[Closed] This should stop the 'term time holiday' arguements

I'd naturally always want parents to decide what they want for their kids

Because every parent always do what's the absolute best for their kids don't they 🙄

Unfortunately there are many parents who don't take proper responsibility for their kids upbringing, and seem to think it's school's job to teach basics like toilet training, counting, holding a pencil, getting dressed etc.

Hmmm, was debating whether to offer an opinion but have decided I'm rather frightened of the bullying. 😕

I'm rather frightened of the bullying.

Im sure Gove can take it CG.... 😉

Stoner

I agree with discipline, I dont agree with dogma. TJ is dogma personified: no scope for common sense, discretion, the individuality of each man's position.

Rubbish - I have shown that to be wrong many times. I believe in the right to do as you wish so long as it does not disadvantage another

I merely point out the massive hypocrisy and inconsistencies in your position. You want the convenience of sending your children to school when its convenient for you but you also want the ability to take them out for no good reason.

If you want "the individuality of each man's position". then take them out of school for good and home school them. But you won't - you want your cake and to eat it. So you will break the social compact with schools and the law if needed disadvantaging your kids and prepared to disadvantage others simply for your convenience. You have now claimed its not about cost - well they why not take them away in the school holidays?

and what is wrong about blending formal education with periods out of school? You are being dogmatic. Education is not "School" or "home school", it is learning, training, experience, exposure and development. At its best its done with through different routes at different times.

Im really not surprised you are blind to this though.

Stoner - Member

and what is wrong about blending formal education with periods out of school?

Nor am I surprised the only thing you can see is your wish to have your holidays when you want and beggar anything else

Selfish and hypocritical.

You have been given several arguments against doing what you do by a variety of people from setting a bad example to the damage it does to everyones education. Not a single counter to this from you just the only thing that matters is Stoners right to do as Stoner wants.

FFS.....

setting a bad example to the damage it does to everyones education

unmitigated hogawsh. as per.

Oh heck - CG, you missed you chance!! 😉

C'mon guys - keep it impersonal and just agree to disagree here and move on. There will be no winners on these points!!!

Simple, if you can't afford a holiday in holiday time, go somewhere cheaper.

Lol at Stoner!

OK, here goes. Background info is my oldest was the guinea pig year for major reforms, ie SATS etc. All through his school life he's been tested and tested and tested.

We occasionally took both out of school for ski-ing holidays, couldn't have afforded to do it otherwise.

[b]BUT[/b] I totally understand where TJ is coming from. Nevertheless the curriculum these days is so hell-bent on academia that children can be missing out on so much hence some holidays can be an enriching experience.

This ongoing tinkering with the education system coupled with Daily Wail soundbites has led to disenchantment, lack of respect etc. Yes, parents need to do their bit rather than thinking it's the school's job to bring up their offspring.

My son, who's now 27, is really quite scathing about his schooling even though he did get to Uni.

The day I take any child raising guidance from a bitter old childless socialist is the day Ive given up free will, free thought and the will to live.

Stoner - Member

setting a bad example to the damage it does to everyones education

unmitigated hogawsh. as per.

Really? - not what the education professionals say. Still - its easier to call it unmitigated hogwash than to have think about what you are doing

a bitter old childless socialist

who would that be? is that intended to be perjorativee? Try to hit the right target.

I am not bitter, I am not ossified, I am not a socialist and socialist is not an insult.

Still cannot come up with anything coherent - just rather pathetic insults.

Stoner - you are totally out of order with that comment, pure nastiness.

CG - there is no reason why stoners kids could not have "an enriching experience" in the school holidays.

Unlike Drac who has a good reason for sometimes doing this Stoners is all about his convenience and cost

Banhammer coming my way *ducks out of arguement*

TJ - you can't have different rules for different professions, with all due respect to drac.

I seem to remember there was talk of altering the school terms, anyone know what happened?

Of course holiday companies display arrogance towards their customers but ... the tide is slowly turning by there being less customers.

CG - thanks for that. It seems all our kids are like Guinea Pigs - enduring constant change and largely unnecessary reforms and changes. So much has become mechanistic learning and exam technique rather than proper education. Bit like the NHS and endless reforms (oh no, did i really just say that!!!)

Stoner - if you're going to be so unpleasant.....

Is the TdF trip really for your child's benefit or for yours? Think I know the answer.

Cinnamon Girl - Nottingham city are moving to a five term year, raises more problems than it solves though with the rest of the county (and some of the acadamies) on the 3 term/6 half term system

I don't like CG anymore.

I don't expect preferential treatment, all parents should have the right to take their kids out of school but only a limited amount of time.

Convert is right though, taking them out around Exam time is a bad idea my two are still in primary school.

