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Patently wrong to say it is a parents duty to ensure their child receives a suitable education?
I'd rather not. If you don't have a sensible argument please don't tell others what to do. My point in our democracy has as much right to be heard as yours. Your "freeman of the land" type waffle is nonsense - but if it were valid (and no court has ever accepted there is any logic to it) - then by 'sending' your child to school sometimes, then you have bought into the 'bargain' that goes with it of going all the time.somafunk - Member
poly - lets agree to disagree on this one, you go and sit over there, preferably out of sight and earshot........and i'll get on my bike and bugger-off into the distance.
Oddly my parents taught me various skills too, they managed to do that out of school hours - after all school is only about 15% of the year!And my dad taught me many important things, unlike school. A few examples for you : why i had to hold my breath whilst cleaning out the bilge pump in a force 8, 10 miles west of Jura and how to safely operate the chainsaw i got for my 12th birthday, i doubt school would have been much use for that.
An interesting thing is that almost every point 10 miles west of Jura is on land...
Seems odd to reinforce a child's poor behavior by taking them on holiday...
😀
I'm leaving this thread alone...
Next you'll be saying they also moved the goalposts
It's mostly swings 'n' roundabouts.
I think it's a tottaly different ball game
An interesting thing is that almost every point 10 miles west of Jura is on land...
Even the wet parts?.....jeez...ffsake!, to think i wasted all that time picking lumps of gaw'd knows what stinking tarry gunge out of the pumps and i was on dry land the entire time!, i cry child labour abuse!.........
Anyway...who mentioned democracy in this discussion? - i practice my version of "Drone Democracy", i jump into a thread, drop my shit and get out - personally i'm not bothered about attempting to have a discussion with or attempt to influence others online as that's just weird?, i leave the frantic willy-waving arguments for others to bother themselves about, I'm just right in everything i say....all the time/every time. 🙂
and to me, it indicates the school has a problem with the child as she didnt want to go to school, probably due to crap lessons, bullying or wanted a better education than they where providing, there are probably more sides to this story than a rubiks cube
News flash! If a kid's not doing well at school, it doesn't get better with only the school doing something about it. The kid and the parents have to pull their weight too. Obviously none of us know the content of this kid's IEP (if any) but I'd be surprised if it contained a line saying "buggering off on holiday in the middle of term".
Luckily there was a process by which all the relevant information and the different interpretations of the situation could be put to an objective decision maker - and hey - the link in the OP describes the conclusion they came to.
Next you'll be saying they also moved the goalposts
Hardly, they were sold off along with the playing fields.
People have a 'right' to a free education for their child at the State's expense.
With that come 'responsibilities' including providing a uniform where required, helping the school with any behaviour issues that their child exhibits, ensuring homework is done and ensuring their child turns up when they are supposed to.
Poor attendance by pupils has a massive impact on schools (both in terms of workload and 'judgement' by other State bodies) - so much of their work is judged by things that are easy to convert into statistics. Like the pupil premium being tied to number of children receiving free school dinners - there's schools near me offering free iPads to kids who qualify for and sign up to free school lunches.
Parents who choose not to undertake their responsibilities whilst still expecting their rights deserve all they get, imo.
[i]Mr Sutherland told the BBC it was his first family holiday for five years because his job as a Ministry of Defence (MoD) guard had prevented him from taking annual leave during the school holidays. [/i]
That sounds a bit odd as well. Are MOD sites at particular risk during the school holidays, so that all leave has to be cancelled?
He may well have and been slapped down,like i said the law must be upheld and not broken even when its a patently wrong law.
Or he may well not have - you might as well flip a coin with bullschizzle like that. If we're going for random guesses about what happened, my money is on them asking the school for permission, the school saying no, and them taking their kids out anyway. Because they know best and what they want is more important than the school*.
* I'd similarly guess that they will be the first to point the finger at said school when their child doesn't meet their expected grades. Because it seems schools live or die by their ability to rech predicted grades, even though this doesn't take any account of either the student's willingness to put the effort in or the parents commitment to help, encourage and motivate their child. See the "health foods enforced in school canteen = parents passing fish and chips through the school railings" incident which I think was mentioned earlier in this thread. (If not, the obesity one)
Mr Sutherland told the BBC it was his first family holiday for five years because his job as a Ministry of Defence (MoD) guard had prevented him from taking annual leave during the school holidays.
I'm calling BS on that one. I know there are restrictions on taking holidays as a MoD guard - it's not as straightforward as doing an office job as shifts have to be covered, but then it's no different to a lot of other jobs in that respect, like Drac's for instance. The MoD doesn't make any distinction on whether it's school holidays though and it seems he could take a week off in September.
Not exactly the brightest button in the box anyway - what exactly did he expect to gain by going to court when he was pleading guilty?
That sounds a bit odd as well. Are MOD sites at particular risk during the school holidays, so that all leave has to be cancelled?
I struggle to give all my staff holidays during school holidays as I can only have 1 member of each grade off on holiday per week. That said as we work 12 hours we have plenty of time off as the longer hours means less shifts.
The article states:
"The Department for Education (DfE) has given schools more power to deal with unauthorised absence, and has also increased the amount parents can be fined."
This is bollocks - I'm a School governor, we discussed these changes at our last full Governors meeting - the new rules give less power to schools, and all of the power to the Sec of State for Education, he is the only person who can now dictate when people can and cannot take their children out of School. It is almost impossible to find any clear examples of when Children are allowed to be taken out of school (e.g. Uncle's funeral, seemingly not allowed, grandparents funeral, seemingly not allowed…) and Heads are concerned that if they exercise their own judgement, then they will be criticised or worse.
For all of Gove's talk about empowering schools and Head Teachers, the only person he has empowered is himself.
Personally, I haven't ever taken my kids out of school (although I took a week out of School when I was younger to go on a trip to South America with the Scouts), but I have no problem with people who choose to do so, and would support a change in the rules back to giving heads the discretion, they are the ones who know who is taking the piss and who is not.
[quote=Drac ]I struggle to give all my staff holidays during school holidays as I can only have 1 member of each grade off on holiday per week. That said as we work 12 hours we have plenty of time off as the longer hours means less shifts.
You wouldn't be able to give a staff member a week in school holidays in 5 years?
[quote=bokonon ]For all of Gove's talk about empowering schools and Head Teachers, the only person he has empowered is himself.
Much like lots of other "empowering" from the current government (see Pickles and localism).
You wouldn't be able to give a staff member a week in school holidays in 5 years?
In 5 years I can yes I did say I struggle not that it was impossible. I can do it as there's plenty of school holidays to choose from I also try to be fair about it to make sure everyone gets a chance, it's not easy though as obviously most want the summer period
A few examples for you : why i had to hold my breath whilst cleaning out the bilge pump in a force 8, 10 miles west of Jura
Indeed, but what if you were caught in a F9 3 miles north of Mull? You'd be stumped. Meanwhile the kid in school probably got a Geography lesson on Meterology and decided that going out in a boat in that weather was stupid as he'd have to hold his breath every time he used the bilge pump.