🚀 go-pugleaf

What I find interesting about this debate is that nobody here seems to 
be concerned with the disruption caused to the learning of other people 
when the child concerned returns to school.

Imagine a child has been off school for 2 weeks, enjoying an interesting
and educational time dossing around on some beach developing skin cancer
and so on. 

Child returns to school. Goes to lesson no 1
Child has missed approximately 4 homeworks and maybe 6 lessons. They 
haven't been introduced to any of the basic concepts related to the work
the class is now doing and can't follow what is going on in class. The 
teacher makes sure they have the homeworks written down and takes time 
to explain to the child what they need to know. During which time the 
rest of the class is deprived of the teacher's attention. 

Alternatively, teacher tells child to copy up the work from somebody 
else, thereby depriving the other child of their work at a time when 
they may need it. Causing teacher to use extra valuable time to check 
that the work has been copied correctlyand the absentee child 
understands it.

Alternatively teacher says "see me after school and I will explain it to
you" thereby depriving other classes of teacher's time when teacher 
could be marking or preparing work for them.

Alternatively teacher says "You're on your own kid - tough". 

Repeat for maybe 16 lessons in first week back after 2 week holiday.

Which option would you suggest? Who should suffer because the child has 
been on holiday? 

Then multiply that by maybe 10 kids in each class in the course of the 
academic year. 

Whose rights are being interfered with exactly? The absent child's? The 
child's parents (I wasn't aware that they had a "right" to cheap 
holidays)? The other kids? The parents of the other kids, who haven't 
let them take a holiday in term time? The teachers who aren't allowed to
take holidays in term time?

Personally I don't much care if a child takes holiday during term time -
the ones who go are often the ones it's better to be without anyway. But
I do object, strongly, to having people scurry round after them when 
they get back and disrupt everybody else just because some parent thinks
they have a right to cheap holidays. I am a parent too and we don't take
holidays because we can't afford high season rates. Taking my kids out 
of school isn't an option. 

Wonder who would yell if teachers got a pay rise specifically because 
they have to take holidays at peak times?