If you follow this blog, you will all know that I am massively passionate about kid’s travelling and I have a desperate dislike for the no holiday in school time rule. It is one of the things that really peeves me.
I’ve written before about why but that has never been more apparent to me than when a press release landed in my inbox earlier this week to share some information about the way that Brits are choosing holidays now.
According to the research conducted by CLIA we are now pulling away from the beach and pool hang outs and focusing more and more on immersive and cultural experiences for our family holidays. In a day and age when tolerance and shared culture is so hard to come by, I find that it is really frustrating that schools are able (and encouraged) to take children on cinema trips, pizza making trips and to pantomimes, but we can’t take children – who aren’t in exam time or building up to exams like GCSE’s – out of school for a holiday that is culturally immersive and educational. From food to lifestyles, historical culture or current culture, we want our children to see it and learn from it. We want our children o develop a passion for the world around them and, quite frankly, you don’t do that from a book.
The research conducted surveyed over 1500 UK parents and found that two thirds (61%) said that they wouldn’t be disappointed if there was no kid’s menu in their hotels and as many as 7 out of 10 parents said that a children’s entertainer wasn’t high on their list. Don’t get me wrong, we have done the stay-on-the-complex holiday, we’ve played for 10 days straight in a pool in Turkey and learnt next to nothing about the country apart from that the weather is markedly better than ours. Every one has. Yet as my children are growing, I’m finding myself more and more determined to really encourage my children to taste the local fare when we go away, to take them away from the standard Brit-hol and to have them learn the basic phrases of the country they are in and learn at least 1-2 facts about the country each. When we went to Holland we stayed at their local attraction Efteling, and sure, it was commercialised for holiday makers, but we also had the opportunity to explain to the children about Dutch culture and how fairytales are a large part of that, they learnt all the basic words from “hello/goodbye” to “please/thank you” and they really had a blast. They travelled by ferry, a first for them, learnt about how the ship powers itself and they watched an evening caberet because we couldn’t tear Toby away from the show.
Now consider the usual holiday vibes and you have a kids pool, but when we stayed in Portugal we rarely made our way to the kids pool at all and almost half of British families aren’t bothered about having a kids pool or flumes, and why? Because we’re too busy getting out there and learning with our families. Apart from Disneyworld, I book holidays with the children in mind but with the hope that I can educate them, help them discover more about the world and humble them that we are only a small horizon. Like 71% of the people asked, I want my children to experience things they can’t at home – freshly caught fish on the plaza square of Portugal, hearing the echo in the great cathedral, the fairytale and mythology that is so embedded in Dutch culture.
When asked, 67% felt that they were helping their child’s education by taking them on holidays, however I’m pretty confident that if asked it would be a much smaller portion that felt reward trips for constant attendance at school to Pizza Hut or cinema trips are going to be beneficial. They aren’t but we live in an era where we are expected to ask permission for our children to leave school, yet not to remove them altogether. You might be thinking, this is all well and good Harriet but why not just take them on these wonderful education holibobs in school holidays – a fine ask.
Assuming that you are a mutil millionaire or you have the patience to deal with the unrelenting crowds of people who DO go on holiday during this time because their jobs dictate this – which in my mind is the only reason for a family to bother adhering to these ludicrous rules (as I said before, excluding exams) – then what about weather? Take for example Turkey, Egypt or Croatia. SO. frickkin. hot. in those months – can you really justify paying double, sometimes triple the amount of money to be forced to stay in air conditioned hotels because that is the health recommendation? Get real.
No, I would rather take my children out of school for a week – and I’m not interested in the argument that it raises issues for teachers either. At this point in my children’s educational careers, I can tell you for a FACT that a two holiday twice a year is 100% not going to affect them negatively OR cause an issue for a teacher “workload”. At the risk of sounding old, it didn’t cause an issue when I was a child and it won’t now – yes, teacher’s workload had multiplied to the most obscene levels but it isn’t just their responsibility. Ask your teacher – what subjects are you looking at for the next two weeks and do what thousands of homeschooling families do every single day and download a list of resources that can help your child stay on par. It’s just not hard. If you have a great teacher and it’s not too much of an addition to their workload – ask them for some resources, if it is, find them yourself.
When we took the boys to Disneyworld we were aware that we weren’t really immersing them in culture but rather having that quality family time (which, ahem, is linked to lower depression rates in children – but hey, let’s get those tushies in the school seats right?) so we made Roo do one work sheet a day. One. We also read books with him daily. You know how affected he was when he went back to school?
Yeah, nail on the head.
H x
A really thought provoking article, Harriet, thanks for writing. This issue really winds me up as well – and I’m a teacher. You see, the people who are having the conversations about this rule are not the parents that were supposed to be targeted by the rule change. Which tells me that it isn’t effective. I’m not worried about the child who is there 95% of the time and whose parents take them to Rome for a week. I’m worried about the child that is there 70% of the time, and whose parents never turn up to parents evening. They are the ones the rule change was supposed to target – but strangely, not the ones that seem to be weighing in on this discussion. It does add to teacher workload to have children absent – you can’t give them the input they need and they then have to play catch up, and it’s not as simple as giving a load of worksheets, not anymore. However, that absence won’t affect a child who is there 95% of the time and whose parents read with them every night in the same way as one who isn’t. The one who is only there 70% of the time is adding compound interest to each bit of learning missed.
I think we are all missing the point a bit – the real issue from where I stand (and granted, it is from a different side of the fence to you) is not about whether you can take your kids on holiday, it’s actually that there are a swathe of families who are not engaged in their school communities, and children who are missing out on the fundamentals of education. We need to change the discourse from ‘schools punishing parents’ to ‘how do we engage the disengaged?’. We know – the science tells us – that children do better when their families are involved in their education. Banging on about attendance is a bandaid fix that lots of schools rely on because they don’t have the resources to go deeper and to invest in programs that make a difference to those families. This is a real problem.
I don’t believe in rewards for 100% attendance because they punish the very children they’re meant to target. I think attendance is important, but no more important than spending quality time with your family. But that’s the key, it has to be quality time. I’d love to see some more discussion (and suggestions!) about how schools can do better to get families involved.
I hope you take this comment in the spirit it is intended – not trying to have a go, just wanted to add my two cents to an issue close to my heart.
Thanks for your comment Sam, I totally see where you are coming from.
I think that is another huge issue with the rule that it just does nothing at all to help prevent children that are just not getting the support they need and are missing school left, right and centre for little reason. I’m also always coloured on the attendance issues because I had an absolutely appalling attendance for various reasons and I’ve not only done well but set up a flourishing business and I’m supporting my family. It’s not the be all and the end all – though I fully appreciate I’m a minority here and that it is important. It is perhaps just not as important as other things like support from home, additional learning and so on. Thank you again for your comment, it’s always really good to hear from the other side and hope that we can all learn from one another’s experiences.