Taking your children for holidays during school is illegal in the UK

[kamik86]

In my state, we are allowed a certain number of unexcused absences before things start getting reviewed. An excused absence is an illness with a doctor's note, funeral, even a college visit(though they are limited to 3 a year I think). My son was in the hospital for a week during the school year and it was all excused because obviously it was something that was medically necessary. Any other absence is unexcused . It could be that your sick or that you went on vacation. As long as you don't go over the days , your ok. They don't like people taking their kid out during the school year for vacation, but it's the parents choice . If our schools go over their "allowed"absences, they miss out on some of their funding . So they have really cracked down on it. During the end of the school year when your in for a half a day doing nothing but watching finding nemo, the school sent out letters basically begging for parents to make sure their child attends school. They were approaching there limit.

This is another thing that I always hated as a student. If this day of "learning" is so unimportant that we are going to spend the day watching a movie that would be VERY hard to say is educational (much less then a vacation) or playing video games (in high school I had a week where my teacher who was in grad school had something he wanted to do for school while getting paid so he decided we would all work on "problem solving skills" that week... we played lemmings for the entire class all week.)

How is this stuff ok but students can take time off for a vacation? If every day is so important maybe every day should be spent on something actually educational.

 

[kamik86]

I wish my experience led me to be as optimistic as you. I have encountered MANY parents who would make whatever choice they please regardlless of the effect it had on their child's education. Or who would simply convince themselves there was no impact, even if there is.

I mean, look at the UK post about smoking in cars -- some parents have to be legally told not to smoke in a car with their young children with the windows up. I'd like to live in a world where no parent would put their child in an unhealthy situation like that, but that's not the reality I see.

It is unfortunate that laws often target the lowest common denominator in society, and that negatively impacts others -- but when the goal is to help ensure children grow up with a decent chance in life, it's hard for me to fault those laws even when I'm not a huge fan.

I think right here is the main point of debate.

Some people like you think that putting in rules even if they make things harder on others is ok as long as there is some benefit to someone.

Other people like me think that unless there is a benefit that outweighs the hassle for the MAJORITY of people that something should be a rule/law. This makes me against many laws on the books. For example I think helmet laws are stupid. If John Doe isn't wearing a helmet on his bike or motorcycle it has no impact what so ever on me. Even if we get into a crash his lack of a helmet won't hurt me.

However I am all for vehicle inspection laws. Because if John Doe doesn't fix his breaks and he crashes into me that does affect me. So the majority of society benefits from this this anyone could be the person crashed into... even if they would maintain their car anyway.


So I don't think we should have laws that say if a student misses more then X days they will fail. Because the kids that would need every day in class will fail anyway if they do take the vacation but now it allows those that could take the vacation without failing to take it and just take a slightly lower grade.

 

[sam_gordon]

Other people like me think that unless there is a benefit that outweighs the hassle for the MAJORITY of people that something should be a rule/law. This makes me against many laws on the books. For example I think helmet laws are stupid. If John Doe isn't wearing a helmet on his bike or motorcycle it has no impact what so ever on me. Even if we get into a crash his lack of a helmet won't hurt me.

1) I don't think the MAJORITY of parents are pulling kids out of school.
2) But John Doe's decision to not wear a helmet COULD impact you if his insurance needs to cover his injuries. You don't think they're going to take that payment out of their profits do you?

 

[pryncess527]

I think right here is the main point of debate.

Some people like you think that putting in rules even if they make things harder on others is ok as long as there is some benefit to someone. FWIW, I do NOT think that.

Other people like me think that unless there is a benefit that outweighs the hassle for the MAJORITY of people that something should be a rule/law. This makes me against many laws on the books. For example I think helmet laws are stupid. If John Doe isn't wearing a helmet on his bike or motorcycle it has no impact what so ever on me. Even if we get into a crash his lack of a helmet won't hurt me. Totally with you on that, I hate helmet laws.

However I am all for vehicle inspection laws. Because if John Doe doesn't fix his breaks and he crashes into me that does affect me. So the majority of society benefits from this this anyone could be the person crashed into... even if they would maintain their car anyway.

So I don't think we should have laws that say if a student misses more then X days they will fail. Because the kids that would need every day in class will fail anyway if they do take the vacation but now it allows those that could take the vacation without failing to take it and just take a slightly lower grade.

