Schools no longer allowed to authorise holidays

FBaby

Almo wrote: »

It's not that I don't care about the one student. I accept that it may not have been their choice to go (although if we're talking secondary students, they should perhaps have spoken up) but I have to care more about the needs of the rest of the class. I'm afraid it's the one versus the many.

And that is how it should be indeed.

FBaby

So why are schools happy to break the rules themselves? How many school trips are taking place during term time excusable, but not if they go with parents?

My DD who will be in Y9 will be missing a day of school next October because the school is taking them to Paris for 4 days. That involves going on the Eiffel Tower, on a trip down the Seine and one day at Disney? How is that educational when if we were to do this as a holiday, it would be considered to be detrimental to her education?

Rules are fine, but not when they are double standard.

Tiddlywinks

FBaby wrote: »

So why are schools happy to break the rules themselves? How many school trips are taking place during term time excusable, but not if they go with parents?

My DD who will be in Y9 will be missing a day of school next October because the school is taking them to Paris for 4 days. That involves going on the Eiffel Tower, on a trip down the Seine and one day at Disney? How is that educational when if we were to do this as a holiday, it would be considered to be detrimental to her education?

Rules are fine, but not when they are double standard.

Where's the double standard?

The children will be in a managed group with managed activities shared with their classmates - those SHARED activities can then be the subject of follow up classwork.

Teachers will use the trip for practical learning and application - weaving in points of interest, pronunciation etc... relevant to the coursework.

Seems useful to me.

WestonDave

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

Where's the double standard?

The children will be in a managed group with managed activities shared with their classmates - those SHARED activities can then be the subject of follow up classwork.

Teachers will use the trip for practical learning and application - weaving in points of interest, pronunciation etc... relevant to the coursework.

Seems useful to me.

By the end of Primary school our kids will have done an overnight stay in year 4, a two day away trip to the Isle of Wight in year 5 and a 3 day trip to France in year 6. All of these will undoubtedly come with an "invitation" to contribute to the costs, and unless we want our kids to be the odd ones out, little choice but to go along with it. These trips will largely be in school time, and a substantial part of each trip will be spent on a coach looking out of the window or messing about with mates on the bus. Compared to the educational input of the same number of days in the classroom, there is clearly less actual education on these trips. Given that the teachers seem to manage to introduce topics etc without a trip the rest of the year, the excuse of it being part of lessons etc seems like after the event justification. Half the time the educational bit is contrived anyway - I recall in what is now year 7 being taken on an educational trip to Barry Island (in the days when the theme park thing was still there) - to give the day an educational "cloak" we stopped off at some Roman ruins for half an hour on the way!

However of relevance to this topic - if parents weren't getting mugged every five minutes for increasing contributions towards their kids "free" education, maybe there would be a bit more to put towards school holiday family holidays. Given a choice I might prefer to spend the money from the French trip for example on time together as a family.

To be honest I'm inclined to agree that people shouldn't be taking a week out of school for holidays just to save money, but a bit of common sense and flexibility ought to be shown - if someone takes an odd day to travel to a family function (e.g. a distant wedding on a Saturday where they travel up on the Friday) or their 2 week holiday overhangs school by a day, that ought to be fair enough if the attendance is otherwise acceptable.

pigpen

My daughter in year 5 is going on a residential trip tomorrow until Friday.. caving, orienteering, kayaking.. not related to school work, not the full year group going.. yet we wouldn't be 'allowed' to take her for the same experiences..

my 12 and 14 year olds are going to a theme park on Friday for the day (I've also had to pay for the 14 y/o a TA to go with him as he has diabetes and they didn't want him collapsing or anything without a member of staff so I got to pay for her or he didn't go!! We, as his parents, were not allowed to go with him as not CRB checked by the school ).. again not something we would be 'allowed' to do with them.. no educational value at all

Not that I want to do any of those things and if I did I would do them in holiday time.. but it is ok for the school to do it? Double standards galore!

Mojisola

pigpen wrote: »

My daughter in year 5 is going on a residential trip tomorrow until Friday.. caving, orienteering, kayaking.. not related to school work, not the full year group going.. yet we wouldn't be 'allowed' to take her for the same experiences..

my 12 and 14 year olds are going to a theme park on Friday for the day (I've also had to pay for the 14 y/o a TA to go with him as he has diabetes and they didn't want him collapsing or anything without a member of staff so I got to pay for her or he didn't go!! We, as his parents, were not allowed to go with him as not CRB checked by the school ).. again not something we would be 'allowed' to do with them.. no educational value at all

Not that I want to do any of those things and if I did I would do them in holiday time.. but it is ok for the school to do it? Double standards galore!

I doubt the value of trips out to theme parks - my experience has either been of curriculum related visits or activity trips which give children a lot of experiences they may not get otherwise. You might take your children caving, climbing, etc, but the majority of parents wouldn't. Just going away without your parents is a valuable experience.

If you're not happy with what the school is doing, it's important to take it up with them. In particular, a parent having to fund a TA wouldn't have happened in the school where I was a governor. If an extra person was needed, the school fund would have paid for it.

seven-day-weekend

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

Whilst I don't disagree with the sentiment and clearly someone's father dying is an extreme case of an event which could have a significant detrimental effect on upcoming exam success, it's important to acknowledge that both of these scenarios were outside the child's control.

It is parents that take children on holiday and lots of children of secondary school age would be devastated by the potential academic consequences of being absent during term time. So I'd like to think your husband might not have taken such a blanket 'black & white' approach.

On the whole he did. It was the parents' choice to take the children out of school for a holiday, therefore it was their responsibility to ensure they caught up the work (or the older students, their own responsibility). I'm not saying if the student had asked him for help he would not have helped them, but he was not going to go to the trouble of setting and marking extra work for them.

duchy

Mojisola wrote: »

No-one forces parents to send children to school. If they do go to school, they should follow the rules - uniforms, behaviour, holidays.

Teachers can't take holidays in term time. Is that wrong? Most work places have rules about when employees can and can't take holidays - should these rules be ignored?

Schools might give advice about what happens out of school - bedtimes, hours of TV watched, etc, but parents can and do ignore it. What happens within the school hours is different.

So if an employer has a rule that leave can't be taken in school holidays (not uncommon in certain businesses whose trade is predominately holiday business) and the school has a rule saying no holiday in term-time -which do you think the responsible parent will choose to break ? Risk losing the family income or pay a fine- No brainer !

As for teachers not taking leave in term time -the US model of teachers having a certain number of "personal days" essentially paid days to be used for personal business-be that a long weekend away or a visit to the dentist -in term time -is getting discussed more and more over here.

moneysaymoneydo

Are school trips compulsory? just curious as to if there are some parents unable or willing for that matter to pay for an expensive school trip? just wondered what happens if parents say no.

securityguy

duchy wrote: »

So if an employer has a rule that leave can't be taken in school holidays (not uncommon in certain businesses whose trade is predominately holiday business) and the school has a rule saying no holiday in term-time -which do you think the responsible parent will choose to break ? Risk losing the family income or pay a fine- No brainer !.

They could always do neither, of course. #justsaying