Truancy penalties - should they be tougher?

thank you glassxx

nellie just read your post

Just by the way, my kids had/have some of the best school attendance records on the books.

gracesmum, I would agree with you except to say that taking children out of school for the parents' convenience (which could cover quite a wide range of scenarios) might mean that schooling is low down in the pecking order. I would never agree that it necessarily means education is low down. I would say that at least (_at least_!) half my children's education was acquired out of school.

Heh, heh! Sorry for the word 'fashion', granjura. It was a deliberate provocation . Perhaps twenty-five years ago there was less knowledge about how something like chicken pox could affect people with compromised immune systems?

The trip to France from DD's school was, of course, educational. They had to practise some French at least (e.g. shopping for their lunch) and to immerse themselves in the cultural differences. I'm full of admiration for the teachers who did it. They do it once every two years. I think I'm trying to stress what gbun was implying earlier: that not all education happens in school. I think it's terribly important not to forget that.

For "oat" read "at"!!!!

petallus I don't think anybody would advocate sending a sick child to school for many reasons- the child's own welfare, the risk to others, the fact that he/she is not really going to learn much if (s)he is ill - we know how even reading in bed can be impossible if you are poorly. However, choosing to take children outof school simply for the parents' convenience says that education is quite far down the pecking order - and I think this is one of the fundamental things wrong with this country today - a root cause of appalling literacy standards in (even) school leavers, government ministers who cheerfully admit to being "rubbish " at maths/Franch whatever, our appalling record for speaking anybody's language other than our own(and that inaccurately) our young people's disadvantages oat an international level. Other European countries I know take great pride in educational achievement - in Britain (dare I say, England) that is "not done". Overheard at a Boat Race lunch party some years ago (true- I overheard it) "Are you an Oxbridge chap Charles?" Answer from braying city-type "Me? Good God, no, O levels and a driving licence that's me!" chortle, chortle. I would be ashamed.

Chickenpox can be a mild disease for some, but for those with a weakened immunity system, or under treatment for cancer, etc, it can be deadly. The current advice is that children with chickenpox should NOT be be brought into contact with strangers, due to this, until the spots are properly crusted over and dry. They can also pass on shingles, which again can be very painful and extremely serious for some people. Nothing to do with 'fashion'.

As for school trips in term time? It will take me a while to compose a sensible answer, but will get round to it when I have time. I can assure you very few trips would go ahead if that was the case, as the amount of time taken to organise such trips, and the enormous responsibility taken already means that many teachers are no prepared to organise them, even in term time.

My GP told me to send DD1 to school when she had chickenpox "to spread it around". She wasn't ill. She just had chickenpox rather mildly. I had been the same. Only had five spots, but I was made to stay in bed! Huh! Even fashions in attitudes to illness diseases change.

I think, Petallus, that it is more likely that the school understands firstly, that you can't come to school with chicken pox and secondly, if you do you will then have a lot more children off school!

One of my GC is off with chicken pox at the moment. Everybody at the school seems to be fairly relaxed about it. No panicking about how he will never catch up with his lessons.

Is it one rule for absence through illness and another for absence for going on holiday? If so, to some extent morality is coming into it.

So why are school-arranged visits abroad during school time – which are in fact just like holidays only more exhausting for everyone concerned – why are they OK but family holidays are not OK? Just asking. I'm good at that.

Don't tell me they count as educational visits. All visits to foreign countries are educational. Some more than others, admittedly, but DD's school visit to France last year was very similar to the Cub activity weekends I take kids on, except that it was for a week.

Seriously, I am just asking. Particularly with regard to the primary school years. I have yet to be convinced that being taken out of school for a holiday for a week or two every now and then (it's never every year) does a single primary school child's schooling a scrap of harm, and I am already convinced that it often does them and their families a great deal of good.

I agree that the exam years at secondary school are a bit different.

feel free to correct me at any time. told you, i 'm very relaxed about that.

Accurate grammar?

anagram, apart from accurate spelling, what qualities do you think might make a good teacher?

That's where I originally came in, gracesmum - on the question of teachers' literacy. It makes me really cross when teachers defend their students' grades etc. and say that standards are rising, when some of them can't even spell. Apparently student teachers are allowed to take exams time and time again until they get it right!