I agree with you. And FWIW, I'm not in favor of these laws, I'm just not strongly against either -- I have no kids, so this is not something I've given a lot of thought too. My mother taught school and HATED the idea of taking kids out. My father loved to pull me out for lunch on random days -- and then died when I was 12, so I absolutely see the value in playing hooky with a parent

I think that saying if a student misses X days they will fail kind of misses the point. It assumes that punishing the child punishes the parents, and that no parent would make a decision that negatively impacts their kid (which is the comment I initially took issue with). But some would. If we want to prosecute truancy as a way to protect children from bad parents, that does not come from failing kids who were not in control of the decision to go on vacation. Don't get me wrong, I'm not for locking parents up either, I'm just saying that if the point of the rule is to provide kids with a decent chance at success then the target of the penalty would have to be the parents (if their actions are determined to be negligent) and not the kids. That would also provide more leeway for "good" families to take vacations because their "truancy" could reasonable be found to be not-negligent, while also permitting a way to punish parents who keep their kids out of school so they can work in the coal mines ;p

 

[kamik86]

1) I don't think the MAJORITY of parents are pulling kids out of school.
2) But John Doe's decision to not wear a helmet COULD impact you if his insurance needs to cover his injuries. You don't think they're going to take that payment out of their profits do you?

1) I am not sure the majority of parents do never looked into it... but I think the majority of parents would want the right to be able to do so. Also that the majority of students could miss a week for vacation without automatically failing their classes. A school quarter is what 8 weeks long? Although I was a top student at my high school (not that I'm that smart my school had really low standards but that is another discussion) but my nieces weren't when we pulled them for an October WDW trip and all three of them still managed to pass all their classes. Two of them were even in high school at the time.

As for number 2)
Ok but then by that logic we need to outlaw drinking, smoking, driving motorcycles at all, sky diving, contact sports, etc etc until we cover every activity that provides a greater then average chance of a bad injury.

 

[tmh43]

If a parent is taking their child out of school when the child may be in danger of failing, then there is much more going on in that home than taking time off of school to go on vacation. Much more.

There are other ways to punish those types of parents than to prevent family vacations.

 

[DizBelle]

Nope - I don't think the school should be "granting" days to either kid. The school can absolutely implement their own consequences. If both Johnny and Cindy are absent on the day of a test, it's totally within the schools domain to give both kids a 0 on the test. For Johnny, that might bring his grade to a B and for Cindy that might mean she fails. But that's the end of what the schools should be able to do. If schools don't want to give makeup work for unexcused absences, I can get behind that. If schools don't want to let kids make up tests, I can get behind that. And if that means Cindy fails 6th grade math, than that's the choice her parents have made.

But no way, no how, will a school tell me I'm "not allowed" to do something with my kids.

But the school would be blamed for Cindy failing. Not Cindy and not her parents. If a kid fails, it means the school messed up (at least that's what people would think).

 

[DizBelle]

1) I don't think the MAJORITY of parents are pulling kids out of school.
2) But John Doe's decision to not wear a helmet COULD impact you if his insurance needs to cover his injuries. You don't think they're going to take that payment out of their profits do you?

And if he doesn't have insurance, who do you think pays for his medical care? YOU, that's who.

(by "you" I mean all of us taxpayers)

 

[gwynne]

But the school would be blamed for Cindy failing. Not Cindy and not her parents. If a kid fails, it means the school messed up (at least that's what people would think).

Yup, that's how they see it. The school, and the teacher, in particular. That's plain unfair to both the school and the teacher.

 

[DopeyDame]

Yup, that's how they see it. The school, and the teacher, in particular. That's plain unfair to both the school and the teacher.

I'm not sure who "they" is, but I don't think we should be basing public policy on whatever the proverbial "they" thinks. If I were Cindy's mom, I wouldn't be blaming the school. And if I were the Principal and Cindy's mom tried to blame me, I'd easily be able to pull out her attendance sheet and demonstrate the problem.

 

[Madame]

I'm not sure who "they" is, but I don't think we should be basing public policy on whatever the proverbial "they" thinks. If I were Cindy's mom, I wouldn't be blaming the school. And if I were the Principal and Cindy's mom tried to blame me, I'd easily be able to pull out her attendance sheet and demonstrate the problem.

But that's the point. At least where I teach teachers are hauled down by admin to justify *any* failure. & believe me, Johnny was pulled for a 2 week vaca to -insert destination here - is not an acceptable excuse.

The minute you pull out your attendance sheet the response is, and what did *you,*as the teacher do, in order to assist Johnny to achieve to his full potential? It is *not* oh I see Johnny missed 4 weeks total including vaca & getting yanked out for sports. Johnny should have finished the assignments he missed & come in for extra help.

 

[tmh43]

But that's the point. At least where I teach teachers are hauled down by admin to justify *any* failure. & believe me, Johnny was pulled for a 2 week vaca to -insert destination here - is not an acceptable excuse.

