Kids hols during termtime - 10 days max ?

mancitychick

When we lived in London my son had 2 days off as I was attending my Grandad's funeral (2 days as it was 200 miles from London). I told the class teacher before hand and wrote a note upon his return, however the headteacher insisted it had to go down as unauthoried absence.

This was because

a) Children of 7 should not go to funeral, someone else should bring them in/collectthem - to this I explained he didn't go to funeral but had to come up north as I had no-one I could/would leave him with.

b) She then said well it would only jusitify one day off and you should of travelled back after the funeral - I did explain I was too upset to drive 5 hours home and I was also 8 moths pregnant at the time.

She then explained that her hands were tied and that she wasn't allowed to authorise any time off in term time as per the local borough council. My son attend a voluntary aided catholic primary, but apparently the council (London Borough of Hounslow)were clamping down on people taking there kids on holiday in term time! Headteacher said according to council pupils at other schools were going to "funerals" in Pakistan/India & Ireland that were lasting 2-3 weeks.

This I thing is fair enough, if someone is off for 2-3 weeks but 2 days?? Anyway she eventually said if I give her a copy of the death certificate she would authorise the leave!!!

The school also had a rule that if you were off for more than 2 consecutive weeks your place at the school could be allocated to someone else. (School did have waiting list & was really sort after.)

stickytoffeepudding

jockettuk wrote:

my daughters headteacher will not authorise any term time holidays .. the only way he will do it is if the main wage earner has set holidays per yr as some companys do. oh and he will fine you as one parent found out by ignoring his warnings.. but one parent found out that it was cheaper to pay the fine and still take her child out of school in term time.. My daughter sits her sats in may and we have all been warned that even if our children are sick we must provide a doctors note... He gave a lot of leeway for 3 yrs but thinks parents abused it so now he says no to almost every holiday form thats put in.

It's bad enough trying to get time off work without having to get the OK from school as well. As others have said, travel benefits children so much - we take our DS's out for 5-6 days just before or after the may half term every year and I'm afraid it's a case of filling in the holiday form a couple of weeks before and adding a note 'already booked'
Fait accompli!!!
By the way I am a parent governor and I don't think we have ever been asked to give permission for a holiday!

Rachie_B

mancitychick wrote:

When we lived in London my son had 2 days off as I was attending my Grandad's funeral (2 days as it was 200 miles from London). I told the class teacher before hand and wrote a note upon his return, however the headteacher insisted it had to go down as unauthoried absence.

This was because

a) Children of 7 should not go to funeral, someone else should bring them in/collectthem - to this I explained he didn't go to funeral but had to come up north as I had no-one I could/would leave him with.

b) She then said well it would only jusitify one day off and you should of travelled back after the funeral - I did explain I was too upset to drive 5 hours home and I was also 8 moths pregnant at the time.She then explained that her hands were tied and that she wasn't allowed to authorise any time off in term time as per the local borough council. My son attend a voluntary aided catholic primary, but apparently the council (London Borough of Hounslow)were clamping down on people taking there kids on holiday in term time! Headteacher said according to council pupils at other schools were going to "funerals" in Pakistan/India & Ireland that were lasting 2-3 weeks.

This I thing is fair enough, if someone is off for 2-3 weeks but 2 days?? Anyway she eventually said if I give her a copy of the death certificate she would authorise the leave!!! The school also had a rule that if you were off for more than 2 consecutive weeks your place at the school could be allocated to someone else. (School did have waiting list & was really sort after.)

:eek: :rolleyes: thats shocking !

elisebutt65

Don't forget the strike onTuesday which means many schools will be closed!!!

I only found this out from another forum and had to check on the council website as neither of my boy's schools had bothered to say anything about it!!!!

So I guess this is authorised absence???

As I stated on another post - Eldest DS's class is going out for a whole week after SATS for a trip and wanted £300 for it - so I said Bogoff and booked us all to go to Crete as it cost less than that!!! Headteacher didn't have any grounds whatsoever to deny authorising it - did try but as I told her - what's the point in him going in as the whole year + teachers will be away anyway!!!! :mad: So now I've got it authorised - little one is only 5 and his head is a lot more flexible - as long as there are no SATS coming up then he's fine about it.

I still stick mostly to the term as I'm at Uni full time as well.

However, with all the ranting at Tour operators - I'm doing a tourism degree and I used to rant at them making healthy profits at parents expense, but they don't really - Usually about 3-10%. If they didn't make a profit in the summer then they wouldn't be able to make a loss on the holidays they reduce for people going in term-time. What would you prefer - a Tour operator to do all the work for you at a price - or doing it all yourself, in your own time?

I do it myself - Flights via internet in August for £260 for 4 of us to Barcelona with BA and a lovely apartment here for 450 Euros Best thing is that no-one's ever heard of the place

gregg1

exil wrote:

I always end up being the death's head at the feast but here we go again.

UP TO A POINT there may be some educational benefit in taking kids on holiday. 10 days a year seems a reasonable limit. There might be the occasional exception - once-in-a-lifetime trip to see relatives, etc.

However - anyone who habitually takes their kids out of school for a couple of weeks baking in the sun in Majorca obviously has little regard for the value of education.

Bear in mind that a large %age of the population don't go away on holiday - and that would probably include a lot of people on these forums trying to pay back debts! That is - holidays abroad are not an entitlement.

I agree with you here although it will probably get me lynched! My spouse is a secondary mathematics teacher and says it is extremely difficult from the teacher's point of view to get a child to catch up with work missed through holidays taken during term time. I think this is especially true of maths as it is quite a difficult subject and if you miss ten lessons thats a heck of a lot of catching up to do and it is not fair on the other kids if the teacher has to play catch up for one child. I know a lot of you reckon the benefit of travel will outweigh this problem but I disagree - there is no GCSE for travelling, there IS one for maths and its a very important one where future employers are concerned. Oh blimey - bring on the lynching squad!!!

gregg1

ejones999 wrote:

For all those people who have posted on here against taking your kids out of school during term time - please add up all the 'inset' teacher training days that your school have had in the last year!! These could just as easily been done in the TWELVE weeks school holidays!!
It is set in stone in an Education Act that you are allowed to take your kids out of school for a maximum of 10 school days per year.

This sort of talk makes me MAAADDD!!! My other half spends at the very least three quarters of all school holidays preparing lessons, marking tests, exams etc, and catching up with all the paperwork they have to do not to mention the four hours every night and at least on day at the weekend doing the same. A 60 - 70 hour weeks is quite common (people just don't get this). Divide those hours into pay and they are well below the minimum wage or in you look at it another way, you probably end up with more actual holiday than they do!! So you see, the INSET days are necessary - would you want to work through most of your annual leave?

gregg1

zoeleigh wrote:

I understand what you're saying but that's his job, & unless every kid in the class went on holiday at the same time it wouldn't affect the teacher would it?

of course if affects the teacher - it means more work on top of an already heavy workload - see my other thread on here.

gregg1

Norman-B wrote:

I think you should stop now before you dig any deeper.

Why - he's right in everything he says - and teachers don't know what they are going to have to deal with when they take on the job - the Government keeps moving the goal posts and loading them down with extra stuff although, and in an attempt to lighten this rather heavy discussion, my other half reckons its always the nice kids that disappear during term time on holiday - the ones you wish would clear off (the disruptive, horrible blighters) always stick around to make everyone's life a misery!!!

jonesMUFCforever

How many teachers will be on strike next tuesday??

black-saturn

ejones999 wrote:

How many teachers will be on strike next tuesday??

And is that counted as part of the 10 day allowance?