Taking the kids out in school time?

[Permagrip Soles]

Originally Posted by Guest

I really disagree with parents wilfully taking kids out of school during term time.

We vilify politicians for wasting tax payers money on dubious expense claims but think it's ok to waste those same tax pounds on avoiding state paid for education

Ultimately everyone gets to make their own call on this one, but I don't like it, but if you choose to do it I'm not going to try to stop you either

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I think this probably gets to the crux of the matter for some people, and I thank you for your honest post. Most of the grumbles are not really about concern for children's education, but as usual, boils down to money, and anger that some people are somehow getting a supposed 'benefit' that you are unable or unwilling to take . It's the puritanical approach to the issue that I was talking about. I'd be interested to see if there is any way of splitting out the percieved 'cost' to the state from people taking their children out of school for holidays for a day or two from the cost of persistent absenteeism. I think the cost is likely to be minimal in the scheme of things.

[Star87]

We ask for a leave of absence form, fill out then send back. Headmaster then sends back a letter saying its unauthorized.

[WhereIBelong]

I don't disagree with taking kids out, did it once in Y5/4 when we wanted to go to Florida for Halloween and we only get one week off, we made a choice based on want not need - it was a hard choice, we thought long about it, as do a lot of people in our situation - it is not often just taken as given that it is ok to do it.

I do agree that there should be fines for doing so to discourage people taking it to extremes.

After all, what is the real difference between skiving off down the park eating ice cream and skiving off to Florida eating ice-cream, other than scale/cost.

[ginwithaslice]

There's a real difference between taking children out of school for a few days once in a few years and persistant absenteeism, where children barely go to school.

It's obviously a very emotive subject for some people but honestly, a few days off for an amazing holiday or a trip of a lifetime isn't going to harm children at all.


(I live in NI where our MLA's have taken 3 years off - PAID! - with no consequences, I'm definitely not going to stress about going on holiday 3 days early this year )

[macdonald]

If parents are sensible of course it does no harm, a fine is cheaper to pay than the extra travel cost for peak time also!...

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Permagrip Soles

I think this probably gets to the crux of the matter for some people, and I thank you for your honest post. Most of the grumbles are not really about concern for children's education, but as usual, boils down to money, and anger that some people are somehow getting a supposed 'benefit' that you are unable or unwilling to take . It's the puritanical approach to the issue that I was talking about. I'd be interested to see if there is any way of splitting out the percieved 'cost' to the state from people taking their children out of school for holidays for a day or two from the cost of persistent absenteeism. I think the cost is likely to be minimal in the scheme of things.

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This isn't quite the question being asked but if you take the average spending per pupil per year - which is just over £6000 (here) - and divide by the number of school days per year - around 190? - then that means it costs about £32 per day per pupil. So if a child is off for one day then it (sort of) effectively costs £32 - which, admittedly, doesn't sound a lot.

However, looking at it as a whole, there are around 8 million children in primary and secondary schools (here). If you multiply that by the average spending per pupil then that means a total of cost of £48billion to educate them all at school. The average absence rate is around 4.5% (here). Therefore, you could say absent children cost taxpayers about 0.045 * £48billion = £2.1 billion in total per year. Or about £11million a day due to absent children. (Technically, that's not actually the truth but let's not let that get in the way of a good story, eh?).

Or, to put it another way, if everyone decided to take their children out of school for one day each year in order to go on holiday then it would effectively have an impact of approximately £256million.

[MillyMoo]

It was a nice brainer for us to take ours out of school. We never ever take them out, always stick to the holidays to take them away - however, because of summer holiday costs we go early in the year or later. This means weather is often not great - and it makes me sad to think that my children, as simple as it sounds, dont get to experience things like swimming in the sea in the sunshine - something that I used to do every year as a child, because my mum took me out of school, and those days are some of my happiest memories! That said, I do remind myself that we are actually very lucky to be able to go on holiday each year as many are not.
We arent able to go on "big" holidays every year, or even every other year, the cost is simply too high.
The memories that were made on our trip to Florida made every penny of the fine worth paying. If we could afford going in the holidays then we would but unfortunately for us, and many others its not an option. Memories and family time are so so important, sadly the government and local authorities dont agree.

[danisleigh]

My sister had her girls authorised last year. We had meant to have gone on a Caribbean cruise together during Easter 2018 but in the January my son was diagnosed with liver cancer and placed on the transplant wait list meaning we had to cancel. My sister is not well travelled and didn’t want to go on a cruise without us so she got into a mild panic! We already had a greek islands cruise booked for July 2019 so she called the cruise line and asked if she could change her cruise to that one so we could all go once DS was recovered. It was only after amending she realised that though my son had already finished college a week before the holiday that her daughters still had a week left so she had to ask for 5 days off for them. They were 13 and 14 and only ever missed one week before in primary and had good attendance but she fully expected it to be unauthorised. She explained what had happened in the application as Ds was a former pupil there and the deputy head called and asked how my son was and authorised the absence. He did ask my sister if he could have my number and call to enquire after my son which she happily supplied but I never got a call so I assume that was just a test!
As for my son we didn’t take him out a few time’s, never more than 5 days and not all of the time. He has a life threatening condition and to me making memories was the most important thing and we couldn’t always afford to do that in school holidays. We were lucky that as he got older we were more financially secure and didn’t have to take him out anymore but I don’t regret a single time that we did.

[lilo82]

I think the problem is those parents that worry about their children missing a week here or there are not the parents that the local authority is trying to catch out. It's those with persistent absence say a day every week or even a day every two weeks.
My husband and I both work in education. My husband next year finishes a week earlier than myself and DD. Therefore I have already told my school I will be absent. I fully expect our DD to be issued with a fine. However as it has been granted previously due to the fact my DH has to be in school week beginning a level and GCSE results we always go the first 3 weeks. We expect to be fleeced if my school turn down my leave request they would have to find someone else to be the SEN TA at my school.
I would say we as parents know are kids better, but the teachers will also know how best they learn as they spend most of their young lives with their teachers. If you are in any doubt ask to take some work. Do 5 mins timestables in the car, every day. Whilst your on hols. You will probably see the kids much more motivated than they are in schools.

[Tinkjon]

Home-schooling is the answer!