The minute you pull out your attendance sheet the response is, and what did *you,*as the teacher do, in order to assist Johnny to achieve to his full potential? It is *not* oh I see Johnny missed 4 weeks total including vaca & getting yanked out for sports. Johnny should have finished the assignments he missed & come in for extra help.

It seems to me that the system needs an overhaul rather than more regulation. The teacher was at the school, s/he fulfilled his/her part of the bargain. It should be, get a friend to fill you in on the missed assignments, do them independently, and get them handed in.

I guess I can see a teacher wanting regulation to protect themselves, but then IMO the way to do that is to make the rule "if you miss assignments you get 0" rather than "you may not take vacations on the off chance that you *might* miss a huge assignment that for some reason was assigned and due within the week you were gone"

 

[kamik86]

But that's the point. At least where I teach teachers are hauled down by admin to justify *any* failure. & believe me, Johnny was pulled for a 2 week vaca to -insert destination here - is not an acceptable excuse.

The minute you pull out your attendance sheet the response is, and what did *you,*as the teacher do, in order to assist Johnny to achieve to his full potential? It is *not* oh I see Johnny missed 4 weeks total including vaca & getting yanked out for sports. Johnny should have finished the assignments he missed & come in for extra help.

And here is another of the real problems. So far we have that funding is tied to how many butts are in chairs on any given day and that teachers are blamed for failures.

Some people will always want to blame the school and teacher, some seem to always want to blame the student. The truth is really that both can be the problem. When you have entire classes that can't do X but the entire class next door can... that is a failure of the teacher (assuming the students are placed randomly not that one is "honors" and one is "remedial") but frankly those kids aren't going to fail the class the teacher is just going to give them all passing grades to cover HER failure to teach. This is where having some kind of standardized testing comes in.

However when you have a class and only one student fails... that isn't a failure of the teacher. AT the very least the child isn't getting it and more likely isn't doing the work.

Now I know I have been out of high school for a number of years (10) but when I was there teachers gave failing grades to students that didn't do the work. Many were EXTREMELY lenient (too much in my opinion) like letting someone make up any grade they failed on or didn't do in the last quarter if they were in danger of failing for the year, but they still would fail people.

The standardized testing that was starting to gain popularity and has now really become common was supposed to be aimed at catching the times where teachers were passing students that should be failing. However from what I hear on here its become even worse that at all costs you have to make a student pass.

 

[Madame]

And here is another of the real problems. So far we have that funding is tied to how many butts are in chairs on any given day and that teachers are blamed for failures.

Some people will always want to blame the school and teacher, some seem to always want to blame the student. The truth is really that both can be the problem. When you have entire classes that can't do X but the entire class next door can... that is a failure of the teacher (assuming the students are placed randomly not that one is "honors" and one is "remedial") but frankly those kids aren't going to fail the class the teacher is just going to give them all passing grades to cover HER failure to teach. This is where having some kind of standardized testing comes in.

However when you have a class and only one student fails... that isn't a failure of the teacher. AT the very least the child isn't getting it and more likely isn't doing the work.

Now I know I have been out of high school for a number of years (10) but when I was there teachers gave failing grades to students that didn't do the work. Many were EXTREMELY lenient (too much in my opinion) like letting someone make up any grade they failed on or didn't do in the last quarter if they were in danger of failing for the year, but they still would fail people.

The standardized testing that was starting to gain popularity and has now really become common was supposed to be aimed at catching the times where teachers were passing students that should be failing. However from what I hear on here its become even worse that at all costs you have to make a student pass.

You spend so much time teaching to the test (like you lose points if you make notes in the margins, the format of a news report which they'll never use again), that you can't *teach*!

If I see a student only three times in a semester & that student never hands in a single thing I *still* give that student a 30%. We can't give students lower than 30%. Why? That's the minimum for summer school.

We've had teachers fired for giving zeros for incomplete work
http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/edm...treated-unfairly-appeal-board-rules-1.2751007

It's nearly impossible to fail/demand more of students when your hands are tied.

 

[Flight]

If every day is so important maybe every day should be spent on something actually educational.

The amount of time not teaching in the classroom is staggering. Here are examples:

Behavior issues - In some classes this is a huge distraction and requires the teacher to stop the lesson to deal with the problem, often multiple times in a period.

Pep rallies - No learning going on there.

Field trips - Sometimes to an amusement park or ball game just for fun.

Fire drills - Necessary yes, but no learning going on.
Lockdown drills - same
Severe weather drills - same

State testing - Multiple days of teaching lost.

Standardized testing - Yup, more testing in which there is no teaching.

Assemblies - Not always education driven.

