Kids hols during termtime - 10 days max ?

Zziggi

Thanks spursman.

So in a normal course of events it is a £50 fine AND court appearance (which runs the risk of criminal record)? What exactly is the crime?

If it's just a £50 fine then i can imagine many parents will just see the economic advantage of the holiday costing them £50 extra per child rather than an extra £1000 in school holiday time.

spursman wrote:

i'm not going to spell it out but there are 4 reasons a school CANNOT refuse to let you take your children out of school & these are readily used.

well i must be really thick as i don't know what all these are!

I can see why the government are cracking down but it appears to me a case of the majority being penalised for the actions of a few.

A slightly different matter, but anyway... i' went to my child's future school (starting reception class in sept) to talk to them as i wish to withdraw him on a friday lunchtime for religious reasons to attend worship (muslim) and that he'll miss part of friday afternoon because of it (although i'll return him to school asap) and the head has already told me i can't and threatened me with a EWO visit and my DS hasn't even started at the school yet! :eek:

Rachie_B

Zziggi wrote:

Thanks spursman.

So in a normal course of events it is a £50 fine AND court appearance (which runs the risk of criminal record)? What exactly is the crime?

If it's just a £50 fine then i can imagine many parents will just see the economic advantage of the holiday costing them £50 extra per child rather than an extra £1000 in school holiday time.



well i must be really thick as i don't know what all these are!

I can see why the government are cracking down but it appears to me a case of the majority being penalised for the actions of a few.

A slightly different matter, but anyway... i' went to my child's future school (starting reception class in sept) to talk to them as i wish to withdraw him on a friday lunchtime for religious reasons to attend worship (muslim) and that he'll miss part of friday afternoon because of it (although i'll return him to school asap) and the head has already told me i can't and threatened me with a EWO visit and my DS hasn't even started at the school yet! :eek:

i thought they had to respect all cultures / religions etc and allow all their particular worshipping times / holidays etc

spursman

Zzigi
NO it is not a £50 fine & a court appearance it is a £50 fine 1st offence, 2nd offence £50 fine & a referral, 3rd offence referral leading to a possible court appearance.
as for your child needing time off for religious reasons, religion is one of the 4 reasons you ARE allowed to take your children out of school(obviously not for 10 straight days) i would take this up with the head or LEA.
In reply to your 1st bit again there is no crime committed but education authorities promise to give your children 165 days of schooling a year, if a child doesnt recieve 165 days education the authorities need to know.
what a lot of people cant or dont grasp is unauthorised absence often is a cover for child abuse/truancy/child labour & people with the attitude of its my child i'll do what i want with him/her dont help the problem
all the best
Spursman

Spendless

Zziggi wrote:

I can see why the government are cracking down but it appears to me a case of the majority being penalised for the actions of a few.

A slightly different matter, but anyway... i' went to my child's future school (starting reception class in sept) to talk to them as i wish to withdraw him on a friday lunchtime for religious reasons to attend worship (muslim) and that he'll miss part of friday afternoon because of it (although i'll return him to school asap) and the head has already told me i can't and threatened me with a EWO visit and my DS hasn't even started at the school yet! :eek:

Every Friday afternoon, for the rest of his school life? . If so I can understand why the Head has said you can't. Very roughly there are 39 school weeks, so that would be a lot of time he would be missing.
Would it be possible for him to attend during lunchtime only,returning in time for PM lessons.
If he isn't 5 you might be able to let him attend until he is, as I don't think full time school is compulsory until they are 5, but maybe someone else with a better knowledge of the education system will be able to clarify this more.

Rachie_B

she says "part of" every fri afternoon

so we dont actually know what times exactly

Spendless

Rachie_B wrote:

she says "part of" every fri afternoon

so we dont actually know what times exactly

Yes I read that, but even so, part of every friday still equates to a lot of time over a year, and more so if it's for every school year. You also hit the problem of "why was I refused x days off for a hol,when young Zziggi is allowed to be late every Friday afternoon", so I can understand the Headteachers reluctance.

dora37

When I was at school in the 70's & 80's - having holidays during school time wasn't "the norm" at all.

If we did have a holiday (and again this applied to everyone I know, so we weren't unusual), these were always taken during the holidays.

I appreciate that it is now easier to travel the world and we are supposedly better off, however we only went on holiday if our parents could afford it, if they couldn't, then we didn't go! There was no going during term time instead.

