Julie Jay: Give parents a break and let them take children on holiday in term time

If covid taught us anything, it is that learning doesn’t stop and start at the school gate

Nobody looks back on life and says, ‘My biggest regret is that I didn’t get to do indoor hockey in PE that day.’

Parents taking their children out of school to go on holiday is an issue again. Irish primary schools are reporting an astonishing 360,000 school days being used for this purpose.

I can categorically say I won’t be taking my children out of school for holidays anytime soon.

This is less to do with missing term time and more to do with the fact I have sworn not to go abroad until the baby is older, having learned that hotels with toddlers are not exactly the relaxation the travel-agency brochures would have you believe.

The truth is, I have no issue with parents taking children out of school for an annual holiday, although this hasn’t always been my stance.

When I first started teaching, I inwardly tut-tutted that doing so somehow diminished the importance of education. But now I know better, because I’ve come to realise that school isn’t the be-all and end-all, and that missing a couple of weeks at primary level isn’t going to cost them the points for medicine in the Leaving Cert.

If the pandemic taught us anything, it is that school is not the only educator when bringing up children and helping them make sense of the world.

Many young people missed huge chunks of term time, and, guess what — they are fine. They are taking the courses and pursuing careers that they would have pursued anyway.

It turns out that children will learn with or without a classroom setting, and learning certainly doesn’t stop and start at the school gates.

I have no issue with parents taking children out of school for an annual holiday

As regular readers of this column will know, I like to moonlight as a teacher during the week, just to while away the time and most certainly not motivated by my lacklustre comedy income. Just these last few weeks, I had started to fret about one of my students, whose ‘H’ status on the roll book I presumed indicated a prolonged hospital stay.

I consulted their class teacher, who informed me, to my great relief, that this child was, in fact, on holiday.

I delighted on hearing that this child was off availing of a break with her family, because as important as school is, it is hard to justify the near 100% increase in holiday costs (I am pulling this percentage out of the air, but I’m sure it’s there or thereabouts) that come once summer holidays officially get under way.

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As the daughter of a teacher, going on holidays during term time was never an option.

That said, I remember quite a few years when my mother would give me the day after the Oscars off, so I could stay up late and watch the awards live.

I couldn’t tell you what I learned in school on the day of the 1993 Academy Awards, but I can tell you about my glee in seeing Marisa Tomei win best supporting actress for My Cousin Vinny. This was a film I had watched with my auntie and adored, so much so that re-enacting Tomei’s foot-stomping about her biological clock had become my nine-year-old’s party piece at family get-togethers.

My point is that holidays, days off, and time spent with family will always be more important than times tables and spelling tests.

Nobody looks back on life and says, ‘My biggest regret is that I didn’t get to do indoor hockey in PE that day.’

Children summering in Spain in May probably shouldn’t also be skiing in Andorra in January

Of course, there are limits to this, like anything else. Should I become minister for education in the morning (and given my inability to locate my school rollbook at any given time, the odds of this are very slim), I would allow parents the discretion to remove their children from school for two weeks to facilitate a holiday.

That being said, I do think a bit of common sense has to be applied: Children summering in Spain in May, for example, probably shouldn’t also be skiing in Andorra in January, if for no other reason than the number of broken arms and legs around south county Dublin in the latter weeks of the month is a clear indicator that Irish people shouldn’t be going downhill on snowboards. And if they do, they shouldn’t be expecting to emerge with their vitamin D-deficient bones intact.

Equally, I once taught a child who was often absent due to attending Anfield to watch soccer, which was particularly worrying, given that Liverpool were performing very poorly at the time. You could nearly understand the child’s regular absence if his team had been having a good run, but reliving the horror of a loss week after week was rubbing salt into a Man Utd-shaped wound.

Most parents know their children and their families, and they know what is best for them.

There is only a tiny window of opportunity when children are happy to join their parents on holiday, and it would be a shame to miss it.

And if you can’t have a holiday, perhaps just let your children snowboard down the stairs — it’s probably safer than skiing.