A couple of years ago I took the children out of school to do a family review at Center Parcs.
I had slight qualms about doing this, worried they may miss important stuff at school. This was before Department of Education made prohibitive rulings on parents taking children on holiday during school term time. The maximum fine for a child’s absence is £60 per pupil, per parent, per day. It’s felt such holidays are damaging to their learning.
Would you still do it?
In my experience my worries about missing learning opportunities didn’t last long as actually our holiday was full of learning.
We had a lot of down time and both children read lots more than they ever would in a normal school week and completely lost themselves in their books and a love of endless hours reading. You need space to find this.
They learned a lot about nature as we were out amongst it wondering through acres of ancient forest, rabbits,ducks and swans were on our doorstep and came right up to us. The children had sessions with the ranger who taught them about the local habitat – expert, hands on nature lessons. They not only learnt new facts but also developed a greater appreciation of our natural world and eco-systems.
Both children did some craft sessions and made wands and capes and other fabulous wizardry things from glue glitter and their wonderful imagination.
Exercise was abundant pony trekking, parks, tennis and soccer school as well as long walks bike rides and many hours o f swimming. they learnt new skills, greater endurance and to push their boundaries,
Each night we talked over our day and they wrote in a little journal about what they had done practice their writing and storytelling in a very natural way.
Yes our short break was full of learning and importantly as a family we had a peaceful memory making week together which we could never have afford in the school holidays.
The campaign ‘Travel is Education’ lauched by BookFHR.com aims to highlight the specific nature of how travel can enrich children beyond the classroom.They beleive:
pitting a week in a classroom against an opportunity to explore a new place and culture, spend quality time with family and break daily routine is a very tough comparison. – travel is a fantastic way to bring studies to life and spark passion in a child
I agree completely. But I do also think if you do this you need to ask the teachers what the child missed and help your child catch up I don’t think the expectation can be on the school to do that.
So over to you, do you think Travel is Education ? (you can read more about the schools stance and the actual rules on taking children out of school by following the link)
I think the new rules are ridiculous and like you firmly believe holidays can be educational. In fact my one to one time with the kids at a young age would offer way ore learning than if at school, it is yet more ways for local councils to get money in my opinion, along with the governments opinion that only school can teach (which is so false).
Really interested to read about this Becky. The rules have taken the opportunity to discuss travel and education out of parent and teachers hands, I think when you can be open about the opportunities you want to provide for your child and how you want to support teachers so kids don’t miss out – then travel can be a real benefit. As a teacher I wanted to see parents who took kids out at irresponsible times or did nothing to help them catch up on work missed dealt with. Parents think it is just exam time, but in GCSE/Alevel years they miss coursework too and with drama and media it was an absolute pain when kids were off as it is all about group work. But the news rules make it hard for parents to be honest!
Yes I agree, there’s so much learning to be done from travelling, but parents need to help the teachers and give children the chance to catch up, it shouldn’t all be on the teacher.