time off school hypocrisy!

[wotnochocs]

have recently been reading a fewposts about welfare officers/schools hounding parents of children with health problems about their attendance.How come they frown on or even refuse to authorise a week's holidays in term time.Government literature tells us that puplis education will be permanantly and irrevokably damaged by just a week or 2 off a year
So how come the school can shut for a week for a couple of inches of snow, or one case of swine flu (both happened at local schools)or an athlete in DS's class has had weeks and weeks off in Y10 & 11 to compete overseas with the schools/government's blessing?
Or what about independent schools who are 3 or more weeks short of state schools every year, do their pupils all lag behind?

And yes it is just as annoying to teachers when pupils miss lessons due to instrument lessons/ cross country etc and some of us wish that those had to be out of lesson time as well. Many pupils find it very difficult to catch up if they are very sporty/musical and are out all the time. I can't give them all 1:1s to catch them up.

It's about trying to minimise the problem.

I'm afraid I side with the school here. As a former teacher, it was so difficult to make the time up with children who missed class ... Unfortunately, it was usually the same children missing again and again. In Ireland,afaik, schools and EWOs don't "hound" parents if children are genuinely ill, Doctors certs appointment letters etc suffice.

teachers get told from higher powers which 'level' their pupils are meant to reach by the end of the aceamdemic year dependent in their ability and the level they enter the year. So yes, if a child misses lessons then they don't always reach their targets. I do however think children should be allowed time off for performances as a talent in as valid as being a good mathematician.

Equity laws guard how much children can perform and if they issue the licience I don't see why the school can and should argue it.

I think that some children can lose a lot of confidence - socially and academically - by missing school.

I'm with the schools on this one too. It's very different allowing a child to take planned time off for them to take part in activity that may make a huge differnce to their future career, and taking time off for a holiday. Even if it is to see family on the other side of the world that could be planned during holiday time. I know that prices go up during the holidays, but that's not the teachers fault! Imagine if everyone were to take their children out of school at some point during term time. The teacher would barely have half the time with a full class!

As for snow days, often it's not the schools decision, and even then it's about safety. Not holidays!
I really don't think you can blame schools for discouraging time off.

DD1's school are very hot on not taking holidays in term time, to the point of sending letters home very frequently. These letters state that 1 week missed of schooltime means it will take a child 8 weeks to catch up. At some point I'm going to ask whether it takes children that go on the school trip to Eurodisney, or the Cricket tour to Barbados, 8 weeks to catch up or whether it doesn't matter if they miss lessons to go on a school holiday.

As a teacher I don't really see the problem with taking a one-off 'holiday of a lifetime' type trip, especially when it is to visit family overseas. Equally I think it should be ok to take the last day or couple of days before Christmas and Easter. As a previous poster said, not a lot goes on then. And sports/music performances should be encouraged.

It's the ones that take an odd day for Christmas shopping, or send the child in at lunchtime because they 'had a late night' that really irritate me. They're generally the same parents that say the child can't come in because he/she has a bit of a cold. Odd days that are missed are a lot more disruptive for the individual and the class than a block, and they really CAN impact on learning.

I work in a secondary school, and would second what has been said about schools closing - it actually happens very rarely, and only when it is unavoidable due to, for example, not enough staff being able to get in because of the snow - lots of schools opened with a skeleton staff for those students about to take exams in the most recent snow.

As far as holidays are concerned, I think it is about a couple of things - there is the missing of curriculum, but also it is about the prioritising of school, during term time. Most school will authorise a certain number of days, and will make exceptional arrangements for those students with family members abroad. I think it is absolutely right that a school takes the view that the right place to be during term time is in school, not on holiday.

Not got school age children yet, but when I was at school, my father had two weeks allocated to him in the summer and that was that. No argument, and he was very senior too. Often, it meant I'd have to miss the last two days of school. My dad worked in excess of 50 hours a week with virtually no leave at other times of the year and to ask him to miss his only holiday a year because of sports day was utterly ridiculous so out of school I came. He retired when I was 14 so it ceased to be an issue.

Interestingly, I was chatting with a friend the other day who's a registrar in the NHS and he says that a number of hospitals, as compiling rotas can be difficult, have started to allocate leave during the summer. What happens in these circumstances? Does the school send a letter to the employer too?

Saltyair, what if the children are off school because they're away on a school trip? And not an educational one? One to Eurodisney or Alton Towers? Does it make it okay to be on holiday in term time then?