Half days - Results in subjects cut or very short periods where the reality is there is hardly any time to teach.

Substitute teachers - Throw on a movie or hand out some busy work.

Health testing - Classroom time sacrificed.

Office announcements over the P.A. - Sometimes the darn thing is going off frequently disrupting the class.

But don't you dare take your child out of class to engage in a family activity because they will be missing valuable class time.

 

[kamik86]

You spend so much time teaching to the test (like you lose points if you make notes in the margins, the format of a news report which they'll never use again), that you can't *teach*!

If I see a student only three times in a semester & that student never hands in a single thing I *still* give that student a 30%. We can't give students lower than 30%. Why? That's the minimum for summer school.

We've had teachers fired for giving zeros for incomplete work
http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/edm...treated-unfairly-appeal-board-rules-1.2751007

It's nearly impossible to fail/demand more of students when your hands are tied.

I hated my high school for many reasons but one of the few things I liked about it is that it wasn't technically public. I think technically it was considered a charter so you had to apply to get in and not everyone did as there were only so many spots. Then they had it set up that you had to "reapply" every year except reapplying was automatic and there were no forms but setting it up that way made it so they could kick kids out that didn't meet set criteria like being suspended more then X times (because the school just didn't want to deal with the behavior issues) or failing a class with a lower grade then 50%. Yes kids DID get kicked out for these reasons. But they could do that because then they just got sent to the normal public school.

I would have hated it though if I went there that would mean they would have a disportionately high number of kids with these issues.

 

[kamik86]

The amount of time not teaching in the classroom is staggering. Here are examples:

Behavior issues - In some classes this is a huge distraction and requires the teacher to stop the lesson to deal with the problem, often multiple times in a period.

Pep rallies - No learning going on there.

Field trips - Sometimes to an amusement park or ball game just for fun.

Fire drills - Necessary yes, but no learning going on.
Lockdown drills - same
Severe weather drills - same

State testing - Multiple days of teaching lost.

Standardized testing - Yup, more testing in which there is no teaching.

Assemblies - Not always education driven.

Half days - Results in subjects cut or very short periods where the reality is there is hardly any time to teach.

Substitute teachers - Throw on a movie or hand out some busy work.

Health testing - Classroom time sacrificed.

Office announcements over the P.A. - Sometimes the darn thing is going off frequently disrupting the class.


But don't you dare take your child out of class to engage in a family activity because they will be missing valuable class time.

I agree with most of your list... except maybe the drills. Learning how to behave in a large group setting during an emergency is educational enough for me to count that one.

Substitutes are iffy... I had some GREAT ones. My high school liked to use retired teachers as substitutes. Some of them were better then our real teachers at what we were supposed to be learning. (Kids in one of my english classes hoped for a substitute every few weeks while we were doing shakespeare... those of us that liked it and got it found the substitute much more engaging and entertaining. Those that struggled to understand actually figured out what was going on during those classes!) So I also won't knock all substitutes

But I 100% agree with the overall point. I know many people think because someone homeschooling does all the work in 3 hours that half the day is busy work... they aren't far off especially for the students that are average students or a bit better (one thing I noticed even when I was in school was that standardized testing meant that as soon as you hit the level that you would pass you were "good enough" and all the time would be spent on getting the next group to "good enough". Yes part of it is that one student with direct student driven learning plan will learn faster then a mass class, but don't discount that there is alot of wasted time in a 6 hour school day.

 

[Flight]

But I 100% agree with the overall point... but don't discount that there is alot of wasted time in a 6 hour school day.

There are exceptions to each of these points and education could also be attached to each of these points, but yes, just trying to make an overall point.

Let's add time to take attendance, time to pass out papers, time to go to the back of the room to get textbooks, time to pack up approaching the end of the period,....

Each parent must assess their own child when considering taking them out of class for a period of time to take a vacation. It might not be wise in all cases. But there should not be a government authority threatening punishment when a parent does decide their child can miss class for a family activity.

I stand by the letter from a dad to a principal that I posted earlier in this thread.

 

[BagOLaughs]

Woh, long post. I am British and I think we should be able to choose to take our kids out of school for a holiday if we want too.

If John Doe isn't wearing a helmet on his bike or motorcycle it has no impact what so ever on me. Even if we get into a crash his lack of a helmet won't hurt me.

In the UK he would affect us because of the NHS. Due to his injury he'd be taken to a hospital in an ambulance we pay for through taxes.

TBH though I'm not going to get too stressed about the taking kids out of school issue because it is what it is.

 

[lilaclily]

Wow. Steven Spielberg credits his mother for allowing him to play hookie with her and make videos.