Holiday in term time not authorised, will I be fined?

Kaz2904

We rarely go on holiday because we can't afford to go on holiday in the school holidays. We also struggle to get enough time off in the school holidays. I was ok for a couple of years because I was in a team of 13 and only 3 of us had school age children. Now, we have 3 areas which have been amalgamated and nearly everyone has school aged children. I can't get any time off during the holidays. We had 2 breaks this year. A weekend at Legoland on Saturday/ Sunday and a long weekend at Woodlands Fri/Sat/Sun. When I put in the request for DD, her school declined the request. They phoned me to tell me and I was really upset. They did say that they would authorise it with a letter from my employer though so when I took one in, they authorised it. DD is in year 5 and has had 4 days off for holidays in that time. 3 were the last day of term.
DH's family have been after going on holiday at Christmas for years and can't comprehend that I am not allowed to book holiday at Christmas/ New year. We are only allowed 6 registered Nurses off per week (of 90) so it's a real struggle. I've got 2 weeks next year though because they have decided to do it fairly now. Many of us went in, incredibly angry that some people had 5 weeks off over July/August and others off us had none. We're going to Florida and I can't wait! (Now gotta work loads of extra shifts to pay for it all!).

ash28

Gavin83 wrote: »

What about the rest of her husbands holiday leave seeing as the two weeks would only account for 10 days annual leave.

To be honest with certain jobs (such as teaching) holidays have to be taken during certain periods. If this doesn't mix with a partners holiday entitlement I don't see why the school should make an exception. They both knew this when taking the jobs.

Where I grew up and when we lived in Scotland it was not unusual for factories or shipyards to close for 2 weeks in the summer and 2 weeks over Christmas - add in the bank holidays and your holidays were accounted for. It was far easier to shut a whole place down and just have the engineering staff in to do planned maintenance etc.

I was an Industrial Engineer for many years and where I worked we had an August shutdown (usually the week of the bank holiday) when all of the production staff and the majority of the office staff would have to take time off - ours was only for a week and then a week at Christmas.. I knew other places who shutdown production in June.

OH's holidays used to depend on "operational requirements" and there were many years when holidays were not allowed during the summer - he had his job long before we had the children and stayed in the same job until early retirement last year. It wasn't only the summer that could often be restricted - I could count on two hands the number of Christmas's we have spent as a family - we have been married 35 years.

Things are never as black and white as some people would like to think - there are always varying shades of grey.

tonydw

sorry to but in but if you are looking for a really cheap holiday try alpha rooms just booked 4 star in Portugal with flights from Manchester for £263 for 4 people transfares extra cheapest is resort hopper do you really need to pay for cases take hand luggage or pay for one case let me no what you think

poet123

gregg1 wrote: »

I don't think there is much intelligence being shown if they think children are better off being out of school during term time merely to go on holiday.

Or "merely" to facilitate an open evening, day at Alton Towers, two days climbing etc?

Intelligence is often difficult to quantify, and even sometimes difficult to recognise in others if you do not share or understand their thought processes.;)

However, the intelligence I referred to was that of the child not the parent....perhaps you should re read the post?

flimsier

poet123 wrote: »

So from that we have to extrapolate, and accept that a blanket policy will never work, and a blanket statement that all children are adversely affected by a short break is erroneous.

Is level 7 not an A grade?

I don't accept that the premise entails those conclusions at all.

However I accept or partially accept all the conclusions for different reasons. First, "a blanket policy will never work" - that depends. I mean, I think there should be a policy, and I think that policy should apply to all. Is that a blanket policy? It works, the same as other such policies work. However, the exceptions and terms for revision (including timescale) should be in the policy.

The second statement certainly doesn't follow. I agree not all children are adversely negatively affected, or rather, we can't tell. They're certainly not negatively affected if they would have been bullied severely that week, or run over by a bus. Of course not. But one can never tell. In the same way one can never tell that wouldn't have been the Eureka week that made a significant different to their lives (even when they're geniuses already and capable of out performing the whole country!) However, I'd posit (and again, there is no way of knowing) that all children are affected, some positively, a higher proportion negatively, and some differently. I was talking about academically affected, and again, there's some difference; clearly there must be. But we have no idea for individuals, and never ever will have unless we get into the philosophically difficult area of 'possible worlds' (David Lewis of Princeton university does this when talking of Causation).

No, level 7 is a B grade. Actually a B is one point higher (on the 6 points is one level/ grade scale), but I wasn't bothering to go into detail. KS 2 levels are points as follows:

Not awarded a test level 15 points
Level 2 15 points
Level 3 21 points
Level 4 27 points
Level 5 33 points
and so on

A GCSE C grade is 40 points, a D grade 34 points, and so on.

