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Rebecca Mitchell
21 November 2014 at 17:03I am devastated that I can't take my own children on holiday when I am able. My work is seasonal, we live in a seaside town, so my choice previously was to either to holiday outside of term time or quit my job. My husband is self employed & is also unable to just shut up shop during the busiest times of the year. We used to take our children out of school for 5 days each year (with headmaster prior approval) our little holiday used to cost us £500. The same holiday in May half term is now £2045. No exaggeration! Even if we somehow managed by some miracle to wrangle time off during school holiday time, there is no way on Gods earth we could afford it. We can now no longer have family time. This year I took my children camping for 2 nights in the summer holiday without their father as he couldn't get away. It cost an absolute fortune and the children didn't enjoy it as they were upset at their dad having to stay behind. It was miserable and a far cry from our old family fun week away. This current situation absolutely breaks my heart!!! This is all seperate to the other topic of how our seaside town is struggling with lack of tourist trade during term time.
Sam Heyes
21 November 2014 at 16:53The criminalisation of good parents that want to spend quality time together, but are limited to when they can time off work, goes against the governments idea of protecting the family unit, and a policy that is loathed by the majority. What evidence is there that suggests depriving children of precious time with their family, depriving them of culture, history, geography, language outside of a text book, makes for a well rounded child?
Joanna Moore
21 November 2014 at 16:43The policy on term time holidays does not target the people it should be targeting - persistent absentees. Families who's children's attendance is good and where progress is being made should not be penalised for taking a holiday during term time, where quality family time is spent together & experiences gained that cannot be done in the classroom. If parents take their chikdren out if school for a family holiday it is with the best of intentions, and headteachers should have more freedom to mske case by case decisions on whether a child's absence should be granted, rather than the current strict guidelines/exceptions. Individual schools should know their pupils and families well enough to be allowed to make these decisions without the threat of the Local Authority or OFSTED coming down on them over their absence figures. It is ok for those making these decisions in government if yheir children are in private school where holidays are longer & fall in periods where holiday companies charges are cheaper. They are unaffected by it. How about concentrating on supporting families who are truly persistently absent and/or late for school, rather than families who are trying to do the best for their children and right to a family life.
Neeley
21 November 2014 at 16:34As a student in my last year of my BAHons in early years professional practice and closely paying attention to the details surrounding the governments policy making criteria it had come to my attention that the department for education have guidance to suggest that the views and opinions of others are to be taken into account at an early stage in the development of a policy. Sadly this has been found as not to be the case within the early years sector with the PLA's Early Years Agenda results confirming this. It could be said that this is also evidenced in the outrage by many of the stakeholders involved in school age children with the school holiday debates. The early years sector has strived to be the best it can be with many practitioners like myself taking on a degree level in order to provide the best education for 2 to 5 year olds. There is much evidence to suggest that starting school at a later age benefits children (just take the many European countries that don't start their children in formal education untill the age of 6 and even 7). I feel evidence like this has been overlooked. The very fact that Mr Gyimah published yesterday, again raises this very question? Pushing 2 year olds into school settings are not going to solve society's problems. It feels as though the government disregards the thoughts and opinions of people that actually work with these very children and have studied child development in depth to know what is best. Childhood expert penny tassoni has only recently agreed that there are flaws in the current early years curriculum with the fact that the early learning goals set for young children seem to have been pulled from thin air and not at all based on research or fact. A much bigger picture needs to be taken into account before all of these kinds of decisions can be put into practise.
Jo Pattison
21 November 2014 at 16:25The term time holiday ban is so unfair. I can understand that some lines need to be drawn, but surely only for parents who do it multiple times every year. We are going away after year 6 SAT's as it wont be affecting any results. It's a special family birthday and the children will only be picking DVD's and playing games for the rest of the term. There is a fine for this! Discraceful!!
Janet Downs
21 November 2014 at 15:04The DfE's use of evidence is slippery to say the least. The UK Statistics Watchdog has censured DfE use of international league tables. The 'surveys' used by Gove to show English teenagers were clueless about history turned out to be from such reliable sources as Premier Inn and UK TV Gold. Evidence presented in the EEF 'toolkit', recommended by the DfE, actually contradicts many DfE assertions about, for example, performance-related pay, school uniform etc. The evidence used to promote the teaching of synthetic phonics actually recommends systematic teaching of phonics (any method) and also warns not to regard phonics as the sole way of teaching reading as it should be integrated into a wider programme comprising other methods. (More of this in the phonics section of this call for evidence). Professor Coe, Durham uni, says the DfE misunderstands or misuses evidence. The DfE uses small sample sizes (eg Free Schools) to come to unreliable conclusions. And its 'evidence' about academies has been debunked frequently on the Local Schools Network. The DfE spreads the myth that local authorities 'control' schools when they haven't done so since Local Management of Schools was introduced over 25 years ago. The DfE used LSE report on academies which painted a relatively positive picture of Labour's academies to justify its academy conversion programme even though the report's authors said it couldn't be applied to converter academies or primary schools. DfE press releases are often little more than PR spin - the UK Stats Watchdog has censured the DfE for mixing exam stats with comment and not making it clear where one ended and the other began.
Claire Lumley
21 November 2014 at 14:59Term time holidays should be with discussion with the family and at the discretion of the school, as they used to be. Particularly if the children are doing well - holidays are educational and strengthen family bonds. We all know that statistics like attendance and SAT results matter more to the school than the individual child and parents. Let children live! Also holiday companies raise their prices in school holidays disadvantaging parents. It would make more sense all round if there was more flexibility.
Andrew Banks
21 November 2014 at 14:43As a systems engineer, I am taught that: * Argument without Evidence is unfounded * Evidence without Argument is unexplained DfE seems to rely on the unfounded and unexplained - where correlation is linked to causation without any rationale thought. Witness the Lincolnshire school marked down by OFSTED for lack of multi-culturalism, because it has no minority pupils (but I assume Tower Hamlets schools are not marked down for the reverse). Then there is the illogical obsession with attendance targets - especially picking on the habitual attendees who take parent-led term-time holidays... these are probably more educational than being stuck in a class of 30 with a NQT. Yet the attendance obsession doesn't seem to extend to dealing with the perpetually absent - for whom a better attendance record would make a difference. And even within the regularly absent, the focus is on forcing better attendance, without understanding the reasons why the pupil is missing. Please focus on the facts of the evidence, rather than politically inspired box-ticking targets.
Danielle Langley
21 November 2014 at 14:28If they are going to uphold the ruling of no term time holidays they need to change the school holidays! They should add a week to the May/June half term holiday so it is 2 weeks long. And even make the summer shorter and all half term school holidays 2 weeks so parents can have more choice of holidays! It's ridiculous as they are our children! It's becoming a dictatorship! They say we don't have enough family time, we all work too much, but we can't take a holiday when we want to is mad.
Kerri bryce
21 November 2014 at 17:29I think it is shocking that we as parents cannot decide what we do with OUR OWN children regarding holidays during term time. A week out of the full year isn't going to cause them great hardship, they will learn different things being away, different cultures, languages, currency etc more than what they would learn reading about these things out of text books!!