Our kids refused time off school during term time - please advice

onlyroz

pinkshoes wrote: »

I teach physics.

Parents generally ask for work before hand, and what their child is going to miss. They catch up in their own time, and come and see me if they are stuck. I will happily give up my free time for any child that wants to learn.

A week off school will not hurt a child with good attendance who is doing well at school.

How many pupils do you teach in total? If you're a secondary school teacher then I'd guess that you see a few hundred different kids each week. What if say 10% of them took off a week each year and required worksheets to take with them and catch-up work once they got back. How much extra work would this generate for you? And how much extra for your colleagues? And what would be the impact on the other kids in your class while you were dealing with the ones who had missed lessons? And what about the impact on your school's OFSTED rating when the attendance figures dropped?

Hedgehog99

Zero sympathy I'm afraid. Your children's schooling is paid for by the taxpayer and parents already complain about then having to look after them/pay for extra childcare in school holidays, so why increase the holiday time total further? Your children are only at school until 18, then you can do what you like. Don't book unless you have prior consent from the school - which you are very unlikely to get just for a holiday.

Jagraf

pinkshoes wrote: »

I teach physics.

Parents generally ask for work before hand, and what their child is going to miss. They catch up in their own time, and come and see me if they are stuck. I will happily give up my free time for any child that wants to learn.

A week off school will not hurt a child with good attendance who is doing well at school.

What free time do you get in the school day? Apart from what is required by law. Come and see you where? how do you check their understanding? How do you deal with the continuation and building on a topic in class if some have missed lessons?

coolcait

flea72 wrote: »

.... When you have a child who is sick and off school longterm, and the authority think that 3hrs tution a week is sufficient for a gcse student, you start to wonder why they need to attend school for 30hrs a week

...

Having been in that situation, as the child and as the parent, and having seen it happen on other occasions within the extended family, it is very clear "why they need to attend school for 30hrs a week".


At some stages of the curriculum, an absence of one or two weeks can have a significant impact.


Another poster has shared a personal experience of missing school, for a relatively short time, through illness and - as a result - finding it difficult to fully grasp a concept which was introduced to the rest of the class during the time he/she was ill.

jaylee3

Don't see why having a week off school would make any difference to their progress.

coolcait

jaylee3 wrote: »

Don't see why having a week off school would make any difference to their progress.

I see/have seen it at work, when staff are on leave or sick leave when the rest of the team are learning abut something new. Some take longer to catch up than others. Some never really catch up.


I see/have seen it in the school context too.


So, for me, it's not a theoretical concept. It's a reality.

Hedgehog99

jaylee3 wrote: »

Don't see why having a week off school would make any difference to their progress.

It might not seem like it to some parents who seem to regard school just as free childcare, but the lessons have been planned for the term and the rest of the class are doing them while you're away.

It's also deeply divisive - a kid returning with a tan and fantastic tales of exciting trips - how does that make the kid whose family cannot afford a holiday feel? Although it inevitably happens to some extent, it's less obvious when the holiday is taken during the standard holidays.

As for moaning about the cost increases in official school hols, you don't have to do expensive things, and if you take a child out during term time, you have extra official holiday time to cover/pay for, so you might as well use that money for a holiday at the designated time.

Homeownertobe

consumers_revenge wrote: »

Sorry to p on your parade but loved every minute of school and it was the best years of my life...Some of my teachers were guiders for life!


On 30k with next to no education having got off my own backside in later years. Maybe I mispelled something, big oops....Must have done something right.


( BTW worked for schools doing IT for them for 3 years as an outside contractor. Not at all saying they are bad but some of the policies the schools set need thinking about. )


Pretty sure my kids would get just the same amount of real education visiting another country and culture for a week!


Just my 2 pence worth...


CR

Your syntax hurts my eyes.

SandC

I will consider myself told then. 😁

Actually when I have had friends moaning about the cost of their hols I have often felt like saying they should have thought of that before having kids but I feel they may have ditched me. :-) I still maintain that some of the increases are over the top though. I wasn't talking about gov subsidies just some kind of cap on percentage increases or something, like they do with fuel.

ohreally

geek84 wrote: »

Any advice offered would be greatly appreciated.

Work within the rules and organise family holidays appropriately.