Now Christmas is over and it’s the start of a new year, my thoughts have been turning to the summer holidays and nice, sandy beaches.
Well, thinking about blue skies and (hopefully!) warm weather has to be preferable to the constant drizzle and wet we’ve had for the past few months.
Honestly, I’ll be squelching when I walk soon if it doesn’t stop.
The one thing that really annoys me about having two school age children is the fact that holiday prices can literally double in price for the duration of any school holidays.
Why on earth should parents pay double just because they have no choice in the matter when they take their holiday?
If you were to try to take them on holiday in school time, you’d end up with a stinking letter off the authorities and a lovely fine.
So why, just because holiday companies KNOW that you have no choice, should they be allowed to get away with charging extortionate prices?
It’s outrageous that for example, they could charge £400 for a Mon – Fri night stay the week before the holidays start, then the week after the EXACT SAME holiday, and accommodation would cost over £800.
How can they justify that? You’re still getting exactly the same holiday you would have got the week before if you had the luxury of being able to choose.
It’s pure greed, and penalises parents.
Get your act together holiday companies, and start treating families with the respect they deserve instead of treating them like mugs and penalising them.
This post has now been added to the Ranty Friday blog here as it certainly qualifies as a steam out of ears coming out of ears rant…
Back when I was a kid, my parents just took us out of school for a week or 2 for our off-season (cheap) holiday. It was bliss!
I quite agree, at my son’s old school they made a rule that you could only take your child out of school during term time if they had achieved 95% attendance the previous school year. My son has a disability and takes time out for appointments, therefore does not reach 95% any year. I was so angry that he was being penalised due to disability that I wrote to the head teacher. The school then updated its policy to exclude children with disabilities and ongoing health issues.
I too was always taken out of school for holidays. We had one a year if we were lucky and it was usually camping but guess what? I was still top of the class! Fancy that …
I couldn’t agree more. Some places (centre parks being the worst offenders) more than double their prices. I’ve been looking too & can’t get a holiday for less than £2k for me & the hubs the two boys & the baby. It’s disgusting. I’m not even looking at fancy hotels either. Add your food & spends to that & you’re looking at more like £3-4k & that’s just not possible. We worked out that to save up for a holiday annually we’d have to save about £250 per month. Maybe I’m naive but who can have the luxury to save that much each month for holidays on top of everything else. Rip off f’ing bloody holiday companies!
Ah that feels better
hear hear!!!
It enrages me too. However, my sons school has a policy that you can take them out of school for holidays if you get permission for extenuating circumstances. I was given permission as I’m an NHS operating theatre nurse and it’s mainly females I work with – so we ALL want holidays in Summer (majority have kids so want school hols) and naturally we just can’t have that or there’d be no staff for the operating theatres! So I got the permission thankfully. Though I don’t think they do fines up here in Scotland – I’ve never heard of it before!
However we had a teacher take over as Head two years ago – and after I wrote a letter telling them when I was taking Daniel out etc. I came home to a letter from her telling me it wasn’t authorised and that it would be documented as “unauthorised absence”. Boohoo, like I cared much. More that she decided to not let me, after I’d had previous permission, but wait until I wasn’t in my home to inform me that she’d taken away the permission! Just wait til you need NHS care love!! However she only lasted two years. I managed to get school holidays last year! Now she’s gone, and taken a head teachers post at the school she left to take up Head at my sons school.
We’ve got a new temp-Head now and she is MARVELLOUS about everything. So I’m sure she’ll be okay if I fail to get school holidays this year. But if I don’t – I’ll be taking my son out. I always was taken out of school for holidays – even in secondary school! Look at me though, I’ve a degree with distinction in Adult Nursing. I don’t think it does much harm. Certainly not in primary school. Secondary school during exam times though my parents never took me out. Fair play to them for that.
I am angered about the school holiday cost too! Why SHOULD we have to pay more?! However, sadly alas I can’t see this ever changing. We are forever gonna be screwed over just because of “school holidays”.
I know both my little ones are 4.5years and 3 years who are in school and nursery, my youngest being in nursery there is no issue, however with my eldest being in reception they have said that my child should have 95% attendance otherwise they can’t have time off during school term. Now I will admit I have put in a holiday form in for the first week of July 2013 and they don’t break up until the 17th July. Due to my fiance’s demanding job he can’t just take off time willy nilly, so we have put in the form that he has only been given the first two weeks off in July and in order for us to have a holiday together as a family, that we must take that first week of the two weeks off in order to have this family holiday as the next time he has off isn’t till Christmas (ie when the schools are off) and I handed that form in over a month ago and still haven’t had a yes or no to it. However my fiance said she would only be off for 5 days and he would happily pay the £50 fine if one was to be issued however, kids aren’t allowed to have more than 9 days off in a row then thats when they would issue fines, but my daughter is only being off mon to friday.