to wonder why some people bother sending their children to school?

[StatelyPoshBeartrothal]

This was sparked by the term time holiday thread, but is NOT a thread about a thread. Choosing to take your DC out for a holiday, while not something I will do (preschoolers ATM) doesn't mean you don't value your child's education IMO.

However, the thread is riddled with people saying "they'll learn as much on a family holiday as they do at school", "Ask what the lessons planned are - no doubt watching a load of DVDs" etc etc

Do people really value the education provided to their children so little? Or are these the people who home ed or go private? How does the panic over getting into a "good" school at admission time turn into such dissilusion a few years later? Is this the schools' fault?

So does the thoroughness not add value in some way? Are primary schools really a bit pointless - should we be starting school at 11 then?

I seem to remember learning a hell of a lot at primary

At primary my kids learnt in mainly tables and basic arithmetic in maths. But exchange rates and time zones is more advanced. Actually they learnt very little as the focus is so much on tables.

In senior school they suddenly have been promoted to high level sets, and one is getting A* at GCSE having never got higher than 3rd set out of 4 at primary. The primary curriculum is restricted for maths, and less room for advanced work than when I was at Primary (and looked at pi etc.). For Science they do a lot of practical work, but I could do all that at home (I have a Science doctorate) if I could be bothered (we have done lovely Crystal growing, rubbery eggs, volcanos etc.).
I could have easily home educated Primary, but their primary is lovely eg. re-enact the battle of the Roses, or making Pudding Lane and then setting it on fire for the Great fire of London.
I also send them to school for PE, consistent input on English etc. and to learn social skills.

If I didn't have such a lovely school on my doorstep I might have home educated them, and I did supplement. But I also know I am flaky and disorganised, so what I may enjoy for a few weeks I would struggle to keep up long term.

I never said it wasn't valuable (in fact I said I don't value school less) but it is not currently his only source of learning. It will be one day.
Primary schools are pretty bloody valuable in general, IMO. But they are not perfect - the whole state school system is an imperfect solution to educating most kids.

I was taken out of school for holidays ( 2 weeks every 2 years) and often missed the last weeks or 1st weeks or terms. ( all due to my fathers work).Ok this was over 20 yrs go. I came away with a selection of O / Ao and A levels.
I saw wildlife not in zoo's ,experienced cultures that we had studied, land forms , cloud formations , different continents etc etc ... I had to catch up on studies missed and I worked hard at it. What I saw I can never learn at school or from a book . I hope I can do the same for my dcs........

i think it depends on the ae of the child, obviously durin cses it would be silly to take them out and not consider any coursework etc,

but if youner it is not that bi a deal, it is only 2 weeks of school for an unforetable lifetime experience and memories with their family to treasure.

From some of the comments on this thread I do wonder why I bothered to spend four years training for my inital teaching qualification, then studying part-time for a MA in education and almost finishing my PhD (marriage and baby prevented me from finishing), then spending hours planning, resourcing and assessing lessons for the children in my class. It appears many parents think schools are pretty pointless and they can do a better job by taking their kids on holiday. Oh, there's a "Big Society" thought, lets sack all the teachers, close all the schools and use some of the money to pay parents to take their children on educational holidays each year.
Oh I forgot, that would be a problem for parents that see us a childminders rather than educators.

Oi that was my suggestion!! But apparently people don't like that idea

Sorry SPB, and can I have a nice big redundancy package when you all sack me! The thoughts of setting up my own cottage industry (sewing or dressmaking) and time to vegetable growing and jam making, with the money start creeping round my head. Oh shucks no, I'll have to HE my kids.

My parents took me out of secondary school to send me for schooling abroad for a couple of months at a time. I had to make up the work missed, but it did mean I now have a set of O-levels as well as the equivalent from my own country. And as several of those were in subjects I was not taught at home (I had to learn two extra languages at home in my spare time in preparation), it definitely added value. So hardly an undervaluing of education; they just thought I might as well do a bit more work while I was at it

I would never do the same with my dcs, but this is because English schools don't like it and I don't want to rock the boat. Otoh my Swedish nephew has been taken out of school to come and study English here for shorter periods: he has had to catch up with the work at home, but his Swedish school does not have a problem with that.

I never got the impression that my Swedish teachers felt undervalued; rather that they felt it was a compliment to them that one of their pupils had ended up so keen on learning that they were prepared to do twice the work.

