of the School by the number of lessons per year and the number of pupils, they spend £40 a lesson (5 lessons a day) per pupil.

with a staff of 30 ( 6 forms per year, 5 years), i reckon that to be 38k per teacher. i know that arent well paid but after NI and pensions, senior staff, department heads, heads etc they must be costing more than that on average. if thats anywhere near the funding (even double it seem low), wheres all the billions going?

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

which deep down is against in principle your human rights to take your holiday when you want to rather than dictated to by your employer.

Really? They pay you a wage, give you a very generous leave entitlement but they should have no right to say when you take it. Maybe they should be grateful if you even turn up for work at all.

My view is that this isn't so bad as long as the kid is a good attender and probably more importantly that the parents are fully involved with the child's edication and have a good relationship with the school.

The mad thing though is that this also happens in the private sector. Paying 4k a term and then missing the last week to save a few hundrend quid.

 

[Marshy]

Ive done it once and would do it again, my boy had something like a 99% attendance rate at school, so i thought why not, we were literally the last set of parents in the class to do this. We did it the week before a half term i think, as someone previously stated they do bugger all that last week really. And we spoke to the school who advised that would be a good week to do it.

Its way cheaper, and this is a biggy also, your not surrounded by a thousand other kids all on holiday at the same time.

 

[WATFORD zero]

With the length of the summer holidays we always managed to get something reasonable, but going skiing in spring was a big problem. So all the time our kids were at primary school, we took them out of school for one week every spring to go skiing. Once they went to secondary school we bit the bullet and took them at half term (although we have gone 1 or 2 days early).

We always requested the absence and told the schools why, and we never had any problem with any of the schools, but i suspect this was because they had 100% attendance records outside of this.

I think we should market this wonderful idea. I am thinking of branding it 'a bit of common sense'.

 

[Acker79]

with a staff of 30 ( 6 forms per year, 5 years), i reckon that to be 38k per teacher. i know that arent well paid but after NI and pensions, senior staff, department heads, heads etc they must be costing more than that on average. if thats anywhere near the funding (even double it seem low), wheres all the billions going?

How do you work out 38k per teacher? Are you factoring in supplies, books, water, gas, electricity bills? Admin staff, dinner ladies, caretaker? Sports equipment, maintenance, etc?

 

[SULLY COULDNT SHOOT]

As my wife and I are both now in the education profession there is NO WAY ON EARTH that our children are allowed to miss school barring serioues illness or natural disasters.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Well I don't believe my holidays should be dictated by some artificial calendar regardless of whether I have children or not.

What do you mean?

 

[Brovion]

As my wife and I are both now in the education profession there is NO WAY ON EARTH that our children are allowed to miss school barring serioues illness or natural disasters.

Is that because you physically can't take them out of lessons (as your jobs won't allow it) or because you believe that they should attend school on every possible day?

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Is that because you physically can't take them out of lessons (as your jobs won't allow it) or because you believe that they should attend school on every possible day?

For what it's worth I think parents should stick to the school holiday periods....this is what they are there for after all.

 

[VeronaSeagull]

Bit unfair on teachers though, can nobody see the problem here, its nothing to do with schools or educations its the travel companies who should be pressured to average the cost of holidays over the whole year so making it slightly more expensive during the 39 weeks of school time and cheaper during the13 weeks of school holidays.

Are you missing the point of supply and demand? Travel companies price their products at the price during the year that will ensure the most sales whilst making maximum margin.....much like football tickets cost more for the big games.

Yes it's a pain for parents but if you were to force prices down more holiday companies would go bankrupt!

 

[SULLY COULDNT SHOOT]

Is that because you physically can't take them out of lessons (as your jobs won't allow it) or because you believe that they should attend school on every possible day?

the latter. Gives your kids an excuse to not go..... ' But Daddy you didnt make me go to school last week for a holiday' Not much of an excuse is it?

 

[ezzoud]

Are you missing the point of supply and demand? Travel companies price their products at the price during the year that will ensure the most sales whilst making maximum margin.....much like football tickets cost more for the big games.

Yes it's a pain for parents but if you were to force prices down more holiday companies would go bankrupt!

Fair enough for them to put the prices up a bit , that's reasonable, they provide you with a service (of sorts), at peak times more people want to take a holiday so the price increases. No problem with that.

It's the massive ramp ups that I refuse to pay. Have a look at the portals for Uk self catering cottages - for the End of May half term the price pretty much doubles - that's blatant greed and as consumers we should be more prepared (collectively) to stand up and say "No we won't pay this price. It's unfair". If we all did it then they wouldn't get away with it would they?

Having said that, my children (oldest now in Year 8) have never missed a day's school ever due to being on holiday so it is possible to have an affordable family holiday without missing school.

It's probably a different subject but surely you know how much you can spend on your holiday so you set your sights accordingly.

 

[bhaexpress]

Do you have children ?

Thankfully not but so what ? I doubt that school has changed that much in terms of attitude post exams to my day.

