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

andrealm

So can someone point me to anything that shows that children who are taken out of school for a week's holiday have their education ruined?
Assuming that they have good attendance generally and that their parents are supportive, make sure they do their home works, read to them etc.

I'll be taking my dd out for a week in May. Oh dear, I'd better go and sit on the naughty step and give myself a slap on the wrist. I wouldn't take her out at the start of the school year, when they're settling in, or when she's older and doing GCSEs. But I refuse to believe that my dd's ONE WEEK holiday is going to ruin not only her education, but everyone's else's too. We never took holidays in term time when I was a child as my mum was a teacher, but plenty of others did and it wasn't the end of the world.

I believe education is important, but I also believe spending time as a family is important. My mum died when I was 15, and the times we spent on holiday are probably the happiest memories I have to look back on. So if the only way I could afford a holiday was going in term time, I wouldn't hesitate to go, as long as it wasn't in the later years at secondary.

gratefulforhelp_2

bestpud wrote: »

It is you who has been saying it is wrong and that is the end of it!

You haven't read my posts then, or are you ascribing the views of teachers in general in this thread just to me?

ellies_angel

drives me nuts when kids aren't in school because they are off on holidays, aside from being jealous it makes it really difficult for me to get them caught up on their work.

The course I teach is a Skills for Work Course, it's continual assessment so not an exam at the end. Many of the assessments (NAB's) are individual so if they miss a couple of weeks, hopefully if there are no more absences they can come in over lunch time, meet with me and catch up on the theory and then do the NAB, but there are just as many group NAB's which require a group of 4/5 pupils to work together as a team, to plan, investigate, put together a presentation and then evaluate. If one pupil is away on holiday then in order for them to pass that NAB it means changing all the lesson plans to accomodate them or they miss the NAB as it can't be done individually and they fail their Intermediate 2 course as there is 100% pass rate required.
As an outside training provider going into the schools to teacher (and having to gain a teaching qualification and register with the GTC) I find it so frustrating. I have 5 hours development time a week, when I am not teaching I have my other role as an SVQ assessor/ Internal Verifier. I don't get school holidays I have 28 days annual leave a year I have no choice but to take during the school holidays. I am not allowed to take my holidays term time. I am not paid a teachers salary either. So I am very aware of the extra cost incurred going on holiday during the school holidays.

bestpud

gratefulforhelp wrote: »

You haven't read my posts then, or are you ascribing the views of teachers in general in this thread just to me?

So if we agree it is not always harmful, why are you telling us children should NOT be taken out of school in term time and anyone who does so is selfish or doesn't care about education?

Why are you suggesting we cannot possibly help them catch up without your knowledge of exam boards and that GCSEs can't be important to me because I don't agree education can only take place within a classroom?

chaosweddings

gratefulforhelp wrote: »

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.



i have just checked the inset days for this year and my sons school have 7 plus they always finish school at 12pm on the last day of each term, and next week they have having parents days where each child is allotted a 30 minute slot to slot to meet their teachers with their parents and the child are not required to attend school on those 3 days unless they are having the 30 min meeting so another 3 days off work to look after my son, why cant they have normal parents evenings in the evening, most schools where we live are doing this with only 2 weeks notice

gratefulforhelp_2

7 inset days...might be worth contacting the school/local authority/both to find out why. Also, for the parents' days, there should be some arrangement for children who need to, to stay in school.

I completely sympathise with this, it sounds a nightmare.

gratefulforhelp_2

bestpud wrote: »

So if we agree it is not always harmful, why are you telling us children should NOT be taken out of school in term time and anyone who does so is selfish or doesn't care about education?

Why are you suggesting we cannot possibly help them catch up without your knowledge of exam boards and that GCSEs can't be important to me because I don't agree education can only take place within a classroom?

Again, you are ascribing the views of other posters to me. Please quote a post where I have called a person selfish, or accused them of not caring about education?

Also, while I don't think in general terms, a child should be taken out of school in term time, my comments have mostly been about taking them out when they are going to miss coursework or other vital exam prep'.

gregg1

chaosweddings wrote: »

gratefulforhelp wrote: »

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.



i have just checked the inset days for this year and my sons school have 7 plus they always finish school at 12pm on the last day of each term, and next week they have having parents days where each child is allotted a 30 minute slot to slot to meet their teachers with their parents and the child are not required to attend school on those 3 days unless they are having the 30 min meeting so another 3 days off work to look after my son, why cant they have normal parents evenings in the evening, most schools where we live are doing this with only 2 weeks notice

I also would strongly advise you take this up with your school. I have never heard of a school doing this before and you are perfectly within your rights to be angry about it, I would be too.

At our school, parents' evenings are exactly that, in the evening, with teachers staying back till as late as 9pm to accommodate those parents who cannot get there until then. Also our parents' evenings are always put on the website in September for the whole of the coming academic year.

vouchersrme

As an ex head of 5 schools, I noted that the rules got more and more stringent, it also depended on the schools, some schools fine you for going on holiday , but still cheaper! Some schools allow it but they are unauthorised absences, not too much of a problem if few other absences.

They can only advise you that they are concerned about your child's absence. You are usually only taken to court if severe absence.
As a head we had many families who went to their various home countries for months at a time. We could only take them off role if we had informed them first if we were going to do so.

If I was a parent now and school turned funny, I would downright lie, your child was ill, and you took her to family to look after. The child can say they had been on holiday, but the lie would cover it. The school would have to prove you had been away on holiday with out permission.


Saying all this , it is very disruptive to a child's education to miss one or two weeks, the curriculum is planned in termly or half termly blocks. So your child could miss chunks of information. As the curriculum is planned to build up layer on layer, your child could miss important content.

In my view a holiday is as much an education as any planned curriculum, and I would ask a friend to let you know what had been missed.

Spendless

chaosweddings wrote: »

gratefulforhelp wrote: »

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.



i have just checked the inset days for this year and my sons school have 7 plus they always finish school at 12pm on the last day of each term, and next week they have having parents days where each child is allotted a 30 minute slot to slot to meet their teachers with their parents and the child are not required to attend school on those 3 days unless they are having the 30 min meeting so another 3 days off work to look after my son, why cant they have normal parents evenings in the evening, most schools where we live are doing this with only 2 weeks notice

Is this a Secondary school? The school my friend's teenagers attend does this, though I think it's only for 1 or maybe 2 days together but it happens more than once during the academic year. They call it a Progress Day, and is on top on the Inset days plus holidays. It would drive me nuts too, especially if I had to take it into account whilst I had youngest still in Juniors, and was having to take into account different inset days. Not so awkward once they are older but difficult in the younger secondary years, when people are perhaps happy to leave the kids for a few hours but not all day alone. My friend's school does not authorise any term-time hols, not cos they have super duper results that they don't want to risk, but the opposite. My friend's son ended up with an unauthorised cos her ex took him to Australia to visit relatives one xmas, and booked the flights without checking with my mate, and due to the flights involved, eh missed the first 1-2 days of term.