Holidays with kids in school time, have you done it?

bestpud

gregg1 wrote: »

I have no desire to be "seen as God". I am just an ordinary person doing my job to the best of my ability as are most members of the teaching profession.

FYI I am not speaking merely from a professional point of view but also as a parent so feel qualified to give my opinion from that perspective too whereas you are not looking at the whole picture. May i suggest that you try and practice what you preach and open your own eyes to the fact that a good education is one of the the most valuable gifts, if not THE most valuable gift, you can give your child so again, I disagree. Education IS the most singular, important aspect of any child's life.

Quite agree education is very important BUT that can be achieved with or without term time holidays.

Like you say, it is the bigger picture that matters, not a term time holiday taken in isolation.

chaosweddings

we went to florida last october, we planned the holiday around the half term do ds would only need 4 days off school, i received a letter from the school stating they would not authorise the holiday and that the educational welfare officer would get in contact, i thought it was a bluff, but 2 days later i had a phoencall from the council about our upcoming holiday.

The lady explained that holidays during school times shouldnt happen :mad: i explained that i know at least 4 kids at the same school have 2 holidays a year and we have never been on holiday and ds has a 100 % attendance record. she said if i took ds out of school again i would be fined , ok , but that would probably be cheaper than booking a holiday in school holidays, she wasnt impressed.

my mum also went to florida the same time as us and my little brothers head teacher sent mum a letter saying he cant authorise the holiday request but is sure *fred* will enjoy his educational trip and looks forward to reading about it when he returns .

what really makes me angry is the non pupil days ds school has loads and they even let the kids off school last year at 12pm to go home and watch the england match without a thought for the parents who work

rachbc

milliebear00001 wrote: »

Oh yes. I never claimed state education was a panacea for achieving literacy.

The reasons for the stubborn quarter/fifth who fail to achieve 'literacy' are much debated. I obviously have my own views, as do all teachers, and probably all parents. Again, teachers have an excellent insight into the reasons for this...we watch children failing to learn everyday of our working lives for many years! It's just that we're rarely asked for our opinions by the people in charge!

why do you watch - why don't you do something to stop it?? The 'people in charge' can't do anything for individual children right then and there on the spot in the classroom - teachers can/ should!!

Mrs_Arcanum

kelloggs36 wrote: »

Yes it would have been affordable had you waited and saved up over a longer period of time! You can't say that it isn't possible to save for something if you really want it - it is the 'I want it now, so I will have it now' attitude that has got this country and lots of its inhabitants into the financial mess that we are in!!! I agree with my mum's attitude of 'if you haven't got the money then you can't have it'. If you want something, you will save up until you have got the money. You know the prices increase during the holiday times and so you know that you will have to save up more money to be able to go - that's life you know!

:mad: We had no holidays for 7 years before this one and none since. And the time was AUTHORISED by the Head Teacher.

That holiday took us over 3 years to save for as it was. Three years later it would be more than three times as expensive to go in the school holidays (with DD being classed as adult and DS charged adult rates for the parks). Even the same period a year later was £1,000 more. So NO the prices would go up faster than the savings could keep up, so it was a then or never situation.

BTW DD is expected to get A or A* in all her GCSEs so she lost nothing academically from missing two weeks shortly after the start of a new school year.

gratefulforhelp_2

chaosweddings wrote: »

what really makes me angry is the non pupil days ds school has loads and they even let the kids off school last year at 12pm to go home and watch the england match without a thought for the parents who work

Your comment on INSET days has been covered, there should be no more than 5 of these in any academic year.
eta I do agree with you about the blessed football, though.

bestpud wrote: »

It is perfectly possible for a parent to recreate an education at home!

Some parents, yes.

We are talking up to GCSE level here! Some parents believe they are unable to teach to that level but that is because they haven't had a good look at the curriculum. The subject matter really isn't that complicated!

I seriously doubt that you have the expertise of an individual with years of experience of an examination board's particular slant on a topic, for all of the topics at GCSE.

Further, there is plenty of poor teachers out there and plenty of children who would receive a far better quality of education at home.

And is this a typo, or an example of your standards of writing?

bestpud

And is this a typo, or an example of your standards of writing?[/QUOTE]

You do not need to know the ins and outs of exam boards to help a child catch up after one missed week.

As for my writing, I'll call it an example of my poor standards, just to make you feel better.

Did it work?

bestpud

Quote

I seriously doubt that you have the expertise of an individual with years of experience of an examination board's particular slant on a topic, for all of the topics at GCSE.

Unquote


Teaching to the test then...?

Whatever floats your boat but I want better for my child.

Spendless

chaosweddings wrote: »

we went to florida last october, we planned the holiday around the half term do ds would only need 4 days off school, i received a letter from the school stating they would not authorise the holiday and that the educational welfare officer would get in contact, i thought it was a bluff, but 2 days later i had a phoencall from the council about our upcoming holiday.

The lady explained that holidays during school times shouldnt happen :mad: i explained that i know at least 4 kids at the same school have 2 holidays a year and we have never been on holiday and ds has a 100 % attendance record. she said if i took ds out of school again i would be fined , ok , but that would probably be cheaper than booking a holiday in school holidays, she wasnt impressed.

my mum also went to florida the same time as us and my little brothers head teacher sent mum a letter saying he cant authorise the holiday request but is sure *fred* will enjoy his educational trip and looks forward to reading about it when he returns .

what really makes me angry is the non pupil days ds school has loads and they even let the kids off school last year at 12pm to go home and watch the england match without a thought for the parents who work

There were loads of threads about this last year and when parents queried it the justification that came from their school was 'if we didn't people would just keep them off' I'd also like to know who this was allowed, when you get the near hysteria about taking a 6yo child out, and before anyone says, ahhh but that was just for a afternoon, I've since threads like this before when people have queried taking their child out for half a day, and got responses like on here.

gratefulforhelp_2

bestpud wrote: »

Teaching to the test then...?
Whatever floats your boat but I want better for my child.

Using all the tools available to ensure the greatest academic success. You personally may not be bothered about exam' results, but lots of people are.

bestpud wrote: »

You do not need to know the ins and outs of exam boards to help a child catch up after one missed week.

You do if they have missed coursework week.

As for my writing, I'll call it an example of my poor standards, just to make you feel better.

Did it work?

Didn't need to feel better, but thanks anyway:D

kelloggs36

zoeleigh wrote: »

Right ok, so when the class were being shown pictures of the pyramids and the items in the Egyptian museum while my son was actually there, my son was disadvantaged? Or the rest of the class were disadvantaged?

Considering that the school authorised it and told us to have a wonderful time I don't think neither the teacher nor the head thought 'that mother obviously doesn't think her child's education is paramount'.

Maybe it's not a case of I can't afford to go in school holidays, maybe it's a case of I could take them to another country once every year rather than once every 2 years!

the point is that the other children didn't ONLY learn about the pyramids whilst your children were away, so your children missed out on what the others learned - also, if they had gone during the holidays, they could have related what they had learned in the classroom to what they were seeing for real.