Holidays during term time.

[JSD Albion]

It's not what just kids miss during the time that they're away but the mentality that it creates. School becomes optional in a sense, and that's bound to have an effect on a child's mind whatever age they're at. The fact that it's optional for economic reasons seems to exacerbate that, and I really don't buy the stuff about kids learning more when they travel than they'd have learned in school. I very much doubt whether many parents set the truant a day's lessons to make up for lost time.

All sorts of travel broadens the mind. My kids remember seeing National Front graffiti on walls in Burnley when I took them there to watch the Albion. (Ironically the game from which Mark McCammon, recently a successful litigant against Gillingham FC for racial discrimination, found his own way home.) That gave an opportunity to tell them more about issues of extreme politics and intolerance than a Citizenship class at Chailey School could ever create.

How can kids be expected to value their education and get all that they can from it, when it's just abandoned in favour of a cheaper holiday?

 

[BHA Swiifty]

if the kids goes on holiday for a couple of weeks and come back to school it would take them a few days atleast to get used to it again and in the right frame of mind to learn.

 

[drew]

Can't believe some of the crap being posted on here. Reading some of the posts you would suspect that these 'term time' holidays last about 6/7 weeks! A child in reception missing one week of the school year is not going to be disadvantaged purely because of that. They will be disadvantaged if they have a poor teacher and/or parents who think that education is something that only happens in a school. Cost is important and people should not underestimate the benefits of family spending quality time together. I agree that head teachers should have to authorise absence but should be done on a case by case basis. If you have kid that is frequently off through illness or truancy then they don't get the authority.

Friends of mine took their kids out of school when they were about 8 and 10 for a year and travelled across North America. They have both turned out to be great young adults.

 

[Lady Gull]

I've taken my kids out of primary school every year in the autumn term for a family holiday - its always been approved by the headteacher - our business dictates this - our busiest time of year is through the summer holidays and over Christmas and new year.

Even if the holidays were half price in the summer holidays we still couldn't go as price is not the issue here it's work commitments.

I didn't ever take my eldest out of secondary school though for a holiday only primary school.

We felt as a family it was important to spend that quality time with the kids.

One of my brothers took two of his kids out of school to go and live in turkey for a year - at the beginning of secondary school - when they came back they settled back in school and have managed fine - and can both speak pretty fluent Turkish and can say they have lived abroad.

 

[LadySeagull]

if the kids goes on holiday for a couple of weeks and come back to school it would take them a few days atleast to get used to it again and in the right frame of mind to learn.

Not if you go in the last week of term like we did! Got permission from the school, no problem and my children are not in primary school, they are teens (and doing very well!).

Never done it before but we had good reason and no other possibilities were open to us (not because of our work but because of our daughter's Summer School and Work Placement weeks). It was more important that she attends them now than the last week of school - 'let's fill a gap and play a video' week is what the final week seems to be in most schools!

 

[Lady Gull]

Not if you go in the last week of term like we did! Got permission from the school, no problem and my children are not in primary school, they are teens (and doing very well!).

Never done it before but we had good reason and no other possibilities were open to us (not because of our work but because of our daughter's Summer School and Work Placement weeks). It was more important that she attends them now than the last week of school - 'let's fill a gap and play a video' week is what the final week seems to be in most schools!

Exactly - I agree about the 'let's fill a gap and play a video' statement - this seems to be happening more and more lately - in fact at my daughter's primary school they were allowed to take DS's in one day which I totally disagreed with and refused to allow her to do this!! Told her she could take a game in to play with a friend but thought that playing the DS was too insular - many parents thought the same and this seems to have stopped!!!

 

[Barrel of Fun]

It does seem that people value a break ahead of education, going by this.

As for most kids taking two weeks off for being sick, I guess that is 4 weeks with holiday included.

I'm still failing to understand how one can justify taking a child out of their school for a holiday (extenuating circumstances excluded). What sort of message does that send?

Maybe I will learn what happens in those missing weeks when I qualify and land a job.

I'm still thinking that one should budget for a holiday if they want one. If you want a cheap trip to the Christmas Islands, then don't have kids.

 

[bn1&bn3 Albion]

I did every time I visited England, I had the 2 weeks of school holidays plus an extra week. Catching up was always easy, worst case I brought some of my school work with me.

 

[hitony]

It does seem that people value a break ahead of education, going by this.

As for most kids taking two weeks off for being sick, I guess that is 4 weeks with holiday included.

I'm still failing to understand how one can justify taking a child out of their school for a holiday (extenuating circumstances excluded). What sort of message does that send?

Maybe I will learn what happens in those missing weeks when I qualify and land a job.

I'm still thinking that one should budget for a holiday if they want one. If you want a cheap trip to the Christmas Islands, then don't have kids.

