London school terms including days off for Diwali, Eid-Ul-Fitr, Eid-Al-Adha and Guru Nanak Day

[SomeGuy]

What do we think of this? (The DM has just noticed, there's no point in linking to them though)

This is the school term for Newham schools:

Tuesday 1 September 2009
To
Friday 18 December 2009

plus

EID-UL-FITR
Monday 21 September 2009
GURU NANAK DAY
Monday 2 November 2009
EID-UL-ADHA
Friday 27 November 2009

there are the usual Teacher Training Days scattered throughout the year.

Haringey's term, for comparison, starts 2 days later, so the net result is that Newham children have school year that is 1 day shorter.

Diwali is also scheduled, but it falls on a Saturday so no days off are scheduled.

This year the holidays all fit in well with weekends, being either on Friday, but they are all movable feasts, so in future years they could fall mid-week, weekends, whatever.

A quick look at the banner on Newham's website suggests that the local population is perhaps more interested in some of these holidays than the traditional ones, so I guess many would take the day off anyway.

Obviously there are issues - on the one hand, summer holidays are very long, and moving a few days out of it to make up for these holidays wouldn't make much odds, on the other they are imposing additional childcare obligations on parents potentially in the middle of the week, and an extra holiday on say a Wednesday in January is of little use unless you are celebrating the associated holiday.

The complaint appears to be that these have been forced upon schools (they cannot opt out), I guess it must reduce absence numbers, but should schools have more freedom to set their terms anyway, those (nationally) with significant Muslim populations could set these Muslim holidays, while other schools would not. And I guess in Jewish areas, if they want to have days off for Yom Kippur, they could do that too.

Bloody hell, I'm cross at the moment. I should apologise for telling you to fuck off and my rather blunt email last night, but you know what, I am really wound up about the culture of acceptable racism that has crept in to our society recently, as if we've never heard the arguments about competition over resource allocation before, the last few times fascism kicked off in people's faces. I guess I'm directing my comments at Griffin, daftpunk and all the other apologists for bigotry that are out and about right now. Perhaps you were being genuinely concerned about the education of children; but you know what, it just didn't sound like it.

And this niggling about how unacceptable it is to be different, all reasonable and above board, and this asked all wide-eyed and innocent, as if there isn't an undercurrent about how it might be oppressing some mythical 'white minorities'... It gets right on my tits.

schools would have to schedule in training days and occasional days regardless - so parents would have to sort out childcare, etc etc . does it matter what the day is??

where is someguy?

VulpusinaWilfsuit To me, this post read something like:

Hey 'white' working parents, do you know that you are going to have to take time off work so that Muslims etc can observe their religious feasts?

To me it came across as racially 'inciteful' (to use a non-word that I feel makes my point).

It's no more or less annoying than the rash of INSET days that get scattered randomly across the year.

Waltham Forest have been doing this for years anyway, it's hardly new. If you have a school with 50+% Muslims, the school will be half-empty on muslim feast days anyway, so an entirely pragmatic decision.

It's hardly as if they're forcing classfuls of Christian kids to spend all day in the mosque or learn the Koran by heart now, is it?

Sounds sensible to me. OP, are you suggesting that the Daily Mail don't think it's a good idea? Incroyable!

sounds like a good idea.
I love the fact that dd gtes to lear all about different cultures.mkes me quite

I am not sure why there is apparent confusion about what I wrote.

Let me repost the last paragraph of my post:

"The complaint appears to be that these have been forced upon schools (they cannot opt out), I guess it must reduce absence numbers, but should schools have more freedom to set their terms anyway, those (nationally) with significant Muslim populations could set these Muslim holidays, while other schools would not. And I guess in Jewish areas, if they want to have days off for Yom Kippur, they could do that too. "

I suggested that all schools should be able to do this if they want to, and conversely that those schools in Newham and Waltham Forest that don't feel it's relevant to them should be able to opt out.

Also schools all have their holidays at the same time, which is pretty annoying when I'm trying to book my holidays abroad.

The 'inflammatory capitalisation' some earlier poster referred to was copied and pasted off a school's list of term dates. As for the Daily Mail article, I didn't link to it because it's the usual shit-stirring.

I had a look at neighbouring Tower Hamlets, which has a higher Muslim population than both of these boroughs, and it seems some schools do take the Muslim (but not Sikh) days off, but others like this one, in strongly Muslim Bethnal Green, don't bother.

