General Chat

I disagree with it is what the children expect Ann. It's based on what the parents want for their children.

Before Mum died we spent holidays in Cornwall up to the age of 7.

I was taken to Italy aged 8, France and Spain aged 9 by my Father and got my travel bug from then on...lolol Obviously my children all inherited the travel gene!

Lots of families have more disposable income now and spend it as they wish. I teach grandson various phrases and also to count before he travels and then we chat after they get home - it makes for very funny conversations.

Yes school is important.
BUT SO IS LIFE AS A FAMILY!

What do children remember about their childhood when they grow up?
Good times spent with Mum, Dad and family!

We can debate the rights and wrongs of holiday companies, etc ....but it is what it is!
We would never have had any holidays if we were forced to go in the school holidays. (We don't go abroad)
Only this week, my Grandson (who I raised) on discovering we were going on a caravan holiday not too far away, booked his new little family in too, because of the lovely memories he has of our little holidays together.
He now has a serious disability, and is so excited about the holiday.

I spent a huge amount of time teaching my Grandson, especially during his Primary School years. Any reasonably educated person can help young children catch up.


GIVE & TAKE & BALANCE!

I accept, when they are older, with exams that will impact on their future, they should be in school!

I accept that this is only MY opinion... cos I hate quarrelling! ;-) :-D :-D :-D

JemimaFawr Your so right hun x :-D :-D

the only holiday we had as kids was going down 'Opping.............


Bob

Thinking back I know that all my childhood summer holidays were taken during the school holidays, always the last week of July and 1st week of August. Dad worked hard to pay for them and I am talking about Devon seaside holidays in the 1960s.

The first time we went abroad was in the mid 1970s and that was during term time, as it was cheaper, with the school's agreement.

The only time I was banned from anything, by my strict girl's grammar school, was when I broke my clavicle horse riding during the O Level mocks and it was .
'heavily' suggested that I did not ride until after the actual exams.

I have only ever taken my own children out of school for a holiday once, that was one day before the start of the official half term. As my boys are now 30 and 25 I don't remember there being any 'official' problem with their schools at that time about it.

Personally I wouldn't now take a child out of school. However I have total sympathy with parents who do not have a choice due to their work practices or the cost of a holiday and really want to spend 1 or 2 precious holiday weeks with their children.

Chris

We always had our summer holidays during term time, but that was part of the life of living in a mill town that had Wakes Week or Weeks in June ................

Any child who was not in the exam classes of 11+, O or A level was allowed to go on holiday with their parents, because the town basically shut down during at least one of those weeks.

I grew up in Oldham, which had the earliest Wakes Weeks, always the last 2 weeks in June, which was before term ended.

At high school, there were no classes that were really taught during those weeks. Any students who were not taken away by their parents had to attend school, but we went on day trips, excursions, played games, read etc.


We went away every Wakes week for at least 1 week every year from about 1946. My first holiday was in a caravan at Bispham, but after that we always went to Scarborough, usually staying in a B&B or form of self catering where the guests would buy their own food and the landlady would cook it for them.

Mum & Dad would save up all year for that holiday. They would book seats on a coach (which we called a charabanc), and the accomodation, and off we;d go with large suitcases!

It was almost always cold in Scarborough, sp we had to have winter coats with us!


There was always a big fair during the Wakes Week, that took over the ope air market ground.

Of course children should be in school if possible but, like Jemima says, their family life is important too. Most young children can catch up fairly easily after missing a week or so of school. They do it all the time if they are off sick.

I wouldn't suggest taking secondary pupils out of school but even that wouldn't be the end of the world. My granddaughter had to miss near enough 6 months of school when she had just started on her GCSE courses. She managed to catch up and 18 months later had a clutch of high grade GCSEs.

I wonder what would happen today if a parent faced the scenario I did in the 1970s. My children were about 7 and 9 and it was the February half term. On the Wednesday my father, who lived a considerable distance away, phoned to say that my mother was dangerously ill in hospital. My in laws lived about 5 miles from my father so I took the children to them and went to the hospital. A few days later my mother died. The children were due back at school by now but I telephoned and let them know that I wouldn't be able to bring them back till after the funeral, a week or so later. There was no problem with this at all.

Today would I be expected to leave my dying mother and distressed father and come home so my kids could go to school? Would I be fined if I didn't comply?
..............

On a lighter note: Sylvia, you reminded me very much of my childhood holidays. We lived in South London and usually went to Margate or Clacton and my parents always booked "Cooking and Attendance" which was the system where you provided your own food but the landlady prepared and cooked it for you. Results were variable to say the least. Some landladies were better cooks than others ;-)

Vera ............. I didn't know that was what such arrangements were called. We went back to the same place for several years, and she was a pretty good straightforward cook!


We did have one experience with taking our daughter out of school in the mid-1980s.

She was 12 when we got the chance to go to Europe and the UK for 2 months on a mix of business and holidays. We were planning on being in Switzerland, Germany, East Germany, England, Scotland, Eire and Northern Ireland. But the trip overlapped the new school year by almost 3 weeks.

We contacted the Principal of the school ................ her response was "Great, what a wonderful experience for her. She can go, as long as she does a little bit of work (reading), and keeps a daily journal of the whole trip to show me when she gets back."

We had our first family holiday when I was 15.
I went to 6 different schools, my elder sister even more, as our dad was in the Services.
This was in the days when the curriculum wasn't 'fixed', so a change of school meant learning or catching up on what the new school was teaching - I was taught to write ‘properly’ three different ways! As for who was most important – Romans or Greeks, I couldn’t tell you, as they both bore me.
We missed many parts of the curriculum, and I’ve since learnt that children of Service families are on a par with those of travellers (ie ‘difficult’ and behind)
At one point, my sister went to a solely Welsh speaking school (hence, I can count to 5 in Welsh).
We missed quite a bit off school through moving, and I missed 6 months through being in a sanitorium when I was 6.
I took my 11+ in Cornwall – where the start of the school day was singing ‘Trelawney’ (a rebellion song), and ‘nature rambles’ were the order of the day.
I passed my 11+. My sister, at the time was in a Secondary Modern.
We both ended up in the same Grammar school – though sister had never taken her 11+.
We went to Normandy when I was 15, in the April before my GCE's. Sister and I met 3 students from Paris.
One bought me ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ in French and ‘tutored’ me in pronunciation.
After the holiday, I took my French Oral. They had to pass me though they’d never heard such a strong Normandy (ie West Country) accent in a GCE student before!!! (Jean Francoise - you were a we bit despicable)
What I’m saying is – it should make little difference whether you miss a week or two off school – if the teaching/curriculum is sound a child will ‘make’ it.
If the Government thinks they won’t (and they’ve taken over how children are taught) perhaps they should look to how their own interference has diminished a child's ability to learn.

I will cite their insistence on children learning to read solely using phonics.
Okay for some, but not for all.

My daughter is having to teach her son to read.

He's 6, in Grade 1 (ie, first year of real school over here), and the method of learning to read that is being taught at his school is to look at a picture and say what is happening, not how to read the words in the caption underneath.

She's found that the children are allowed to get away with a description that doesn't fit the caption, but it is almost laughed off as "well, they'll pick it up later".

it isn't even teaching reading by phonics :-(