term time holidays

Air_Cooled_75

Off peak holidays are generally discounted to sell them rather than peak prices being pushed up.

* friend was a health and safety officer for Thompson and is now a teacher and new mum *

suki1964

ThumbRemote wrote: »

Maybe their parents would like a holiday too?

Yes and I'm sure my parents, back when they were lucky to get two weeks paid holiday ( not the 28 days as is norm now) also wanted a holiday

But the fact is, holiday dates are given and it's up to each family to cut their cloth

System

bylromarha wrote: »

Why is it the schools which are at the brunt of this and not the holiday companies who double/triple prices for a 1 day difference in the booking date?

The holiday company's put a different spin on it , they say the price isn't increased for school holidays but discounted the rest of the time .

As someone who has just had short breaks while my dd was at school I have to say I do enjoy the freedom now she has left.

nodiscount

peachyprice wrote: »

What utter twaddle.

So you're telling me that most parents have jobs where they can't get any time off work during 13 weeks of school holidays? That most working people are parents? That there are no people where most parents work that don't have children and don't want school holidays off?

I am saying that there are parents who work in jobs where both of them getting leave at the same time during peak periods is very difficult.

peachyprice

nodiscount wrote: »

I am saying that there are parents who work in jobs where both of them getting leave at the same time during peak periods is very difficult.

Yes, the minority, the majority manage that with no difficulty (if they didn't school holidays wouldn't be so busy), doesn't mean their jobs are somehow rare or cushy.

onomatopoeia99

Signed it.

I don't have children. I do remember being a child and going through the education system - it's not just "education professionals" that experience it at first hand, but some seem to forget what it was like to be a consumer of education rather than a provider.

Up until secondary school, education was an endless monotony of repetition once the basics (reading and arithmetic) were established, and that was all that infants and junior school were about. Missing two weeks or two months would have been of little consequence. If someone was out for a week or two at infants or juniors, the teacher didn't have to go back and repeat any work. I was top of my class and until I was 12 I was so bored in school because we weren't being taught anything challenging that I went from the best behaved, hardest working person to a troublemaker and disruptive influence in lessons, because no matter how it was dressed up by the teacher, it was always the same and I could already do it - why were they making me do long division over and over and over when I always got all of them right? Seriously, missing two weeks for a holiday would have made exactly zero difference to my education.

It all changed at secondary school when we started having specific subject lessons, sciences and mathematics and the teachers started teaching us stuff. At that point, missing lessons through a few days illness became a big thing in terms of catching up, and I wouldn't support term time holidays for secondary school children in normal circumstances.


One other aspect of this that is not often considered is that those without children that want time off work in August often find it extremely difficult, as people that have offspring think they should have priority on the holiday board, even if they are late in putting time on it.

jp1964

I had to add my thoughts on this one.

We are now in the last year (Hallelujah!) of our youngest son's schooling (Year 11) and have had children in the education system since 1991 as we have five children ranging in age from 27 to 16. So I have seen how the system works and has changed and 'evolved' if that is the right word for it, and have somehow come out the other side, battered but unbowed if you like!

We did take our children out of school for holidays several times in their primary years, usually for a week or a few days at either side of a summer holiday. The reason for this was that firstly we saved an awful lot of money (we have never had a packaged holiday abroad, we go camping with our own gear in the UK and Europe), and secondly as my DH was at the time self employed and worked (still does, albeit with two of our own businesses) in an industry which was and is very unpredictable, we simply could not book ahead at all, had we not taken last minute holidays at the times when he found himself with a quiet period, we would never have had the wonderful experiences and memories that we now have of magical times with our children, where we and they not only experienced the wonderful freedom of independent travel, but they were enriched in many ways by their experiences, and that includes educational enrichment, very much so, with visits to castles, lakes, travelling through different landscapes and experiencing different languages, foods and currency, map reading, geography, history, in fact actually visiting Edinburgh, the Western Isles of Scotland, Hadrians Wall, Scafell Pike, Mont St Michel, Mont Blanc, the Normandy Landing beaches, the Bayeux Tapestry, Salvador Dali's home village, Florence, the Italian Lakes, Milan, Rome and Pompei to name but a few, not just reading about them in a book or seeing pictures and all on a pretty tight budget!

In no way were they educationally disadvantaged in our view, and all of the four who have completed their education so far have done well in their exams (son is in the throes of GCSEs at the moment and seems to be doing fine), and have gone on to further and higher education and into work, they are imaginative, resourceful, flexible, reflective and not afraid to try new things and to change course if necessary, partly I am sure as a result of their childhood experiences and our encouragement of independent thinking, and of course their school based education has played a part in that, we did not take them out of school in the later years after Year 8 or so, and consequently in recent years have stuck with breaks in school holidays only if we can do it, which has meant that we have not had a proper break a few times, in 2013 we simply took our tent a couple of times to the nearest campsite to where DH was working (he works on film locations) so that we got some sort of a break, definitely well deserved that year, it was manic!)

My opinion is that for children who are otherwise doing well at school and usually have good attendance levels, a few days here and there are not going to harm them educationally, and having seen what actually gets done in the schools they were in over a few days, they really were not missing that much, especially given that a lot of time was wasted on controlling a few very unruly, difficult to control children rather than being able to teach the whole class properly.

I am afraid I don't feel that the state has a right to dictate that education can only take place in a school environment and that parents have no authority to offer their children a valuable experience of their choosing, not only educationally but socially and emotionally enriching their children too.

I am not suggesting that people should be able to pull their children out of school willy nilly but a measure of discretion should be used given the children's progress and attendance, which was the case before all these fines and suchlike came into force.

I do not regret one second of the valuable time we all spent together as a family, those memories are the sweetest and most precious, you never get that time back, and I am so glad we chose to do what we did.

Those choices were right for us and our family, and I am glad that we had the choice to do it, the new 'fines' system stifles that choice for other families just like us, which is why I don't agree with it.

Jane.

PS Petition duly signed.

themull1

Quote- Well I have NEVER took a holiday abroad -


Did you have lots of holidays during school time?

theoretica

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Up until secondary school, education was an endless monotony of repetition once the basics (reading and arithmetic) were established, and that was all that infants and junior school were about. Missing two weeks or two months would have been of little consequence. If someone was out for a week or two at infants or juniors, the teacher didn't have to go back and repeat any work. I was top of my class and until I was 12 I was so bored in school because we weren't being taught anything challenging that I went from the best behaved, hardest working person to a troublemaker and disruptive influence in lessons, because no matter how it was dressed up by the teacher, it was always the same and I could already do it - why were they making me do long division over and over and over when I always got all of them right? Seriously, missing two weeks for a holiday would have made exactly zero difference to my education.

Now that's an idea. Maybe. Permission for termtime holidays to be determined by examination. Might inspire some extra hard work.

nodiscount

I've just come back from holiday.
All the parents I spoke to said they are going to lie about why their children were off.
This is the problem with tyrannical rules like this. You encourage people to lie because they feel they have no choice.
It's interesting to note that the LGA have also raised concerns about the lack of guidance on what 'exceptional circumstances' for holiday approval actually means. At the moment it basically means if the headteacher likes you, you can have the time away.