I think the idea is not bad, but it be a bit hard to apply. The exact date of muslim festivals are often not known for sure until sometimes the night before the festival. I really struggle to see how the school calendar which presumably is prepared months in advance could cope with that. I do not thing parents would be to happy if their child came home one evening with a note saying "BTW tomorrow will be Eid so the school will be closed" not very realistic.

ATM, Muslims like myself take the day off for religious festivals (have to usually book a couple of days off as not quite sure which day they will need. The DCS go to school on the day confirmed NOT to be the one of the festival)

As long as we all are allowed to celebrate our religious festivals I do not think it makes that much sense to officialise it for the reasons I mentionned before. I must say that if the school had the date wrong for a religious celebration, I would have to take my DCs out of school anyway on t hte right day do they would still have an extra day off IYSWIM which might be what they are trying to aavoid by making all religious festivals days off (so every single child in the school would have the very same numbers of days off, regardless of religious practice)

i suppose it would pee me off if i still lived in haringey. how come they are doing it now? they didn't in the early 90s

dp had to fight to get christmas off as the christian had bagged it first guess us non-belivers can just go to the bottom of the holiday pile

The exact date of muslim festivals are often not known for sure until sometimes the night before the festival

Well there are dates up to 2015 here: www.holidays.net/ramadan/dates.htm

I'm not sure what the chances are that they will change the night before?

Round here the school has to close for POLLING DAY, but not everyone votes.
Would a DICTATORSHIP suit you better Someguy.

I think schools all over the country close for polling day actually choccyp1g. Next!

No they do not. Only the ones that are used as a polling station.

Well, you calendar might give approximate dates but I can give you the example Ramadan which can last 28 days and up to 30 days. Usually people follow the frst sighting of the moon (I cannot for the life of myself remember what it is supposed to look like)after 27 days you would start looking for the moon, if cannot been seen clearly you would do it again the following night. The only thing that is certain is that it would not be longer than 30 days as after the 29 th night, if the moon could still not be seen clearly, Ramadan would officially be declsred "over". I am pretty certain it does work the same way for all muslim festivals.

Polling dates would be known in advance with more precision would they not?

Yes, all over the country schools do close. Not all schools, but schools all over the country. Not just in two boroughs.

after 30th night, not 29th! sorry!

Polling dates would be known in advance with more precision would they not?

Nobody knows when the next general election will be - except no later than next June, and probably it will fall on a Thursday.

Are you telling me that it would be possible not to know the date of a general election before the wednesday preceeding it? allow me to doubt that.

someguy i live in newham. it really isn't a big deal, the dates are given out with plenty of notice. and you've left off diwali because it falls on a saturday so doesn't fit with your point.

and i wonder what you mean about the banner on newham's website? is it something to do with a lot of the children being not white? i have looked at it quite hard and a few of the girls are wearing headscarves, but not all that many.

of course your point might be about the strapline, which is quite ridiculous - it suggests the alternative is to not choose to live there.

well as an atheist I benefit from Xmas and easter bank holidays - it only seems fair that I am religiously unbiased and take holiday of all major religions.

I agree that it seems a bit mad that all schools MUST close in the borough, it should be at the discretion of the head with anyone able to take the days as approved absence if the school doesn't shut.

By the way stuffitllllama, Kazakhstan doesn;t have a public holiday for Xmas so you can add it to your list. To be fair I wouldn;t expect you to have known that

The exact Polling dates are known six weeks in advance. My point was that different schools have different reasons for closing.
Ours was closed for two days due to snow, obviously at very short notice. In boroughs all over the country schools close for various local reasons. Personally I love to have occasional days off in term-time, as you can go to museums and theme parks when they are quiet. If it happens to be a religious festival I don't celebrate, well so what?

Easter, however, is a PITA because it moves every year, though I believe it can be worked out years in advance.

you've left off diwali because it falls on a saturday so doesn't fit with your point.

What point is that, FFS? What religion do you think Guru Nanak Day refers to?

Anyway, there seem to be an awful lot of very uptight people on this thread.

As I said: if a school wants to close for Muslim/Sikh/Jewish holidays (I guess scheduling training days for those days wouldn't work if there are observant teachers) they should be able to, if they don't want to, they shouldn't.

So the point of the whole thread is that the school itself should choose which festivals to observe rather than the school's local authority? Is that it?

Rather elaborate way to make a very small point. Or is there something I'm missing here?

The point is this 'In The News' forum, and this story was in the news (and also of relevance to a parenting forum). Any 'point', however laboured, other than the fact of it being a news story is strictly an adjunct.