school fines for out of term holidays?

jellyhead

Same here with Legoland, it was horrendous when we went on a weekend, but we had a great time when we went on an INSET day.

Eldest has been to Disneyland Paris and on the Saturday it was horrible, you couldn't move. He was stressed by it, so we went back to the hotel and had a swim instead.

There are times when the French holidays don't coincide with ours, we looked at it last year but couldn't afford it in the end because we had to buy a new boiler instead. But for theme parks I think it's definitely worth trying to go when it's quieter, even if that means taking a couple of days off school.

My eldest has had one half day off high school. Unfortunately the half day off in high school was when he went to New York just as swine flu hit, and he had weeks off when he got back because school sent him home every time he coughed.

Still, that could have happened to anyone because high school were very concerned about swine flu, and in the following months lots of his friends had weeks off and were sent home just for 'looking peaky'.

It was the trip of a lifetime (just for him and my husband - I took the baby to a caravan in Wales instead) and I don't regret him taking that half day off. His attendance had been excellent and he was working hard.

As a parent I might make the decision to take my youngest out of school for a day or two for the trip of a lifetime - I doubt he will ever go abroad again until he can afford it for himself.

The rules are there for those parents who go abroad for 2 weeks in term time every year though, too, and that would be detrimental to my children's education - I'd only do it once during their schooling for the purposes of a jolly - obviously there are other circumstances that are unavoidable.

Janepig

Well I know DH wants to fit in a trip to London this year (mainly funded by Tesco clubcard vouchers!) but it won't involve my two having time off school because DD's in year six and from now until July is going to be full on with prep for Comp, there's a week's residential trip, sports competitions, and tons of other stuff. I don't want her to miss any of it, even the last couple of days in July will be important imo, even down to signing each others shirts and saying goodbye to the one or two other kids who are going to different schools.

Although the last time we went to London was in the school summer holidays and I found it was okay really, we'd planned everything we wanted to do and managed to avoid the worst of the crowds.

Jx

jellyhead

Yes, we did everything we planned in London during school holidays. The only thing that was too busy, imo, was the eye.

Janepig

jellyhead wrote: »

Yes, we did everything we planned in London during school holidays. The only thing that was too busy, imo, was the eye.

We were quite lucky there because we went on in the evening, about 7.30ish I think, so it wasn't as busy as it otherwise would have been. And we don't have to do it next time we go!

Jx

angelil

duchy wrote: »

I can see all sides -as a parent but also from working in education.
It's understandable teachers get riled at the comments about the length of their holidays....however... all but the least experienced or most disorganized teachers non contact hours away from school simply put them on a par with the rest of the working population and their 30-35ish working days holiday a year. The time spent working is very similar just in a different format. Moving training "days" to say two evenings 4pm-7pm wouldn't affect the time spent training -but I'm sure the schools who already use the twilight format would have the teachers up in arms at losing a "day off" and delighted parents at not having to cover the daytime closure when the teachers weren't there anyway.

Training days are a pain for most working parents anyway and most parents would prefer to see them tagged onto the beginning or end of term -or half term anyway but when schools take the mickey like the school I worked at by closing the school when the training is done at other times anyway so there is no need to inconvenience vast number of parents with a closure then the whole way of doing things should be re-examined. Teachers keep very quiet about these kind of training days as they are only too well aware how parents would feel about them if they were generally known about. It smacks of hypocrisy to fine parents for absence when some schools are up to this kind of shenanigans which is as disruptive to education as a day off for any other reason -especially if the day falls midweek.

4pm-7pm training evenings? All very well when my school's day runs to 6pm (I teach until 5pm one day a week, until 6pm two days a week, and until 4pm the other two days). We also regularly have after-school meetings (4 or 5 per term) plus 2 parents' evenings a year. I hardly think parents can complain that my school takes ONE training day per year.

I think the kind of situation that you refer to (where the school is closed for a whole day under the pretext of training, but is in reality empty as the training has already taken place in the evenings) is extremely rare and that you cannot judge all schools on the actions of one school.

In terms of the original discussion, I don't feel as a teacher that I can ever support students being withdrawn from school for a holiday (or, as is most often the case, even if not the case for the OP, parents lying to the school about it). It's just the principle. You have chosen to have children, so need to work around the consequences of that. It's not the school's job to work around you. Equally, teachers have chosen to be teachers, and have to work around the consequences of that. How would parents here feel if teachers sneaked off early to benefit from lower holiday prices? I think, quite rightly, you'd be up in arms. Of course we would like to benefit from these too - but we recognise that we have to fit the job, rather than the job fitting us.

However, it's clear that the OP has already made their decision, so...

jellyhead

4-7 training evenings wouldn't work very well in either primary or high school here, besides which many teachers have their own children to find childcare for. But I don't think I'd mind a teacher taking one day off over the course of 12 years, to be honest, even if it was for the purposes of a holiday.

Sometimes family things don't coincide with school holidays, and weddings and funerals are important to families who don't all live in the same county/country.

MIL wanted to take my children away for her birthday but we said no because it would have meant a week off school (she hadn't realised, because her birthday was always in the half term where she lived). She rearranged the holiday for the following week - or they could have gone without the children.

But if there had been a wedding that required a day off or half day for travelling, that would have been 'more' important and I would have considered it.

Teachers have 'stuff' going on too. My boy had a change of teacher during year 2, then again during year 3. Fingers crossed that his year 4 teacher stays for the year because she's fab. I wouldn't begrudge her a bit of a holiday if needs be though At least the whole class would be doing the same work in her absence.