For all the people that say travel broadens the mind - undoubtedly it does, however I didn't go abroad for the first time until I was 21. This didn't make me less educated or intelligent!

Why is it implied that we HAVE to go on holiday to have a holiday? Why can't we live within our means whatever that maybe, just like our parents did?

I do not for one bit begrudge the caravan holidays we had in Wales and The Lake District as they were quite fun or even the years where we didn't have a holiday, as we still found plenty to amuse ourselves and I don't begrudge my teenage years where some of my friends did start to go abroad for their hols, when we couldn't afford to - that was just the way it was - No big deal!

It seems that these days unless we are taking our children on far flung holidays at whatever cost (both financially and educationally) - it is deemed as bad parenting.

We are taking our 3 children to France this year in the school holidays - because we can afford it - if we couldn't have afforded it, we certainly wouldn't have taken them during school time - we simply wouldn't have gone!

Zziggi

Spendless wrote:

Every Friday afternoon, for the rest of his school life? . If so I can understand why the Head has said you can't. Very roughly there are 39 school weeks, so that would be a lot of time he would be missing.
Would it be possible for him to attend during lunchtime only,returning in time for PM lessons.
If he isn't 5 you might be able to let him attend until he is, as I don't think full time school is compulsory until they are 5, but maybe someone else with a better knowledge of the education system will be able to clarify this more.

Part of friday afternoon. Basically he'll be absent for the dinner hour and he *might* miss a small amount of the afternoon lessons (like 30 mins). However because he *might* miss the first 30 mins of the afternoon then he *might* miss registration which means he would not get a mark for the afternoon session. At best they would have to mark him 'late'.This is the reason i have been given. I have already said that if by any chance any work is missed, then the school has my assurance that any work will be completed at home. Since friday afterhoons at this school are the craft sesions glueing/painting/sticking time then i can't see what is going to be missed even if 30 mins is missed. Also any painting/model building could be doen at home if the school saw it a esential.

I don;t want to bore you with details but the muslim holy day is friday (as sunday is with christians). The time of the congregational prayer depends on the time of year (to do with the times of sun rise, sun set, sun at highest part in sky etc) Therefore the timing of the friday prayer does move slightly during the year from 12.15pm to about 1.20pm. So you can see that at certain times of the year it'd be difficult to get him back to school within the dinner hour. I can see the head's position - but i think it is a bit harsh because i'm asking for genuine religious reasons and not just out of convenience.
Although if Zziggi junior was allowed to miss part of friday afternoons regulary then i can see how this could make the head's position difficult with regard to other saying they want time off for holidays etc etc. It would makeit difficult for the head. However, it may be unfashionable to say it but i think genuine religious reasons should be taken on a par with medical reasons and consequently more seriously than time off because during term time is more convenient of cheaper. If i could take zziggi junior to congregational prayer in an evening/weekend. then i would.

P.S. i do know of one non-local school that sctually allows one family to have the whole of friday off because the head knows the kids go to a class to learn quran every evening for 2 hours so he says the kids are getting plenty of "education". Personally i think that is far, far too lenient and the parents should consider how their kids are losing 20% of learning time every week!!

Zziggi

Rachie_B wrote:

i thought they had to respect all cultures / religions etc and allow all their particular worshipping times / holidays etc

nope.

Dept. education told me they do not issue any guidance on this (i.e. don't want to get into the debate). They allow each LEA to make the decision. The LEA said they allow each head to make the decision.

Sounds to me like it's passing the book down as far as possible for fear that if they say "no, you can't" they'd be accused of racism/islamaphobia/intollerance etc.

i was told that zziggi junior can have the religious festival days off (which would mean a maxmimum of 6 days a year) but cannot have time on fridays. This is silly. It's a bit like saying to a practicing christian friend that you can take part in chrismas/easter etc but not ateend church on saunday! I'd rather he had flexibility of fridays rather than festival days off!!!

morleymackam

I'm a secondary school teacher and to suggest that 2 weeks out doesn't affect a child's education is rubbish.

We gradually cover each aspect in more depth from Yr7-11 and if they missed the basics it becomes a problem to catch up.

In addition we are forbidden to set work for students when they go on holiday. Why should a teacher spend a few hours preparing work so a student can go on holiday?

At primary school level maybe things are different but at KS3/KS4 the kids are always building towards a major assessment (sats or gcse).