Truancy penalties - should they be tougher?

In which case, how do you propose to help the children catch up in all the subjects they've missed during the 2 weeks? For some very bright children, they might take it in their stride. For some, it can be a total nightmare, and almost impossible to do. As a teacher I often spent my lunches, breaks and after school helping children who missed time due to illness or an accident, or a big family trauma. It takes a lot of time and effort, and I always did it with the greatest of pleasure. But should teachers be expected to do this for everything child who has missed time to a holiday? Can you imagine the extra workload to do this. As a secondary teacher I would teach about 300 children in a year- and at 2 weeks each, it would just not be possible, I can assure you.

Fair enough,maybe I stand corrected. The problem is this is happening so the conclusion then is absolutely school time must be adhered to. I hope that goes for all staff, no strikes and teachers days. If that is the case, then at least we know where we stand. Compliance is set for everyone to abide by and I would accept that.

No need to stand corrected POGS, I was just trying to say that it may not be practical and could work against the children, especially those with difficulties.

As said before, where I live parents wouldn't even think of taking kids out of school during term-time, unless in extreme circumstances, and it is accepted by all- apart from all the ex-pats from the UK who find it difficult to adhere to, which does create some problems. Those parents have been fined heavily, and are complaining bitterly as they are used to a different system.

petallus - it was yobs, not youths! what can i say? until you've seen them, you won't believe them. it doesn't matter what the teacher thinks, says, or does. they do what they want.
sometimes they want to co-operate.

butternut, you are right about emotional health. it has been at the heart of school improvement for years - the labour government loved it. check out the primary and secondary SEAL.

let me share with you some moments. yesterday, first day of term - former student, now 17, came in to see his old teachers - i was on the phone so this beautiful and intelligent young Muslim man blew me a kiss and said he'd speak to me next time he was in. not long afterwards, at the bus stop, i met two more former pupils - one is back in school to do mentoring of younger pupils, had a lovely chat with them both. today, a man who left school five years ago came in to see me for ten minutes at the end of the day - he lives in london now, but had been on holiday in wales and visited manchester on the way home to see old friends. these people come back to school because they know they matter to us. pupils' emotional health is not overlooked.

POGS - no teacher days!????
no training? 8 may is my next teacher day.school is closed and staff are all taking part in training on how to assist pupils on the autistic spectrum. the day is part of an ongoing programme of training in this area.
teacher days are vital if you want pupils to receive appropriate support.

Why can't training days be held in the school holidays? Or do teachers really need far more holidays than everyone else? I certainly don't remember teachers having extra days off when I was at school for 'training'.

And what about strikes, granbunny? I notice no teachers have posted to justify those yet.

I am another GNer who has many years of experience of schools from class teacher class teacher to OFSTED inspector and all sorts in between! I worked
mostly in urban schools.
I have worked with many brilliant teachers and a few who should not have been teaching. In my experience most schools/teachers are doing a good job with kids who generally want to learn. Sadly nelliedean seems to have experienced a particularly insensitive and thoughtless school. I am shocked & saddened to hear her story.
But politicians and newspapers use data /statistics for their own ends, eg '1 in 10 children fail to learn to read' rather than '9 out of 10 children reach or exceed expected reading levels'.
There was always at least one kid in my class when I was a kid at school in the 50's who found learning hard! Now more children than ever with SEN attend mainstream schools and they are all part of the statistics that are used in headlines with little proper research by journalists in the reality behind th data.
As a Head I found absence tricky! I knew some kids would benefit from a family hoiday (which was cheaper in the term time) or the trip to Pakistan to see grandma was not worth it for two weeks. BUT my school was being 'judged' if I did not meet government targets for attendance and attendance contributes to the way OFSTED has to grade a school. a rock and a hard place!

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.

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.

"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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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)

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!

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

Accurate grammar?

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

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.

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.

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!

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.