Those sort of days out - which again, are few and far between, are factored into the curriculum delivery, and can be an important bonding experience, both between peers and between staff and children - for example, at out school we send the new Y7s on 2 trips near the start of term specifically so that this bonding can happen.

I would say that 'non educational' trips can have huge educational value in terms of learning about socialising, making new friendships, building positive relationships with staff etc.

Don't get me wrong, on a personal level, I thing travel can be hugely positive - children can learn things that they just wouldn't get in school. However if the school don't prioritise being at school, then how can we expect the children to?

Most school trips that aren´t educational in an obvious sense happen during the last week of the academic year, what we call activities week in my school. All the kids are doing activities then, so they don´t miss much.

Schools really can´t win, can they. Personally I am with the school. Unless it is a very rare family visit, school arranged trip (which has educational value) or perhaps for future career, I can´t see a valid reason for taking kids out of school during term time. Often kids seem to be out in the first week of the new academic year, which is probably the worst time to be behind. It just shows a lack of commitment to a good education and give both the kids and the teachers the impression that the parents value their holiday more highly than their kids learning.

This made me laugh

The one that gets me is that our school is used as a polling station - so some (local/European) elections they know about well in advance, and others are highly predictable (1st Thursday in May for the general election last year for example). So you'd think they'd plan one of their teacher training days (teachers in, kids not) for those days when they KNOW they are going to be closed to the kids. But no, election day is always an extra day of closure.

INSET days are usually put in the school calendar a year in advance. Perhaps the election days weren't 'done' by then?

Sounds like your school must have had lots and lots of days of closure? What were the others for Lunar?

My boys' school closed for a day recently as they have a new classroom, and they needed a day to move stuff into it. I must admit my first thought was "why couldn't they do it at the weekend, or wait until half term?"

Who was meant to be doing the moving?

You wanted the teachers to work unpaid at the weekend moving the classroom?

twirlymum Mon 18-Oct-10 18:02:57
DD's performance was licensed, as it was in school time. The education welfare dept thought the headteacher was being unreasonable, they were happy to give her a license for it but it still goes down as unauthorised in her school report.

If the EWO has issued a licence that includes permission for time off school then the school HAS to put it down as authorised. The EWO's decision over-rules the Head's.

saltyair - but the local government and European election dates are known YEARS in advance as they're fixed term. There's no reason at all why they couldn't organise inset days around those.

"So you'd think they'd plan one of their teacher training days (teachers in, kids not) for those days when they KNOW they are going to be closed to the kids. But no, election day is always an extra day of closure."

The problem, which precludes doing teacher training, is that the polling station has to have its own entrance, which cannot be used for other purposes, and most schools only have one entrance.

I don't have children at schools used as polling stations any more, so the fire has gone out of me, but I did get to the point of asking the governors why they couldn't just tell the returning officer to get stuffed. As my children were at a CofE school, with the buildings owned by the diocese, the school had the right to refuse. It was a three-form intake J&I, split site, and both buildings were closed for polling as the sites were adjacent to two different wards. This meant that 630 children lost a day's education, and 630 families had to organise child care, in order to provide an annual service for the council elections which have a turn out of around 15%. You could hold the vote out of a phone box without any real logistic problems. If the council wants to have a large building dedicated to the vote, why can't it use on of its own?

It's SS keeping up numbers.

We were sent a letter by a EWO - I rang and explained the situation, to which he replied that he knew DS was disabled and was informed by the school (they back us up amazingly well). He just thought he'd send the letter to 'let us know' that DS was missing school . We know - he was in flipping hospital FFS.

I informed them the next time they sent me a letter we would let them take us to court then have a court order for costs made against them for undue stress.

Funnily enough DS's attendance has been poor but we've not heard from them since...

It's all about OFSTED targets. I don't believe any other reason. I and my family missed loads of school because we moved around lots when we were in primary school and not always in line with school years. We all went to university, all got good degrees.

I think 'missing a week of school in junior school has an impact on GCSEs' is pure scare tactics. I think a lot of school is utterly pointless and children would be better off outside

Lunar - are they? I knew they were fixed term, but didn't know they set the date years in advance. Blimey...you learn something new every day

Dunno why they didn't organise around it - are you even allowed to use a building for teacher training that is being used as a polling station? Maybe you have completely close the building in case of some sort of electoral fiddling?

x posts with tokyo. that'd be why then...

headless - you may think that a lot of school is pointless, but you can hardly expect a school to have a policy that doesn't prioritise school - that would crazy, surely?!