Gosh, I have come up against the price you pay for picking up a thread when it is onto page 5. So many points I want to chip in on and the opportunity has passed!
I think Granjura and I are singing from the same hymnsheet however, and like granbunny I too have done my time in front of the "pack of baying kids". The fact that I could keep a smile on my face and like them as individuals did not detract at the time from their (in some cases) feral behaviour. Ooh, not a very child-centred attitude I know, but let's be realistic!
As for taking kids out of school for holidays, I deplored it then and I still do. Yes, prices are bumped up in holiday time, but honestly some of the exotic hols- Sri Lanka? Cuba? Kenya? and of course Orlando was standard. Not to mention the skiing hols in the Spring half term. And this was kids at the local comp not some fancy independent. As a teacher I could not afford these destinations at all when ours were children - Cornwall or maybe France if we were lucky. And as a teacher I had to devise extra work / worksheets/ revision guides to do on this holiday (as if they were going to). We had to try to delay GCSE and A level exam starts once when some got trapped by the ash cloud 2 years ago. Who takes kids on holiday just before public exams? Our school's parents did, that's who!
Let's face it, if parents take so little account on school attendance how can we expect kids to value it? Parents collude at days off for the slightest thing one example "it was my Mum's birthday and we were taking her out for the day" - I ask you! Gets off soap box, retired now so shouldn't get so het up but old habits die hard!(And don't get me started on teacher literacy - seen on a poster in our village advertising a Bingo Night run by the village school PTFA "All children to be a complied be an adult"- give me strength)

anagram thanks! got it. and yes poor salary is relative ..but if people who would make good teachers are put off because they cannot earn a similar salary that their graduate friends are earning in, dare I say it, less stressful, jobs, then it is a worry.
There is currently a huge shortage of headteahers because teachers see the demands and stress of the job and do not apply. When I left my school there was only one applicant for the post.
granbunny I agree OFSTED has good points..it is just too often misquoted and misunderstood!

ok. i might one day regret saying this.

don't abolish ofsted. they keep us constantly aiming to drive up standards of achievement and enjoyment for pupils.

Well, a 'poor salary' is relative, isn't it, granjura?

nanaej - you just have to put a * immediately before and after the name you want to show in bold.

nanaej - I was trying to compose a sensible reply, and you have beaten me to it and said it much better, thank you.

I remember one neighbour saying to me, how can you support a strike, you can afford to work for a poor salary as your OH has got a good job!

Do we really want highly educated and efficient teachers, and if so, can we really expect to pay them hugely below other graduate professions? What kind of young people will be the teachers of tomorrow, to teach our grand-children, if their conditions are constantly eroded?

When I said to my daughter she could go into teaching after her Degree- she laughed. She now earns about three times the salary of the average Head teacher.

sorry anagram cannot work out how to bold nams ..thought i had followed instructions for you and for nelliedean but neither attempts worked!

"anagram" teachers are contracted to be in school for a minimum of 195 days a year and schools have to be open for pupils for 190 days a year. The 5 teacher training days are additional to the basic term times. In my 35+ years of working in schools I have never met a teacher who only worked 195 days.. all teachers (like many other workers) work at weekends/evenings and during school closures for pupil holidays. Teachers do have the great benefit of flexible working during school holidays but not at alll at other times.

Teachers are entitled to strike like any other union member. I have taken strike action because in the long run the morale, pay & conditions of teachers impacts on the quality of education children /students receive as well as on the calibre of peopleattracted to the profession.

I loved my career and thoroughly enjoyed it despite all the negative headlines , government initiatives, etc etc because the people I worked with (including the children) were interesting, lively, professional and great fun!

if you make a contract and then the other side suddenly changes it, anagram, you protest. that is why the teachers go on strike.
training days are held in school holidays. and yes, teachers do need the holidays. teacher training days were first known to teachers as 'baker days' after ken baker (?) the politician who brought them in to ensure teachers have the best opportunities for training - so they can be good at their jobs.

Somewhere recently I saw some talk of abolishing Ofsted. Was it from teachers' unions?

It rather sounds as if the attendance problem is caused by unrealistic targets rather than any real problem.