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

Bumpmakesfour

Sorry, but I don't think I'm being judgemental, I'm expressing an opinion based on my professional knowledge and experience, and my respect for the law of the land. This law basically states that children should be at school learning during term time, unless there is a valid reason for missing school approved by the head; these don't generally include going on holiday.

I did not say you should take 'staffroom gossip' (your words, not mine) into consideration. However, I am pointing out that when parents take their students out of school for unauthorised holidays (I'm not talking about for funerals or medical appointments) this is usually seen in a bad light.

I am sorry to hear about the fact that your son struggles to enjoy holidays in peak season as a result of his Aspergers. In my first year of teaching, I taught an Aspergers student, and I tried to adapt all of my activities to enable him to access what I was teaching, in consultation with his parents.
You sound like a very understanding teacher,we are lucky that DS' teacher is the same and bends over backwards to make his school life that bit easier

However, I am genuinely not trying to be harsh, but many parents would like to take their children out of school for a holiday in term time: if the head was to agree to your request, could s/he turn down in all fairness turn another child's parents down who said they could only afford a term time holiday due to financial reasons, or another child wanting to attend an overseas wedding, or indeed the o/p who got the dates mixed up.....
I know of three families who cited the disability act in their holiday request making it very clear a refusal would not be taken lightly.One family with a child with a similar condition to DS in his class are in portugal right now.I chose not to play that card and will put in a normal request,accompanied by the reasons why.If it's turned down I'll take the fine

You write as if we are all 'entitled' to a holiday anyway: are we? In many countries, parents dream about being able to send their kids to school...
Agreed and point taken but I don't live in those countries,I live in the UK,in an area where generally holidays of some sort ARE the norm


If you disagree with the law, write to your local MP, don't complain about the head: they are only applying the law.

Where have I complained about the head?I actually like the head

You talk about breaking the law based on 'what's best for your family': is this a valid reason for breaking this and other laws?

Your son sounds like a bright kid: have you considered getting him a scholarship to a local prep/independent school? It sounds like he needs challenging, and there is the added advantage that private schools often have different holiday dates to state schools, thereby avoiding the hassle of holidays at busy times. He has an open evening on nov 10th at the local boys smaller private school,with view to sitting the bursary examinations Tx for your reply,always good to hear different view points x

flimsier

FBaby wrote: »

Nor is it possible to make the assumption that their education was affected by the trip. Maybe it even had a positive affect on it, maybe they did even better when they go back than they would have done have they not gone on the holiday

They finished the year at level 4c in Maths, and 3a in English for my y3 boy and 5a in Maths and 5b in English for my Y6 girl which were the expected levels and some above they'd assessed to reach at the end of the year.

In any case, whichever affect it possibly/potentially had didn't concern either their teachers, nor me. one sure thing, we really had a great time and enjoyed themselves, so all together, there is no doubt that it was worth it.

It's not possible to show that their education was affected. It is, however, possible to show (as much research has) the causal link between attendance and attainment. You seem to be ignoring this.

flimsier

FBaby wrote: »

I think the statement below kind as a counter-argument to what I was saying more or less implies it:



In your statement flimsier of year 11 attendance, it would seem that 3 pupils had more than 5 days off during the year. Maybe it was illness, maybe holidays, the end result is the same, and clearly they have done very well, doesn't that defeat what you are saying above? My kids had attendance of 97.1% last year.

I almost give up. You've ignored my point completely.

Yes, they had more than 5 days off. I can't see at the moment, but 7 or something. It's also clear that none of them had bad attendance. The point is good attendance = good results. They all had good attendance. That's not to say they wouldn't have done better if they weren't at 100%.

And if you take students away for 5 days, what if they have a poor year healthwise and are off for another 10 days? That 5 days suddenly counts a lot more.

It appears that both your kids had 5.5 days off. Congrats. Keep it up. But don't pretend that the link between attendance and progress doesn't exist with your kids.

