Term Time Holidays???

balletshoes

IHateDida wrote: »

Hmmm....so when little Johnny is behind with his coursework due to being on some beach for 2 weeks and then comes back totally lost....who then has to fill in the missing pieces most likely in their own time after school/lunchtime?

When little Johnny is lost in class due to being away - does this take away time from the other kids who have been there (whilst little Johnny sits on a beach) as little Johnny needs more teacher help to catch up?

Hmmm.....holidays in term time do cause disruption to the child (and their learning), the teacher and more importantly, other children in the class (who's time is taken away by the child rejoining the class after a period of absence).

If you look at a register of pupils, the ones that tend to be the brightest will have a near 100% attendance rate - like it or not!

yep - and taking 5 days out of the school year once, as the OP is thinking of doing, could still have her children near the top of the attendance register at the end of the school year.
My daughter was, even with her possibly 6 days absence per school year, she was also near the top of her class for ability when she left primary school, and is now one of only 3 children from her large primary class who is in top set in year 7 for every subject the children are ability-streamed for.

Do I think year upon year above-average absence affects a child's education? Absolutely its a factor. But in the OPs case, it doesn't seem that even taking her children out for 5 days would bring them to a higher-than-average absence for this school year, never mind all their school years.

onlyroz

johnnyl wrote: »

the most flawed logic Ive ever seen. I sincerely hope that you are not one of the people who are teaching our children :rotfl:

So if term time holidays can account for 30-40% of absences, and absences have been shown to affect academic achievement, why does it not follow that term time holidays affect academic achievement?

I had a discussion with my son's teacher a while back about how children often slip backwards during the long summer break. If a six week break can cause a level 3 child to slip back to a level 2, how do you think they would be affected by an 8 week break? And then compound this with the fact that they will have missed two weeks of schooling and that their teacher really doesn't have the time to help them catch up without neglecting the other kids who have not been off on a nice beach jolly.

Be_Nice

Thank you everyone for your views & opinions.

I know people have taken their children out of the school before for holidays without too much issue at the school.

I am going to speak to the head at the start of term and see how likely it is to be authorised and if fines would apply & how much etc.

My 10 year old is still in year 5 not 6 and they both have always had excellent attendance, I am not taking the decision lightly, I do take their education seriously and it's not something I will be making a habit of.

I have been looking at dates/prices tonight and term time just makes such a difference to the overall cost.


Edit : As to the point above about children slipping back during the six week holiday, I think parents have to take some responsibility for this, if you are still encouraging your child to read & playing games which make them use their brains even things like monopoly, scrabble & still helping them practice times tables etc this is much less likely to happen.

*Louise*

I took my children out of school for a week at Easter for a holiday - first time ever during term time, but it was a rebooked holiday as the first dates got cancelled as my dad was so ill at the time. The schools gave permission but the kids attendance figures were still high at the end of the year.

What we also did to keep the school happy was include some educational things in the day trips and DS2 made a diary with photos and interesting facts about the places we had been, and the head got him to read it out at assembly So I don' t feel it was detrimental to his education at all.

johnnyl

IHateDida wrote: »

Hmmm....so when little Johnny is behind with his coursework due to being on some beach for 2 weeks and then comes back totally lost....who then has to fill in the missing pieces most likely in their own time after school/lunchtime?

Little Johnny while off school has had jaunts over to Florida and been to places such as Kennedy Space center, Discovery Cove, Sea world, Gatorland and air-boating through the everglades etc. Still, I see why it suits your argument to assume that we are p1$$ed up around a pool or on a beach.

Strangely, it is deemed as educational when the school take little Johnny out to Jodrel Bank, the Sealife center or Chester Zoo.

IHateDida wrote: »

If you look at a register of pupils, the ones that tend to be the brightest will have a near 100% attendance rate - like it or not!

