Should I take my child out of school to go on holiday?
The simple answer is no.
Education is important.
Catching up difficult.
Children bring sacrifices.
There are many arguments to this.
Holidays are important and can be educational.
Families need to bond and flourish.
Holidays during term time are expensive and the impact of missed school time is limited.
Our experience.
We try not to take our children out of school for holidays. For us it doesn’t seem fair. It’s their education that’s missed. They have to catch up or miss out. It’s hard going into a lesson when you’ve been out for two weeks.
Also, it’s hard enough getting them to go to school without blurring the rules. ‘it’s ok for us to miss school when it’s for a holiday but not when I don’t want to go’
We also think its sets the wrong tone, that its ok to miss school. School and learning isn’t as important. While we don’t think schools are perfect education is very important.
Holidays are definitely cheaper in term time, but we try to work round it. We have days out without overnight stays. We book directly. We take UK caravan holidays. We’ve been to some good sites, some not so good ones but still made the most of it.
We understand the benefits of a family holiday. It’s a change of scenery, allows time to bond, shared experience and all the joy that brings but sometimes we see parents who just want to go away, lie in the sun and put their children into a children’s club.
We’re not unreasonable. We might take a holiday that overlaps with term time, but it would be for the right reasons, and we hope limited impact.
What we don’t think are acceptable arguments.
During lockdown schools were closed anyway – Lockdown was a special period that was very damaging but not a green light to forget education.
Teachers have teacher training days when they like – these are planned in advance and not a reason to have a free for all for booking time off.
School is less important now than it was – education seems more important to us. A global economy and automation will make it more difficult for your children to prosper.
I’d rather spend the money saved on them by getting a tutor – great if you do but who ever does this?
Companies should make school holidays cheaper – the reality is that companies charge what people will pay and people will pay more during school holidays. We don’t see this changing.