Have you got any kids yourself?

 

[Barrel of Fun]

Have you got any kids yourself?

Hopefully not. I have been brought up to turn up unless one is dying and I would hope that friends/faimily would follow.

 

[hitony]

Hopefully not. I have been brought up to turn up unless one is dying and I would hope that friends/faimily would follow.

I have 3, but i was also from the brigade of unless your on deaths door you go to school and we had the same attitude with our 3 (they are all grown up now) but I do understand the issues many people have with holidays, one thing I don't agree with is the fact the holiday operators etc hike prices sky high during the school summer holidays, totally wrong in my opinion.

 

[Philzo-93]

Some parent twat had the audacity to ask my missus if she'd be prepared to do some extra lessons (unpaid!!!) after school so their brat could make up the time lost when they went on holiday during term time, as they considered it her job to get the kid to the appropriate grade. My missus just laughed and asked them to leave.

Its not as if the teachers can just skip a couple of weeks during term time.

100% this!

 

[Philzo-93]

Not if you go in the last week of term like we did! Got permission from the school, no problem and my children are not in primary school, they are teens (and doing very well!).

Never done it before but we had good reason and no other possibilities were open to us (not because of our work but because of our daughter's Summer School and Work Placement weeks). It was more important that she attends them now than the last week of school - 'let's fill a gap and play a video' week is what the final week seems to be in most schools!

Sorry to ask a personal question, why does your daughter need summer school if she's doing well?!

Completely off topic I know, just wondering.

 

[drew]

Sorry to ask a personal question, why does your daughter need summer school if she's doing well?!

Completely off topic I know, just wondering.

It could be a number of things. It might be that their child is top of the class and they want her to do even better. More likely, summer school is a generic term used to describe activities children do during the summer. Or do expect parents to take 6 weeks off work in one hit, notwithstanding the two weeks at xmas, two weeks at Easter and three one week half terms! Are you another poster who doesn't have kids?

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

My hippy mate Diane in Byron Bay used to take her three kids out of school for six months at a time and just go travelling with them. In England she'd probably have been sent to jail for that, but in Byron Bay it seems to have just been 'meh!'. Doesn't seem to have done them any harm at all. Quite the opposite in fact, they've all sailed through Uni. Can't see that taking kids out of school for week would do them any harm.

 

[Philzo-93]

It could be a number of things. It might be that their child is top of the class and they want her to do even better. More likely, summer school is a generic term used to describe activities children do during the summer. Or do expect parents to take 6 weeks off work in one hit, notwithstanding the two weeks at xmas, two weeks at Easter and three one week half terms! Are you another poster who doesn't have kids?

I'm 19 but I do have a little brother and sister aged 7 and 8 respectively and they do a lot of this stuff so you've answered the question for me, cheers!

 

[WATFORD zero]

It does seem that people value a break ahead of education, going by this.

As for most kids taking two weeks off for being sick, I guess that is 4 weeks with holiday included.

I'm still failing to understand how one can justify taking a child out of their school for a holiday (extenuating circumstances excluded). What sort of message does that send?

Maybe I will learn what happens in those missing weeks when I qualify and land a job.

I'm still thinking that one should budget for a holiday if they want one. If you want a cheap trip to the Christmas Islands, then don't have kids.

All the time our kids were at primary school, we took them out for a week skiing every year. They had 100% attendance records and the headmaster/mistress always agreed they could have the time off. When they started at Secondary school, we bit the bullet and took them at half-term (and it is a pretty sizeable bullet). It wasn't that we 'valued a break ahead of education' or 'send the wrong message to our kids' about education.

It's called 'finding a balance' and it becomes easier with age

 

[Stat Brother]

It doesn't sit easy with me.
I don't see why Surrey Sussex and Hampshire can't stagger their half terms, over a 3 week period.

But as a parent of young ones (years 2 & 3 upon their return), I had the moral high ground ripped out from underneath me, when I realised what the kids do, in the last week of any term.

I couldn't justify spending over a £1000 more for a holiday just to keep the kids in school, to tidy their classroom and watch films all week.

 

[MattBackHome]

I was once taken out of school to go on a holiday. I vaguely remember the teachers giving me an exercise book and telling me to write a diary of the trip. I was forced to stick to this every day of the holiday, much to my mild chagrin when I would have rather had been jumping in and out of waves...

Anyhow, the holiday has stayed with me forever and I'm delighted now that we went.

 

[halbpro]

What used to drive me up the wall was people who went on holiday whilst at University. You're paying a hell of a lot to go to Uni, why on earth would you go on holiday when you could get the benefit of the education you've forked out for? It's not even like University students have the same holiday concerns as kids in school, University holidays are long enough to avoid the price hikes.