Drac the difference I see is having "good cause" so a one off special, the unavailability of holidays outwith term time, that sort of thing. Not for convenience or cost

I agree TJ, oh and this year I have holidays in August and we've chosen to take the kids away for the first holiday abroad then although I could go earlier. Going to cost a fortune.

Simple, if you can't afford a holiday in holiday time, go somewhere cheaper.

I think the whole "if you can't afford it, go cheaper/don't buy it" mentality went out of the window decades ago ...

Fast-forward 15 years and this generation of kids'll have utterly pathetic CV's but really impressive photo album's on FaceBook of all their precious little childhood holidays

😉

Seriously though,

Drac the difference I see is having "good cause" so a one off special, the unavailability of holidays outwith term time, that sort of thing. Not for convenience or cost

I tend to agree with TJ on this subject.

I don't treat the current 10 days as extra holiday entitlement.
Unlike quite a few parents I know.

Just ask my wife - we had quite a tiff when I wouldn't let our son miss 3 days of school just for convenience sake. 🙂

It's a mentality I've learned from my own upbringing I guess - school was always treated as properly important by my parents, only ever missed due to sickness as far as I can remember.

My wife on the other hand grew up in Brazil. From what I gather, the prevailing attitude to schooling is pretty lax. Kids regularly miss school at the drop of a hat, and the authorities don't bat an eyelid. Apparently.

Could this 'take your holidays when you like' approach not be extended to teachers?

I've been married to a teacher for 17 years and we've never had a cheap holiday.

she's had parents shouting at her when the school's shut for one day due to an Inset, goodness knows what they'd do if she decided to take a week off in term time to watch the TdF with me.

Thank you Convert, a rather well thought through an balanced post from someone at the sharp end.

The current system works (most of the time), the people that know the specific situation for the child, the teaching professionals, make the decision. Gove would have more of a leg to stand on if what he was talking about would actually make a difference. it won't, it won't tackle the chronic truancy I was talking about two pages ago, nor will it address some of the poor parenting that Convert alludes to. Result is the self righteous like TJ get to feel smug, lots of people who generally buy into the implied social contract between parents and the schools feel a little more alienated and the social contract becomes weaker as a result.

As said many times above it would be a lot better if Gove concentrated on dealing with some of the difficult issues our education system faces rather than producing sound bites.

There also seems to be a lot of envy wrapped up in self righteousness coming from certain people on here. Of course people want to pay less for their holidays, means there's more money for other things including the kids. There's also a lot of people who can't take their leave during school holidays, people that work in the tourism business, people with limits on the number of staff at the same time, people in the armed forces, people with fixed shift patterns. Finally don't forget the people who service the schools, my wife works for a heating engineering firm who have a lot of the maintenance contracts with local schools. They are very busy during all the school holidays as this is when the schools want the work doing, to minimise the disruption to the teaching......

Could this 'take your holidays when you like' approach not be extended to teachers?

I've been married to a teacher for 17 years and we've never had a cheap holiday.

she's had parents shouting at her when the school's shut for one day due to an Inset.

There's two side to every story, there are others who can't take holidays when they want as mentioned above (and their holiday allowance is often a lot less). Parent's abusing the teachers is not acceptable, but then teachers don't always show much understanding of how much of an issue inset days and ad hoc school closures can be for working parents without the safety net of local parents.

Could this 'take your holidays when you like' approach not be extended to teachers?

It would be an interesting experiment.

I'd like to parents reaction if their kids' teacher was allowed 10 days off each year just to get a bargain holiday.

Would all those parents arguing that it's ok for them to take their kids out of school be ok with the teacher clearing off for a week or two?

What a fun thread.....

Seems that Stoner is taking the kid to see a wonderful event. Kid is only 5 and will not suffer much loss of education, and in fact will get some pretty good life education, including French. I think Stoner said he would do it this year an maybe next, then would be more reluctant to do it, when the education becomes more intensive.

Don't think Stoner mentioned he is doing it for convenience or cost, but to see the TdF. Seems like for a one of event to me.

I apologise to TJ for the insult.
unnecessary.

how much of an issue inset days and ad hoc school closures can be for working parents

Inset days have been part of the school system for decades, and are published as part of the school calendar, so they're not unexpected & there's loads of time to make arrangements.

Ad hoc days, fair enough.

Unless it's due to snow. or dangerously high winds. or broken plumbing/heating. and the council closes the school.

Sometimes, that's just life.

Our daughter has an Inset day at her school on Wednesday this week. My wife will still be expected to work at her (not the same) school.

Teachers with children have exactly the same issues with Inset days and childcare as everyone else.

Locally most of the 'after school club' type operations do Inset day cover as well.

And I work at home which is always useful.

It seems that most parents on here have considered the impact of taking their children out of school, and are not blindly assuming that there's an annual entitlement of 10days in-term holiday per annum.

And the government's (rather draconian) statement was aimed at parents that consistently take out their kids on this basis without any regard for the education system. And that I disagree with. But I also don't want to be told that I can't take them out if there's a good reason.

