Bridget Phillipson says term-time holiday fines ‘here to stay’
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv2grrvn4kjo
Posted by topotaul
Bridget Phillipson says term-time holiday fines ‘here to stay’
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv2grrvn4kjo
Posted by topotaul
12 Comments
There is a direct correlation between attendance and student achievement. Parents who take their kids out of school in term time are limiting their chances of doing well.
Then regulate the travel sector so they can’t triple prices during the holidays.
IMHO it would be great to give families a few (5?) days to take during the year. It would give families some flexibility without creating a conflict between parents and schools.
As a parent, I get why this needs to stay…. lessons in the last week of term do need to be high quality though, not just putting on a movie/wordsearches.
I feel like stopping finding people for doing perfectly normal things would be an easy win for the new government.
There are so many policies brought in by the Tories which are pointless and are mostly there to punish one group for the amusement of another. It would gain so much good will from people affected to clear it out and give people some more freedom.
Oh and I don’t have kids so no horse in this race, although my parents took me to New York and Barcelona during term time. I’m sure missing 3 pages of Of Mice and Men and having to mug up how to do equations for circles didn’t set me back much (I went on to get an A in my maths A level). Conversely, getting to go around a load of Gaudi’s buildings and experience the culture of Barcelona is something I still remember fondly, and New York was spectacular, saw a show on 42nd St, went up the Empire State Building, loved getting breakfast at various little delicatessens around the city. New York was a bit strange, in October 2001, but everyone there was so nice to us, like they were genuinely surprised and grateful people still wanted to visit their city.
Travel enriches the mind and a person’s horizons. Punishing it just seems like a way to ensure it is a privilege only the very rich can indulge in.
When I was younger, the family spent a year abroad. When it was getting towards the end, my parents had a chat with the school, and decided that instead of going to the final two weeks, we’d go on a cross-country tour instead to make sure we’d seen all of the sights before we head home. The school were supportive, because they knew there were many different forms of education, and we’d probably get more from the latter.
I get the above is not analogous to a week in an all inclusive drinking beer and eating chips, but I think there does need to be an element of discretion and basic logic for schools to consider whether the life experience on offer might actually be better than another week in school.
I don’t think fines are the best option. I would take away passports for persistent offenders. At least then if they continued, money would be being spent in the UK.
People seem to be missing a point here- Most schools do operate a level of discretion. The point of this policy isn’t just to punish everyone all the time. It’s to stop people taking the piss every year or throughout term time, not just at the end of the summer term.
There was some stats on this a few years back which showed that 76%(iirc) of potential fines were waived by the schools because they understand the pressures on most parents and agree that holidays etc are important. Especially once in a lifetime trips.
This policy is to stop parents always booking 2 weeks in the middle of term, or deciding that little Bobby doesn’t need to go in school on Fridays.
To those of you who think it’s ok. In an instance where a child misses 5 lessons because they’re on holiday for a week in Year 10 (i’ve had this happen this year) and they miss the lessons around calculating costs and breakeven (a topic that is always examined) who catches them up on their return?
I’ve had instances where I have been asked by SLT to spend lunch with a student who had returned from Cyprus and another where i was asked to share my slides and set extra reading for a Y12 Accounting student who was going to Australia in the second week of term, for three weeks! No and no on both occasions!
My children’s former crèche implemented fines for late pickups (€5 per 10 minutes).
They found that tardiness actually increased because now people felt like paying the fine made it OK to do it.
I wonder if this is the same. If it’s just getting included in the cost of a holiday.
Fines just hurt those that are less well off. We don’t have these fines in wales and funnily enough we’re just fine… schools actually show positive regard for parents who are taking time to do something interesting and stimulating with their kids
Oh good, Labour can finally stop bashing the coalition government for introducing this because it turns out Labour supported term time fines all along.