You can probably google all this nowadays, but a few years back it was technical for us to use.

ash28

gregg1 wrote: »

I don't think there is much intelligence being shown if they think children are better off being out of school during term time merely to go on holiday.

Our grandson is in Year 6 and will spend the next 2.5 terms preparing and being prepared for SATS in May 2012.

Once the SATS are finished that will be the end of lessons until the summer holidays - they will be preparing a play/show for the end of the summer term. They will go on a couple of visits to the high school.

The school say this period is important for socialising etc and that the rehearsing of the play/show is important and that the children have worked so hard in the run up to the SATS they are ready for a rest and to make their last couple of months of primary school enjoyable.

If I decide that between end of SATS and the end of the summer term that we will take him on holiday I shall do so with no qualms.

We have an education system driven by results and league tables and IMHO there are many things missing that go towards giving a child a well rounded education. And if a holiday, term time or not, contributes to that well rounded education it isn't time wasted for the child.

Spendless

ash28 wrote: »

Our grandson is in Year 6 and will spend the next 2.5 terms preparing and being prepared for SATS in May 2012.

Once the SATS are finished that will be the end of lessons until the summer holidays - they will be preparing a play/show for the end of the summer term. They will go on a couple of visits to the high school.

The school say this period is important for socialising etc and that the rehearsing of the play/show is important and that the children have worked so hard in the run up to the SATS they are ready for a rest and to make their last couple of months of primary school enjoyable.

If I decide that between end of SATS and the end of the summer term that we will take him on holiday I shall do so with no qualms.

We have an education system driven by results and league tables and IMHO there are many things missing that go towards giving a child a well rounded education. And if a holiday, term time or not, contributes to that well rounded education it isn't time wasted for the child.

ash I had a similar situation with my DS earlier this year. Once you know which Secondary school he is going to, you may get the dates of transition days. I found my DS's on the Secondary school website's timetable long before his primary school sent a letter out telling me.

sunshinetours

casp1997 wrote: »

Hi i am a midday supervisor at a school we work 1 hour 15 minuits a day a am on a tempory contract till dec i have had to ask for a week off from the 1 st oct i have got a letter from my husbands employer stating he could not have time off while due to others been off .i GOT A LETTER YESTERDAY SAYING i am unable to authorise your hol I beleve its your intention to take the leave so that will be classed has unauthorised and will pursue a disciplinary action which will lead to suspension and may lead to the temination of your employment.Also states this is gross misconduct
And it states at the bottom of the letter i trust you will consider the above before takeing time off
I am hoping to leave the job in november any way but its not nice having that put to you
cas

Would you have done the same if you weren't leaving in November?
I don't understand how someone can take a term time contract knowing the implications and then break terms of that contract not expecting any come back.

Don't really see what other options school had, especially as they will have to pay for someone else to temp cover you

sunshinetours

ash28 wrote: »

Our grandson is in Year 6 and will spend the next 2.5 terms preparing and being prepared for SATS in May 2012.

Once the SATS are finished that will be the end of lessons until the summer holidays - they will be preparing a play/show for the end of the summer term. They will go on a couple of visits to the high school.

The school say this period is important for socialising etc and that the rehearsing of the play/show is important and that the children have worked so hard in the run up to the SATS they are ready for a rest and to make their last couple of months of primary school enjoyable.

If I decide that between end of SATS and the end of the summer term that we will take him on holiday I shall do so with no qualms.

We have an education system driven by results and league tables and IMHO there are many things missing that go towards giving a child a well rounded education. And if a holiday, term time or not, contributes to that well rounded education it isn't time wasted for the child.

This is a cost issue then isn't it (not criticising just stating). Holidays can be taken in non term time to provide that missing piece of education. Team building and performance in a show is a form of learning and important skills are learned.

As previously I just wish people didn't make an issue of how systems are failing, or its the schools fault etc when really most of these things come down to people (all of us at the end of the day) want cheaper holidays in difficult times.

Your grandson could complete his year and then go on holiday and benefit from it all at the end of the day

flimsier

ash28 wrote: »

Our grandson is in Year 6 and will spend the next 2.5 terms preparing and being prepared for SATS in May 2012.

Once the SATS are finished that will be the end of lessons until the summer holidays - they will be preparing a play/show for the end of the summer term. They will go on a couple of visits to the high school.

The school say this period is important for socialising etc and that the rehearsing of the play/show is important and that the children have worked so hard in the run up to the SATS they are ready for a rest and to make their last couple of months of primary school enjoyable.

If I decide that between end of SATS and the end of the summer term that we will take him on holiday I shall do so with no qualms.

We have an education system driven by results and league tables and IMHO there are many things missing that go towards giving a child a well rounded education. And if a holiday, term time or not, contributes to that well rounded education it isn't time wasted for the child.

[flippant]I would take him out for the actual SATs. They're not compulsory any more, and do more harm than good.[/flippant]