Fined for holiday in school time

bundly

chika wrote: »

Three weeks is a lot of time to be taken out of school, its a whole unit (or even two) unit in literacy and numeracy. And who knows how much work she has missed in the foundation subjects and science. At five the child is just learning the basic skills that will take her through primary education. Also lots of work for example in maths depends on skills that have been learned in previous lessons. The teacher is now going to have to spend extra time ensuring that the child can do the work, taking away from time that she has to spend with the other 29

chika is right. The OP has been a little bit thoughtless in not putting her daughter's education first. The OP isn't the class teacher and is therefore in no position to judge whether any particular three-week period is or isn't crucial to her daughter's development.

It's a good law. Before this law came in, my sister and her husband took their daughter out of school whenever they felt like it. They even took her to live abroad for a while, but she could not speak the language so didn't go to school there. By the time they returned she was a year behind all her age group. Naturally she found it hard and whenever she didn't fancy going to school they didn't make her and took her on a few more holidays.

She lost so much schooling that in the end she could never catch up. Although a bright girl, her parents lackadaisical attitude towards her education rubbed off on her and from age 12 she used to truant whenever something more interesting presented itself. She ended up with no qualifications and cannot get a job. More than that, she is undisciplined, does not think she HAS to do anything that she doesn't fancy doing, and she has no work ethic. If she does het a job, she will probably think that it is OK to take days or weeks off whenever she feels like it, because that is what her parents have taught her.

bundly

PolishBigSpender wrote: »

What exactly can a five year old do at school that can not be explained by parents at home?

She can be learning that school is very important and not something that can just be missed whenever you/she feels like it!

ckerrd

PolishBigSpender wrote: »

What exactly can a five year old do at school that can not be explained by parents at home?

Interact with other children.

kelloggs36

Learning discipline for the real world - when we go to work and ask our employers for time off for a holiday, we would not be allowed to take more because we wanted to - we would expect to be fired. Half the issues in the world today are because of the 'I want so I will have' attitude. You can't afford during term time, so you can't have is the reality!! I had many years with no holiday at all because I couldn't afford one - I'm sure that if I had considered taking my children out of school during term time, that I would have been able to afford it, but decided that my holiday was not a main priority in life. I could always save up. That was the way I was brought up.

Ruby_Moon

I would tell them where to poke it.
School isn't compulsory for your child until Easter is it? As she is 5?
But no, I would not pay and I would also tell them that until travel companies etc bring down their prices for an all year round average then I would also do it again. Plus, travelling is educational enough in itself.
The difference between 3 weeks in Nov and 3 weeks in August in Florida can run into 1000's!

coco1980

Ruby_Moon wrote: »

I would tell them where to poke it.
School isn't compulsory for your child until Easter is it? As she is 5?
But no, I would not pay and I would also tell them that until travel companies etc bring down their prices for an all year round average then I would also do it again.
The difference between 3 weeks in Nov and 3 weeks in August in Florida can run into 1000's!

In Scotland school is compulsory from the age of 4 for some children depending on when their b'day falls. And we would be fined for taking our kids out of school for 3 weeks

Ruby_Moon

coco1980 wrote: »

In Scotland school is compulsory from the age of 4 for some children depending on when their b'day falls. And we would be fined for taking our kids out of school for 3 weeks

I agree with so many other posters, what good does a fine do anyone?
If a parent wanted to go on holiday in term time, the £50 would be worth it because of the money saved. Who gets the £50? Not the school.
A child can learn so much from travelling, even if it is only to Florida, which isn't all Disney and even the bits that are Disney can also be extremely educational.
Take Animal Kingdomn for instance. A young child will learn so much there about animals and dinosaurs.
I would guess that at 5 years of age, a holiday to Florida would give more valuable education than being at school.
Another thing that I don't understand if the school thinks being on holiday is so bad, why do so many of them devote so much time the week before Christmas playing games, watching DvD's, having parties, spending an afternoon making Christmas Cards and dressing up?
My Grandson has not done any Maths, English, Science etc all this week but has done the above.

liney

Giving all the children a couple of days to play games before Christmas break and having one child miss three weeks of school causing a teacher extra work, and/or an entire class to repeat lessons, is comparing apples and oranges.

amyb_2

This is quite amusing – and i feel for the OP completely. Although to be honest i would just pay the fine and get on with your life.

Taking a five year old out of school is hardly the end of the world; and I’m pretty sure there will be no noticeable difference in learning between her and her school friends. The only time it would be a no no is during exam years.

I’m not in the same situation as you; but if i was i would have done the same; although i would have informed the head-teacher a bit further in advance advising i would be taking my child away from xxxx to xxxx. I wouldn’t ask for permission – surely decisions made regarding my child are my decisions.

I know people say that the summer holidays are long enough to take children away without having to go in term time; but what about parents who are unable to take those eight weeks off?? I work in an industry where the holiday is decided for me. I get two weeks but our summer period runs from May to September - so i could quite conceivably end up with two weeks beginning on June. This can only be changed if someone else agrees to swap,

As i said – pay the fine (wonder where that fine money goes? – to the school??) and don’t worry. (and i hope you had a good holiday!!)

milliebear00001

amyb wrote: »

This is quite amusing – and i feel for the OP completely. Although to be honest i would just pay the fine and get on with your life.

Taking a five year old out of school is hardly the end of the world; and I’m pretty sure there will be no noticeable difference in learning between her and her school friends. The only time it would be a no no is during exam years.

I’m not in the same situation as you; but if i was i would have done the same; although i would have informed the head-teacher a bit further in advance advising i would be taking my child away from xxxx to xxxx. I wouldn’t ask for permission – surely decisions made regarding my child are my decisions.

I know people say that the summer holidays are long enough to take children away without having to go in term time; but what about parents who are unable to take those eight weeks off?? I work in an industry where the holiday is decided for me. I get two weeks but our summer period runs from May to September - so i could quite conceivably end up with two weeks beginning on June. This can only be changed if someone else agrees to swap,

As i said – pay the fine (wonder where that fine money goes? – to the school??) and don’t worry. (and i hope you had a good holiday!!)

It's a matter of degree and balance though isn't it? I AM a teacher, and have a five year old. I would take her out during, say, the last Christmas week (although then she'd miss all the school fun) or during the last week/first week of term as I know she'll catch up (I'm a teacher so it's easy for me to teach her what's she's missed!) Three weeks though is WAY too long to catch up on. In Reception/Year1, this is a huge chunk of reading/number work to miss, and it will be hard to catch up on. Nothing against parents wanting to take their kids on holiday, and agree that costs are crippling in holiday time, but a week here and there rather that a three week chunk, would be much more manageable!

If it were me, I'd bite the bullet, pay the fine, and accept I'd knowlingly broken the rules and must accept the consequences (which seem minor to me) rather than pretending to have some kind of moral high ground.