Go and look up confirmation bias. If you want to interpret real data in an unbiased way then leave it to those of us who are qualified to do so.

johnnyl

balletshoes wrote: »

yep - and taking 5 days out of the school year once, as the OP is thinking of doing, could still have her children near the top of the attendance register at the end of the school year.
My daughter was, even with her possibly 6 days absence per school year, she was also near the top of her class for ability when she left primary school, and is now one of only 3 children from her large primary class who is in top set in year 7 for every subject the children are ability-streamed for.

Do I think year upon year above-average absence affects a child's education? Absolutely its a factor. But in the OPs case, it doesn't seem that even taking her children out for 5 days would bring them to a higher-than-average absence for this school year, never mind all their school years.

yes, but as with all strong opinions based on very weak evidence the holder of the opinion has to resort to looking at ridiculous extremes rather than reality.

The teaching community should be dealing with these people that have a disproportionate effect on the results rather than trying to harass the middle ground of people just because that is easier. Once the teaching establishment has sorted out the repeat truants, permanent skivers and sorted themselves out such that they can turn into work when a flake of snow hits the ground, and once they stop striking for their own financial gain then and only then have they grounds to lecture me.

johnnyl

onlyroz wrote: »

So if term time holidays can account for 30-40% of absences, and absences have been shown to affect academic achievement, why does it not follow that term time holidays affect academic achievement?
.

It completely ignores the fact that different reasons have a disproportionate effect on attendance. Therefore a child that is truanting versus a child that has had a hiliday both count as 1 reason however one child is much much more likely for many reasons to underachieve.

It completely ignores the fact that within any 1 reason that there will a huge amount of diversity. There will be children who have taken holidays in term time but it has had no effect. For some it will have affected them. There is no way to disentangle this to show either way and the report that was quoted stated that

"The statistical techniques that have been used in the analyses that are
presented here do not imply causality. We cannot tell from the associations
identified above whether the increased likelihood of low levels of attainment
with higher levels of absence are the direct result of poor attendance, whether
poor prior attainment has led to poor attendance or whether some other factor,
not included in the modelling process, is having a significant impact".

with the main bit in bold. So forgive me if I dont listen to someone who starts with "when I look on my register"

FBaby

johnnyl wrote: »

It completely ignores the fact that different reasons have a disproportionate effect on attendance. Therefore a child that is truanting versus a child that has had a hiliday both count as 1 reason however one child is much much more likely for many reasons to underachieve.

It completely ignores the fact that within any 1 reason that there will a huge amount of diversity. There will be children who have taken holidays in term time but it has had no effect. For some it will have affected them. There is no way to disentangle this to show either way and the report that was quoted stated that

"The statistical techniques that have been used in the analyses that are
presented here do not imply causality. We cannot tell from the associations
identified above whether the increased likelihood of low levels of attainment
with higher levels of absence are the direct result of poor attendance, whether
poor prior attainment has led to poor attendance or whether some other factor,
not included in the modelling process, is having a significant impact".

with the main bit in bold. So forgive me if I dont listen to someone who starts with "when I look on my register"

Thank God for some common sense. It drives me mad how people use the results of statistics that looked at thousands if not million of data and think that they can apply to every single individual cases.

I am fortunate that both my children are G&T and way ahead of their year's curriculum. Their schools are struggling to challenge them at their level. Missing 5 days of school is highly unlikely to have any detrimental effect on them.

daisiegg

johnny - do you home educate your children? Surely you don't send them to school and put them in the hands of teachers who are clearly so abhorrent to you?

johnnyl

daisiegg wrote: »

johnny - do you home educate your children? Surely you don't send them to school and put them in the hands of teachers who are clearly so abhorrent to you?

Is that the level that you operate at, the "taking your bat and ball home" approach when things dont go your way.

I havent once said that teachers are abhorrent. It is yet another use of exaggeration and swinging to an extreme to avoid a rational and logical discussion about the real things that have been said.

2/10 - must try harder