MMD: Should you take the kids out of school for a holiday?

liberty6201

i am a teacher and if o could do it i would!! At 8 and 10 there is nothing that they will be doing that they would desperately miss. To the person that said teachers only plan a week in advance i think most teachers know roughly what they will be doing at least half a term in advance - maybe they need to change things a little but to not know at all what they are going to do - that's bad!! IMHO travel companies should not be allowed to get away with charging excessive amounts for school holidays and then people would not need to do it. Whilst i agree that time together as a family is more important than a foreign holiday i agree but i know that i would be an awful lot more relaxed on a sunny foreign holiday than camping in the rain!! This would obviously pass onto my kids - whether or not it should it would. I say go for it!! The older the kids get the less it is possible - esp at exam time but most kids i've taught learn just as much, if not more, by experience than by being in a classroom. let them handle the money - read the menus, you can still educate your kids without being in a classroom. And at only £50 per child you'd save an awful lot more than that by going in school time. You never know what cards life will deal you and i say make the most of every opportunity - educationally or otherwise

milliebear00001

Jambala wrote: »

Your personal targets are a reflection of how well the children have done, in the case of Pupil Progress targets of Performance Management. Therefore, surely if a teacher's targets have suffered, this shows either a lack of progress in the children, poorly-chosen targets, or a staff training issue.

Also, I find that children who take a fortnight off lose momentum. That is, it takes them another week and a bit to begin to maintain their typical level of progress.

You say that the work is repeated, and I'll give you that to a certain extent, but it's no good having a child come back to school in the middle of a topic about, say, playscripts, and be expected to know suddenly how to write for this diverse genre without lots of extra input.

By 'personal targets' I mean SATS and other test results - not anything (in my view) to do with reflecting children's progress, everything to do with hoop-jumping. When I stated that I hadn't seen evidence about a child's 'education' suffering, I meant overall - i.e. their position at the end of primary (or secondary) is extremely unlikely to be affected. How much they 'progress' over a topic in your class is not a reflection of how they will progress with another teacher, or in another two years (for example). Knowing how to write playscripts is important (for example) but isn't necessarily more important than a family holiday or experiencing another country (unless you're a SATS marker of course.)

Spendless

I actually wouldn't have a problem with my kids teacher being off for 2 weeks as long as it wasn't the 1st 2 weeks they were back at school after summer or at SATS time - ie time when I wouldn't take mine out and if we are only talking about Primary education. Mine regularly have alternative cover for an afternoon or a day due to meetings, sickness, paternity leave, their teacher having her baby 10 weeks early:eek: and so on. If I did have a problem I'd ask teacher when they were off and book same 2 weeks myself.:rotfl:

nibs

joanna_willett wrote: »

Snow closure - well, that's pretty rare unless you're up north - in which case it's a quirk of geography, and if you don't like then I suppose you could always move.

As for teachers being sick, it's a miracle more teachers are not off sick more often. I have been teaching for 5 years now and it's still the most stressful job I've ever encountered. That's not a complaint, just the way it is. It's a wonderful job, but a very hard one, and it is easy to get run down (especially if your personal time is eaten into - for example by producing extra work that has been requested by parents!). You are surrounded by an average of 30 children, most of the time at least one of them is ill, and you are guaranteed to catch bugs sometimes. You cannot teach to the best of your abilities when you are ill, nor is it good to spread the germs around yourself. Despite this, most teachers I know still try to teach even when they're too ill as the hassle of taking a sick day simply isn't worth it and the stigma that goes with it also makes it difficult.

Stepping off my high horse - I do agree that holidays can be a cultural experience - especially if the parents are keen to make them into such. But don't go around thinking that 2 weeks out of school will have no effect. It will, and frequently does. How important you think this is, is up to you, obviously, but it can't be ignored.

Actually I live in the south....:p

You are picking up on my points and using generalised answers to make your point. I wasn't attacking you or your school.

My post was talking about my ds and the school in which he attends.

You clearly don't teach there.

As I said in my post, not everything is black and white and sometimes we need to view the wider picture before we judge.

As for your point about teachers coming into contact with lots of germs - at least you're not a GP then eh

rlp

I don't know for sure what I would do myself. (Very tempted to get grandma to babysit and go on holiday without kids!)
I am disappointed to see that schools and local authorities set policies which bar headteachers from exercising discretion in genuine cases; such as when parents both work, and struggle to take the same week as each other.
I also note that here, in Bradford, muslim children are generally authorised absences around their festivals. These are only one or two days and I have no objection - but I mention it as a previous poster seemed to think that there were no religious justifications to consider. I expect it is quite difficult to plan useful lessons for the remaining handful of non muslim children who attend on those festival days.

Spendless

I've just looked up the details of what our LEA fines, and it is £50 per child per parent so if we took our 2 without permission £200, wonder if that's the same if the parents don't live together or if for some reason one of us didn't go on the hol. It doesn't say its per week, just says if you get sent a fixed penalty notice. It does go up to £100 though if its not paid within so many days.

sjpsam

Hi
I always took my kids out of school from my eldest starting, I always took them in may just before the whit week, usually the last 4 days of the hol ran into the 2 weeks they had off, and for 2 adults and 2 children, we saved a small fortune. The 2 years that the children did the important SATS I kept them in school for those and we did holiday in the january instead.

Going at peak times, are hugely expensive and I have no worries in taking them out of school, my youngests school will allow 10 days out of school for holiday.

My eldest starts secondary school next month, not found out yet what their policy is for taking the time off.

But by even paying £200 as described it would still be less than paying for peak times.

Also when i've taken the kids away during term time I have always requested some work for them to take with them and made sure they do it whilst there, to make sure they don't fall behind

Sharps_2

It really riles me that parents do this, I have to pay about £200 per year extra to go to select places that don’t allow children out of term time – why should I? just because some parents take their kids out of school so they can save a few quid by missing the rush, I think you should be fined if you do that!

There are plenty of cheaper holidays to choose from, try going somewhere slightly less exotic and leaving the better holidays to us singles/couples, you'll appreciate the lack of kids screaming around the pool one day - well that's us now.

I have 4 kids (two set of twins) and I haven't taken them out of school once, their mother on the other hand takes them out of school whenever her boyfriend splashes the cash.

What amazed me the most was when the kids told me they were having extra tuition... hang on, let me get this right, you take the kids out of school to got to pooro Disney and then expect my child maintenance to pay for extra tuition?

Can anyone else see the logic in that?

(A very annoyed) Sharps

Pete_Biggs

Is it just me who thinks that anyone going to Majorca to experience a different culture is going to be sadly disappointed..?!

BOOTY_2

to be really honest, the primary school my kids go to tend to spend a large chunk of there term time doing off campus sports, full day sports days and endless day trips to do art and even more sports. i wouldn't hesitate to take the kids out of school for a holiday seeing as the school doesn't really seemed to be bothered about the important subjects such as maths. and as long as my kids attendance is above 96% for the whole year (which it usually is) i don't think some real quality time with the family is a bad thing.