5 days off is unlikely to be THE difference, but you'll never tell, and you set a precedent AND (and I think this is crucial) you are teaching your kids a lesson about how important YOU see school as. Actions speak louder than words.

Of course, people always say "yes, but I impress on my kids the importance, I never let them take days off etc" Go ahead. I'm bored of you completely ignoring the evidence.

poet123

I think that the point is that 100% is obviously the ideal, but equally, if attendance is otherwise good five days will make little difference to overall attainment. Nor do I agree that it sends a message that parents who do do this (on occasion) have little regard for education. Actions do speak louder than words, and supportive parents who impress upon their child the value of school and the desirability of attainment are unlikely to dilute this message very much by taking them out of school for a few isolated days.

I wonder if those teachers who are evangelical on this issue are themselves parents?

RadoJo

FBaby wrote: »

I think the statement below kind as a counter-argument to what I was saying more or less implies it:



In your statement flimsier of year 11 attendance, it would seem that 3 pupils had more than 5 days off during the year. Maybe it was illness, maybe holidays, the end result is the same, and clearly they have done very well, doesn't that defeat what you are saying above? My kids had attendance of 97.1% last year.

Just to clarify for anyone who may misinterpret the way you have quoted in your post - that second quote was NOT from me.

I was just pointing out that although it had been stated that apparent 'talent' is often directly linked to the amount of work a person puts in, nobody actually said that your children weren't hard working, which seemed to be the impression you had. I can understand that you would be keen to defend your brood, but I don't think it helps to counter the findings of broad ranging studies with individual experiences - we all know someone who seems not to fit the norm, but if there is a general consensus amongst educational professionals that attendance and attainment are linked, then one single case which appears to disprove that does not necessarily undermine those findings.

sunshinetours

This has now gone way part what OP was posting. The crux of this particular thread was the failure of the OP to accept that they had made a mistake and now realised they would probably get away with it so weren't bothering to attempt to correct their error. Nothing more than that

poet123

sunshinetours wrote: »

This has now gone way part what OP was posting. The crux of this particular thread was the failure of the OP to accept that they had made a mistake and now realised they would probably get away with it so weren't bothering to attempt to correct their error. Nothing more than that

Threads do move on. The OP has clearly made a mistake and probably could still change the dates of the holiday - at double the price. So, she is/has probably been considering the impact of a five day absence on her children's education and concluded that although not desirable it will not irrevocably damage their chances of being a brain surgeon! That is where the thread is now.

RadoJo wrote: »

Just to clarify for anyone who may misinterpret the way you have quoted in your post - that second quote was NOT from me.

I was just pointing out that although it had been stated that apparent 'talent' is often directly linked to the amount of work a person puts in, nobody actually said that your children weren't hard working, which seemed to be the impression you had. I can understand that you would be keen to defend your brood, but I don't think it helps to counter the findings of broad ranging studies with individual experiences - we all know someone who seems not to fit the norm, but if there is a general consensus amongst educational professionals that attendance and attainment are linked, then one single case which appears to disprove that does not necessarily undermine those findings.

I don't think anyone could dispute the correlation between attainment and attendance, at base level it is common sense. If you are not there, you cannot learn.

However, a sense of proportion is needed, over the course of a school life cumulative absences of perhaps 20 days will have little affect on attainment. My feeling is that the long summer break is more detrimental to many than the odd few days here and there over a long period.

poet123

nancypearl wrote: »

Who looks after the kids in the school holidays when you do not take time of work to go on holiday with them?

Surely there must be a cost saving/balancing out of funds if you look after them yourselves in the holidays if you don't have to pay for childcare? I am excluding the free childcare given by relatives, of course, in this comment.

So, although I do not agree with people choosing which school rules they follow
(because they have a special case/their child is gifted and will do brilliantly anyway so what's a few weeks of missed school/we are going somewhere exotic and therefore that is more educational than school/My life is more important than yours/I get what I want/whatever)
if said colleague has term-time off, then I won't have to plead my case to have half-term off! A win-win. Who'd have thought it possible?