 

[VeronaSeagull]

Fair enough for them to put the prices up a bit , that's reasonable, they provide you with a service (of sorts), at peak times more people want to take a holiday so the price increases. No problem with that.

It's the massive ramp ups that I refuse to pay. Have a look at the portals for Uk self catering cottages - for the End of May half term the price pretty much doubles - that's blatant greed and as consumers we should be more prepared (collectively) to stand up and say "No we won't pay this price. It's unfair". If we all did it then they wouldn't get away with it would they?

Having said that, my children (oldest now in Year 8) have never missed a day's school ever due to being on holiday so it is possible to have an affordable family holiday without missing school.

It's probably a different subject but surely you know how much you can spend on your holiday so you set your sights accordingly.

Agreed. I work for a high end villa rental company and a lot of it comes from expectation from the owners of our villas....such as charging July prices for Christmas despite it being cold apparently it should be a peak visiting period.

The May half term week from our point of view is a way marker and our prices go up at that point but only to the June price range. But then we don't offer flights or car hire and that can be where the big push comes on prices....

 

[Brovion]

the latter. Gives your kids an excuse to not go..... ' But Daddy you didnt make me go to school last week for a holiday' Not much of an excuse is it?

Don't think I've quite de-ciphered all the 'nots' in that sentence, but you don't go on holiday every week on you? So if they say "Well you didn't make me go to school last week" your answer would be "That was because we were on a family holiday, not just having a day off to muck about."

I'm not having a pop btw (hope it's not coming over like that), everyone brings up their children how they see fit, and despite my cavalier attitude to holidays in term time we weren't parents to just let the kids skive off whenever they wanted.

 

[SULLY COULDNT SHOOT]

Don't think I've quite de-ciphered all the 'nots' in that sentence, but you don't go on holiday every week on you? So if they say "Well you didn't make me go to school last week" your answer would be "That was because we were on a family holiday, not just having a day off to muck about."

I'm not having a pop btw (hope it's not coming over like that), everyone brings up their children how they see fit, and despite my cavalier attitude to holidays in term time we weren't parents to just let the kids skive off whenever they wanted.

Having a day off to muck about is exactly what you do on holiday. If I am trying to convince my kids the importance of going to school, how does it look when we can use the excuse of going off and having a great time on holiday as a reason for not going to school?

Not sure if thats clearer but...

 

[Brovion]

Having a day off to muck about is exactly what you do on holiday. If I am trying to convince my kids the importance of going to school, how does it look when we can use the excuse of going off and having a great time on holiday as a reason for not going to school?

Not sure if thats clearer but...

Yes, that clearer!

Anyway, I would take issue with you that holidays are just 'mucking about' One time we went ski-ing with an extended French family who apart from one member didn't speak a word of English. We were in a French area (the family had booked a chalet rather than going through a tour operator) and almost the entire conversation all week was in French. My son certainy learnt far more than staying at school to learn about the role of women in Anglo-Saxon England or whatever it was they were doing that week. On two other occasions we've been to America for Thanksgiving thus giving us the chance to study an important ritual of a primitive, alien culture at first hand. (Just joking for any Americans reading this! It was great!)

The lesson being (as we told the kids) is that education isn't something that begins and ends in a classroom, it's a constant and ongoing process.

 

[ezzoud]

The lesson being (as we told the kids) is that education isn't something that begins and ends in a classroom, it's a constant and ongoing process

You obviously took great pride/interest in raising your kids and as you've illustrated, it didn't harm them and the way you've described it is hard to argue against - a bit like a pal of mine whose Dad wrote a letter explaining his absence for one day as a "Geography field trip (it was actually taking him to watch Sussex in a Gilette Cup match)

However, there are plenty of parents who don't take such an interest and if you let them think "It's ok to miss school for a holiday" it's IMO a short journey to "It's ok to miss school and stay at home and watch TV/mess about with my mates/play on Xbox etc" and that's got to be a bad thing.

As always with these "society is broken how can we fix it" type debates the answer is clear. If everyone was like me everything would be fine.

 

[Nibble]

everyone knows that peak months are more expensive, you chose to have kids you deal with the consequences. I went out with a teacher for years and paid out a bloody fortune for flights etc over 9 years. Kids go to school in term time and go on holidays in holiday time. Get used to it.

However I do think the travel agencies/flight companies etc should be forced to bring the prices down, it's a bloody rip off.

 

[Nibble]

BoF I really think your views would hold more credence were you speaking as a family man.

Utter bullshit. BoF is spot on. Kids are expensive, they add cost to your life. Don't like it, don't have kids. Jesus Christ, parents want everything their bloody way all the bloody time. This life involves sacrifice, you either sacrifice having kids and have some cheap awaybreaks and extra disposable income or you have kids and pay what it costs.

If everyone was taking their kids out of school at different times the accumulative effect would be chaos. Teachers wouldn't know what kids were in that week, what kid has missed waht modules etc. It would be a logistical nightmare for everyone involved and unfair on the kids whose parents have common sense, but hey, as long as little Milo's parents get their cheap holiday bollocks to everyone else eh?