A question about keeping children off school in term time: to take them on holiday.

balletshoes

Buzzybee90 wrote: »

What I'm saying is, lots of children stay home with 'illnesses' which wouldn't have washed with my parents.

Probably missing more time than children who had time off for a holiday, over the course of the year.

It's swings and roundabouts. Had a holiday every year but never took a day off ill.

i can see where you're coming from, unfortunately school absence levels have to be tackled somehow, and this is the way our government has decided to do it in England and Wales.

Jagraf

Just Further Maths to go this week for DD GCSEs.

Weeks of gruelling exams and revision.

A week certainly makes a difference in our house.

I'm happy to say have got through the whole of school without unauthorised absense - and I don't think for one minute she has felt a lack of family time / holidays etc.

I hope she takes this approach now in sixth form where I have less influence and her attendance is always monitored closely.

Time flies.

meer53

missbiggles1 wrote: »

14 years isn't really a very wide perspective in educational terms, I'm afraid.

Did you miss the bit about my 28 year old ? I've been involved with schools since 1991.

maman

Jagraf wrote: »

I don't think that's the point though. Taking time off for a holiday is breaking the law, taking time off when you are ill isn't. We are not given a set number of days to choose whether to be ill or to go on holiday. It should start with expecting full attendance, all year round, and if you are ill everyone does their best to put it right. It's something unavoidable. But going on holiday is a whim dressed up as 'educational'.

I too day by day see what you mean. But imagine using that argument in the workplace.

No we're not but I suspect some of those willing to take their children out of school for holidays wouldn't be averse to 'taking a sickie'. I have come across employees who think sick pay is an entitlement so they're going to access it whether sick or not. My concern is that they're bringing up offspring that will believe cheating the system is the norm.

mumps

My husband was a police officer, he couldn't always get his holidays in the school summer holiday. Do you really want police, fire service, NHS etc to let staff numbers fall below safe levels or should essential workers with school age children not be allowed to have family holidays. Obviously not all will have children but often the people on the front line are of an age where it is likely they will have children, then you have the police officer, fireman, nurse, doctor who doesn't have children but is married to a teacher. We had to take holidays in termtime some years or not have a family holiday. Nothing to do with wanting a cheap holiday, wanting to go abroad or anything else other than a man who was working hard, risking his life/health for the public (ultimately injured in the course of duty and disabled for over 20 years) and wanting two weeks away for it all with his family. My kids all went to university, all got firsts and all doing well so it wasn't the ruin of their education.

FBaby

Jagraf wrote: »

This is an excellent post and in my mind so obvious.

Really? To me what is obvious is you can't apply statistics derived from an average to individual circumstances ie. It's not because ON AVERAGE attendance under 95% result in a lower grade, that this applies to all individual pupils.

It's like the argument that breastfeeding statistics showing a lower a lower chance of a child developing allergies on average doesn't mean that all children breastfed will be allergy free whilst those bottle fed will do.

Schools understandably care about statistics because that's what there are judged on but parents only care about how outcomes affect their individual child and for many it will have no incidence on their results.

onlyroz

mumps wrote: »

My husband was a police officer, he couldn't always get his holidays in the school summer holiday.

Wouldn't that come under "exceptional circumstances"?

Jagraf

FBaby wrote: »

Really? To me what is obvious is you can't apply statistics derived from an average to individual circumstances ie. It's not because ON AVERAGE attendance under 95% result in a lower grade, that this applies to all individual pupils.

It's like the argument that breastfeeding statistics showing a lower a lower chance of a child developing allergies on average doesn't mean that all children breastfed will be allergy free whilst those bottle fed will do.

Schools understandably care about statistics because that's what there are judged on but parents only care about how outcomes affect their individual child and for many it will have no incidence on their results.

It's nothing like breastfeeding / bottle feeding. To me that is like a state ed / home ed choice, or any other choice made. It's just that, its a choice. I don't for one minute feel the right to judge people on their choices.

But, you have to make a choice. And if you choose state ed for yor children, that should be what you do. Once you have made that choice, you have to stick within the rules / laws which are there to protect both your own kids and other people's kids ;although you can of course change your mind). There are numerous choices we make in life. Once we make them, we stick to the law and the rules which protect a wider society. We can't just decide we don't agree with the law so we are going to break it. We can actively take part in trying to change it, if we wish, or we look for alternatives.

Ironically, all exam grades are based on statistics and averages. That is definitely where an average in education affects a person individually. Imagine, how every other child sitting the exam has a direct effect on your own child's grade.

nwc389

mumps wrote: »

My husband was a police officer, he couldn't always get his holidays in the school summer holiday. Do you really want police, fire service, NHS etc to let staff numbers fall below safe levels or should essential workers with school age children not be allowed to have family holidays. Obviously not all will have children but often the people on the front line are of an age where it is likely they will have children, then you have the police officer, fireman, nurse, doctor who doesn't have children but is married to a teacher. We had to take holidays in termtime some years or not have a family holiday. Nothing to do with wanting a cheap holiday, wanting to go abroad or anything else other than a man who was working hard, risking his life/health for the public (ultimately injured in the course of duty and disabled for over 20 years) and wanting two weeks away for it all with his family. My kids all went to university, all got firsts and all doing well so it wasn't the ruin of their education.

Spot on post . I have joined many a debate on this subject over the last few years , pointing out that not everyone can get holidays from their work during the school holidays . In my case my OH was only able to get the middle weeks of any month off as he was an accountant and was expected to do the month end accounting last few days of one month and first 5-6 of the next, my part time job was in a large branch of a high street bank and around two thirds of the staff either had school age kids or had partners that worked at a huge local employer that had a set factory fortnight . It was a nightmare sorting out the holidays where I worked without the extra complication of my OH . For several years I would take mid July one year and mid August the next so the kids did miss a week end of term one year but I was then guaranteed I would get mid August the next .
Someone did mention that these days this would be classed as exceptional circumstances but a few months back they had a head teacher on one of the breakfast tv shows and this was put to him and he said that he would not count this as 'exceptional' So I am guessing that it would depend on the head teacher.
I'm glad my boys are grown up now and I haven't had to have this kind of hassle , we really enjoyed our holidays with our boys and the main reason was that we had time away with them to just be a family and enjoy each other's company - it was never about the money.

sheramber

The change in the regulations came about in September 2013 under

The Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 which came into force on 1 September 2013.