From someone who is in full-time employment, I would also like to take the half-term weeks off to visit family and spend time with people who would usually be in school. I obviously cannot do that if my colleagues who have schoolage kids are taking time off. If I book leave and my parent colleague does not get the time off granted, on occasions there has been a family emergency/ little Ollie is sick, the parent is sick etc for the whole half-term week and I have to screen my phone calls because I am being called back into work to cover for the person who was not granted the holiday during half-term in the first place. It is particuarly common during the period between Christmas and New Year and spring bank holiday for some reason. Beware. Everyone gets sick in the school holidays

I think your comments could probably be a separate thread, stemming as they clearly do from issues with parents per se, not specifically with those who take their kids out of school in term time.;)

FBaby

flimsier wrote: »

I almost give up. You've ignored my point completely.

Yes, they had more than 5 days off. I can't see at the moment, but 7 or something. It's also clear that none of them had bad attendance. The point is good attendance = good results. They all had good attendance. That's not to say they wouldn't have done better if they weren't at 100%.

And if you take students away for 5 days, what if they have a poor year healthwise and are off for another 10 days? That 5 days suddenly counts a lot more.

It appears that both your kids had 5.5 days off. Congrats. Keep it up. But don't pretend that the link between attendance and progress doesn't exist with your kids.

5 days off is unlikely to be THE difference, but you'll never tell, and you set a precedent AND (and I think this is crucial) you are teaching your kids a lesson about how important YOU see school as. Actions speak louder than words.

Of course, people always say "yes, but I impress on my kids the importance, I never let them take days off etc" Go ahead. I'm bored of you completely ignoring the evidence.

I think you are missing MY point. My kids ALSO had good attendance despite missing 5 days for holidays, yet you seem determined to make a point that my kids' education might have suffered as a result. All the top pupils at your school who didn't get 100% might also have done even better if they had 100%, is it what you told them when they were congratulated for their achievement?

You are making assumptions that are based on studies not taking into account personal circumstances. NO I didn't set precedence when I took my kids out because I explained to them that it was exceptional and not something that would be occur regularly (there was a family reason for doing it which I won't bother to detail here). I have also always made a point of them having to go to school unless they are VERY poorly. As a matter of fact, my daughter was telling me only Friday that she wanted me to send her to school however ill she was because she wanted to get 100% attendance this year.

You protect your opinions on the basis of evidence without considering individual cases and I would be really worried if you were my kids' teacher. Kids are not robots and don't act in accordance to 'evidence'. Thankfully, my kids had excellent teachers who saw them as the people they really are, hardworking and dedicated, even though they went on holiday for 5 days when they were not supposed to. As I said previously, it didn't stop my daughter getting the 'pupil of the year' award, so clearly her teacher and headteacher thought very differently to you. Personally I am bored of teachers like you who think they know everything because they can read research papers.

esmerelda98

I find it troubling that many parents think taking just a few days won't make much of a difference, especially in primary school. I think a well-motivated child in the later secondary years is much more capable of finding out what they have missed and working independently to catch up than a child learning basic concepts, especially in grammar, punctuation and maths.

Surely the effect on the child depends on so many things, not just the child's ability (and on that issue, even clever children need guidance). For example, how discrete the bits they miss are, how crucial what's missed is for further learning, how difficult the ideas are to grasp. A lot of learning at those early stages is like an onion, layer upon layer, not chunks here and there. An English exercise can cover many areas, it won't always be easy to tell the parent the topic that was missed so they can help with catching up. I certainly think some people with lifelong literacy or numeracy issues miss crucial concepts, for whatever reason, and thereafter struggle. This may not be the experience of most parents, but I get the sense that many of these parents decide what they are going to do and then come up with arguments to support their position. You may be gambling with your child's education.