Bonsoir - it is precisely the repetitive stuff that I want to do with my kid - I shudder at the idea of them being taught that learning is boring, and that things like times tables exist in isolation to the real world.

All the things you just said are the things I really struggled with at school - I was/am dyspraxic (of course, undiagnosed until I was 18, because obviously children with slightly above average IQs never have any difficulties, do they, so if they can't do something it is laziness to be punished )

I had to teach myself those things at home, and then when I was aksing about the things I was interested in, I was just told that those things were for junior school/high school/gcse/a level, and anyway, I shouldn't ask about physics if I couldn't write neatly.

I am still very angry about my schooling, (although I've managed an ok level of education despite it) and the worst thing is, nothing in particular happened- it seems my schooling was totally normal. Now, I know I left school ten years ago, and hopefully things have changed, but teachers who have to retake the basic skills test several times and only go into it from a lack of ideas don't give me much confidence. I know there are a lot of very good teachers out there, but I'm terrified that one of the bad ones will manage to drain away my children's love of learning. I will cry if my children get this attitude that somehow education is boring.

Yes, I would rather that good quality childcare, that could be stepped up easily to full time if my health needed it for a short while, was funded as a supplement to HE (and that HE groups themselves had a bit more funding). It isn't. So I am hoping to form a partnership with a good school so they can do the portion of education and childcare between 9am and 3pm on weekdays in termtime.

"I shouldn't ask about physics if I couldn't write neatly."

:( how depressing that you were told that butterpie :(

Have you read 'guerrilla learning' by Grace Llewellyn and Amy Silver? It was recommended on the Home Ed board, I'm enjoying it so far.

I think you are seriously overthinking this. The point about doing the repetitive stuff at school is that it is much better done in a classroom/group setting (not that times tables are taught in isolation from the real world); FWIW my DD has a tutor and the stuff her tutor does with her (decided by her tutor and me together) is stuff that is much better done one-to-one like creative writing and reading practice.

OP I think when your children have been at school for several years a certain disillusionment creeps in. You know that hard as the teachers try, your child is one of many. It is how much work you put into their education that is going to make the difference to their literacy and maths.
The school sets homework. You are the one that facilitates the homework.
They fall behind. It is up to you to teach them the basics again, the school certainly doesn't.. The teachers in my dcs' school are great, I couldn't possibly expect them to do it all, I know that a lot is my responsibility.
But it rankles that so much emphasis is made on that time in school when a lot of the essential stuff is being done at home too. The exercise, the enrichment, the talking. All things which happen on holiday which you spend with important special people, your parent/s. As well as at other times, of course.

You also begin to realise that a lot of the school's concern for time missed is not educational but bureaucratic, because the individual case is not considered. As the story about the boy on residential trip proves.
My son had a badly broken leg in yr 5 and was not allowed to attend on crutches, for health and safety reasons. The classroom was upstairs. No provision was made to teach him elsewhere in school.
Actually, I didn't mind because I loved home edding him for that short space of two-three months. But as far as school was concerned they were covered for his absence - all rubber stamped with dates of ops, medical appts etc. It didn't even show up on his attendance record as it was a special case. But he wasn't there....?????

For the record, I've never taken my children out of school, except for the occasional odd day tacked on to a holiday or weekend, perhaps 5 authorized day absences over the last seven years. I feel like a bit of a mutt something though, tying myself in knots when I really don't think it would have made that much difference. I see other people who have taken holidays, and I know it hasn't.

I was struck too by the comments the teacher made before the year 5 residential trip (raft building, hikes, pond dipping etc) that they would be covering their entire Geography curriculum for the year on the trip, and how INvaluable the trip was for children's confidence etc...compared to classroom based learning.
Excuse me, did I hear right, you are now telling us that what my child learns on his feet, in the woods, using his bare hands to build things, walking five miles a day and interacting with his peers is very important to his mental emotional and physical development.
I can't see that much difference between that and the best sort of running wild sort of family holiday... And I value them both, in term or out.

butterpie there have always been teachers like that. One of my teachers (I was 8) was awful, I always had a thirst for learning. One day in a class I asked a question around the topic we were doing. Shs screamed in my face 'Don't you know asking questions is a sign of stupidity'. On the school trip to a museum a few weeks later I was dragged round by the teacher and the guide was told not let me ask anything as I was the class idiot. I was so humiliated. I learnt very little at school that year.

