Former teacher on 'frustration' of children missing lessons for family holidays

During 17 years in the teaching profession, it never failed to amaze me how after returning from the six weeks summer holidays, the number of children who were missing on my register as parents had chosen the first day at school to take their children on a two-week holiday.

It was even more frustrating when some of those students were in Year 11 and studying for their GCSEs.

In a system built around being examined on curriculum content, missing large chunks of the syllabus will obviously have a detrimental impact on the success chances of the individual child.

What is perhaps not appreciated is the negative impact on the teacher and most importantly the other students.

My final few years as head of geography saw the introduction of controlled assessment for coursework, in a bid to ensure greater regulation on support pupils received from teachers.

Needing to be sat under exam conditions, I had allocated two of the first three weeks back after the summer break to prepare students to complete this under exam conditions.

Discovering several students had been whisked off various parts of the Mediterranean, upon their return it then left me trying to prepare and facilitate the completion of the controlled assessment they had missed while trying to continue to complete the syllabus and prepare the remaining students for their GCSE examination - often during the same lesson.

While the impact on a teachers' stress level is a secondary concern, the drain on my time and focus inevitably had a detrimental impact on the students who had attended their lessons as expected.