I still don't understand why people's holidays cost more during school holidays. I've never noticed any difference on any of my last few holidays.

[i]if there's a good reason. [/i]

Every parent who takes their kid out of school in term time belives that they have a good reason. This is why heads had discretion and were abel to exercise judgement. The problem was that the parents who were refused often either did it anyway or got [i]really[/i] nasty.

Most schools now just say 'no kids out of school in term time, no exceptions' to avoid the problem. All Gove is doing is formalising it and removing the Heads discretion.

I reckon most schools will welcome it, it will remove a lot of conflict from their relationship with the parents if they can just say 'it's the law' when asked.

The Telegraph article concludes with similar thoughts to earlier posts (although I censored the final line to save flaming an otherwise good argument!)

As for the cost of plane tickets, spare a thought for those poor teachers who cannot take their families away out of school holiday time. At least for other families, the restriction around plane fares lasts the length of the child’s school career. For teachers, it lasts their entire lives. As I have always said, it isn’t our teachers who are at fault: it is the system.

aP - it really can make a huge difference. My son's first school had a head who was a keen skier. So terms started a week later that everyone else. Why, it was the cheapest week of the whole season. Massive discount on previous week.

I still don't understand why people's holidays cost more during school holidays. I've never noticed any difference on any of my last few holidays.

Ah I guess everyone else who notices this is wrong then. The same holiday costs at peak season which is school holidays.

Most schools now just say 'no kids out of school in term time, no exceptions' to avoid the problem. All Gove is doing is formalising it and removing the Heads discretion.

Most? None in our area do.

I took my son skiing three weeks ago, a couple of weeks before the half term break. It was not a case of 'saving money' it was the difference between being able to afford it or not being able to afford it. A secondary consideration is that the slopes and lifts were far less crowded than they would have been in the half term week.

I strongly suspect that many areas of the holiday industry, particularly winter sports, wouldn't have the capacity to accommodate everyone who wanted to go if they were restricted to school holiday time only. Also, the term time weeks would become quieter resulting in employers being unable to justify the staff levels they have now, which would again be to the detriment of service during school holiday times.

It was not a case of 'saving money' it was the difference between being able to afford it or not being able to afford it.

[img] [/img]

[i]Would all those parents arguing that it's ok for them to take their kids out of school be ok with the teacher clearing off for a week or two? [/i]

Of course not. Because the teacher not being at work doesn't save the parent any money. And *that* is all that is important here.

Great reponse from convert - our kids' school (primary) has communicated the acceptable grounds for "unauthorized absence"; basically not when they're being inspected or there are tests in the offing. Fully expect this to be a different kettle of fish when they go to secondary in line with converts comments.

Key thing is that we're exercising judgement as to the best thing to do for our kids - if we want to take them out of school for whatever reason, we evaluate and decide, communicate and agree with the school.

Gove is barking up the wrong tree with this policy - much better to stop undermining the position of the LEA with his nutjob notions of academies and free schools.

It not all black and white is it. There's a big difference between taking a struggling student away during exams for two weeks and taking an above average 7 year old away for a few days.

TJ's immovable standpoint on this matter I think might change if he had kids.

Yes my children's education is important, thats why its such a big part of our home life as well. That said I wouldn't think twice about pulling my child out of school for a day or two for something I or he determined important.

I also want to install some values in my children like determination, desire and god forbid maybe some dreams and aspirations.
I'll encourage them to do well and support their hobbies and interests.
If my boy is as keen on cycling when he's seven as he is now (4) then I would def pull him from school for a day to watch his heroes ride past him whilst he cheers them on.

You can find that kind of inspiration and awe in a book or classroom.

Go for it Stoner. Your child. You know how he's doing and how it will affect him. Its not like they'll be teaching some brand new skills and lessons in the last week of the school year is it!

[i]Your child. You know how he's doing[/i]

not includign Stoner in this comment but you'd be amazed at how many parents have no idea how their children are doing (and how few of those seem to actually care)

I took my son skiing three weeks ago, a couple of weeks before the half term break. It was not a case of 'saving money' it was the difference between being able to afford it or not being able to afford it. A secondary consideration is that the slopes and lifts were far less crowded than they would have been in the half term week.

God Bless You and the trials and tribulations you must face in your daily life.

You wanted to go skiing. You don't need to go skiing. Your child needs education. You make your First World Problem almost sound like something real.

There's a big difference between taking a struggling student away during exams for two weeks and taking an above average 7 year old away for a few days.

Yes - it teaches the thicker kids that truancy is OK for the brighter kids. Real motivation there.

not includign Stoner in this comment but you'd be amazed at how many parents have no idea how their children are doing (and how few of those seem to actually care)

Yes but Gove is trying to tarnish everyone with the same brush isn't he?