I went and got books from the library and taught myself what I wanted to know. I spent the rest of my schooling being asked 'how did you know that'

Rest assured if anything remotely similar happened to any child of mine I would be in the head teacher's office the second I found out.

I think school is about more than what you learn in the classroom. You learn responsibility, punctuality and about obeying rules. All very important in a working environment. It is OK to question the sense and validity of rules but I don't believe this should be done via disobedience. It should be done by finding relevant information and challenging the rule makers politely and reasonably.

'Don't you know asking questions is a sign of stupidity'

Oh goody I get to use a phrase which always makes me laugh:

WHAT THE ACTUAL JEFF?!? what a twat of a teacher

If someone said that to me now I would point out they had just phrased it as a question. Pity I didn't have the nerve as an 8 year old. She still lives in the village and I have an urge to approach her and ask if she remembers me the class idiot. Maybe one day, and if I ever do I will start a thread on here to let you all know

sorry backtracking a bit -

"What I don't understand is people who still think [schools] are rubbish [...] but never consider an alternative."

basically because we are as a society totally resigned to the institution of school. HE is stigmatised still (getting better, but still massively misunderstood). Lots of parents - even ones who take massive interest in their DCs education - simply do not know that it is legal, let alone that it is a viable life choice. They worry that their DCs will become isolated and weird. There is also a lot of what some call 'school propaganda' - all the books and children's shows that are all about how exciting big school is. Which it is of course for many DCs - but it just compounds the idea of 'school or nothing' IYSWIM.

Lastly - and I'm really going off on a tangent here, sorry - is the pressure on families to Have It All and earn money and work all the hours possible. It's hard to survive financially so many families just cannot consider HEing.

As a personal example - I guess I'd be one of those your OP describes. We would definitely consider taking DH's DCs (13yo twins) out of school for a holiday if his exW allowed, because yes, they'd get more out of it than school. They are at a terrible school where they are struggling and miserable in most aspects and lessons. But to their mum (who legally has sole residency, they just visit us as and when) refuses to consider ANY other option - she won't even look at other schools, let alone consider HE. Even though their education - and TBH, their LIFE - is suffering. :(

Sorry, rant over!

So most of us send our DCs to shit primaries where they learn slightly more than nothing and we are all resigned to it because it's the status quo?
Now I think I see why people emigrate.
I will definitely be considering private schools as soon as we're in a position to do so - how depressing.

I don't think my dd is at a shit primary. I think she has learnt quite a lot which I then do my best to reinforce at home.

I think it is undeniable that there are some problems with the education system we are provided with by the state, denying it is not a solution, nor is pulling kids out for extended periods of time. I am surprised there is not more of a parents' movement to try and change things, as so many parents are dissatisfied with it (see zillions of threads on here). Even if the MN jury of dissatisfied parents only represents say 20% of the population, it is still a travesty that so many kids are not receiving an adequate education.

Having said that, I for one am not sure what is the reason why my own children seem to learn SO LITTLE at school. Is it classroom management, is ratio, is it the school itself, is it the NC, is it the delivery of it. My gut feeling is that it is a combination of all of these. That isn't to say that I don't appreciate the work that the teachers put in given the conditions they operate in, the targets they have to meet, the challenges they face in the classrooms and all the neverending initiatives they have to take on board. I have seen the hours the teachers' work in our school and they certainly exceed my expectations. It is a shame then that all their efforts do not translate as you would hope. How much of that time is spent in paperwork for example? Is it really that necessary?

But surely we ought to be able to come up with something more democratic, more effective and more individualised for our children?

I personally wouldn't feel like my children would miss out on a lot educationally from taking them out of school on a holiday, but I don't do it out of respect for the teachers and the school really. However, if I had a compelling reason to take them out for 2 weeks I wouldn't lose sleep over it for the reasons descrived above.

But surely we ought to be able to come up with something more democratic, more effective and more individualised for our children?

Even at private school that isn't easily achieved.
The trouble is that costs money and there is going to be less not more available over the coming years.
And with the Heads striking no doubt the other teachers will follow, I wouldn't worry too much about the disruption a family holiday will cause there will be far more damaged caused by good heads/teachers finally throwing in the towel and leaving.

As a teacher, I think there are many good arguments for HE done properly. Dd is only 9 mo and we've chatted about it.