Truancy penalties - should they be tougher?

Also granbunny can't be helpful in a difficult classroom situation if a teacher thinks of the class as 'a mob of baying youths'.

I just don't believe that children of five don't at least know their first names.

Maybe Bagitha, but I tend to trust the Headteacher of a Special School more than many government "education advisers".

Or the article could be bullshit. Just off to read it and will retract the previous sentence if it isn't.

There is an interesting article in the Guardian today..
www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/apr/16/truancy-crackdown-include-children-aged-four
Astonishing that the report talks about children arriving in school not knowing their own names....
Maybe that helps put the scale of the task faced by some schools into perspective for the "I blame the teachers" brigade?

Just to pick up your point about literacy levels when pupils leave primary school Banana (and others). Since the introduction of the literacy strategy the proportion of children reaching Level 4 has risen by 20% and is now over 80%. The pupils reaching Level 3 are not illiterate, for example you only need a Level 3 in reading to read the Sun. This is what many journalists and politicians fail to understand (they also frequently refer to 20% as a quarter).
For those who don't know the levels, this is a Level 4 in writing.
Level 4
"Pupils' writing in a range of forms is lively and thoughtful. Ideas are often sustained and developed in interesting ways and organised appropriately for the purpose of the reader. Vocabulary choices are often adventurous and words are used for effect. Pupils are beginning to use grammatically complex sentences, extending meaning. Spelling, including that of polysyllabic words that conform to regular patterns, is generally accurate. Full stops, capital letters and question marks are used correctly, and pupils are beginning to use punctuation within the sentence. Handwriting style is fluent, joined and legible."

A bit more than a basic level of literacy, I think and we are talking about eleven year olds here..

There has been a very good modern language initiative in primary schools in recent years, but it is a victim of funding cuts.

I agree with joan that learning (ha! beginning to learn in a very small way!) a foreign language helps kids understand how grammar works. So if primary schools have the means to start teaching it, well and good. My eldest child is thirty-one and my youngest is eleven. They have all had good teachers at bog standard state schools. I get so tired of people slamming teahcers and schools. Schools are a reflection of society; schools do not lead. So if educational standards are really falling (and that's arguable) it is not the fault of the schools. How children learn has more to do with their home life and their parents' attitudes to educatioin than what happens at school. Obviously good teaching at school will spur them on but the motivation to learn comes from home.

I think too much fuss is made about both truanting and absences for holidays and such like. You can bet your bottom dollar that kids who are truanting are not getting much out of being at school anyway, so getting them there is not going to make much difference to the kids. The difference it makes is to the school's tick boxes (i.e. superficial public persona). As jess says, all this public hooey is just political window-dressing. Best ignored.

anagram, its not so much about being 'granted a licence to teach' as finding enough bodies willing to stand in front of a mob of baying yobs five days a week. the current theory is that if you take high-fliers straight from uni and put them into inner city schools to learn on the job, they'll inspire the children. some of them do. others stand there frozen in horror, as creatures unlike anything they have ever seen before rampage around them.

uniform - sorry no time to check who raised this issue - is a matter of corporate image. if you work in a bank or other service industry, you will have a uniform or dress code. schools set dress codes for staff, as well as for pupils. uk people love school uniform. parents know the uniform before the child starts at the school and should fully support uniform (and behaviour) policies. it is the parents who let the system down, not the teachers!

schooling isn't about education. the two are entirely different. read ivan illich. take some studies in history and structure of british education. schooling is about keeping the children of the poor off the streets so they don't run riot while their parents go to work. schools can deal with schooling . education cannot be fully accomplished in schools - it is the responsibility of families.

schooling isn't about academic achievement, either. it is about socialisation in the narrowest sense, as children are 'socialised' for the workplace. this is true to the original aims of mass education in the uk, so we should not be surprised by it. slowly, schooling adapts to try to provide a workforce appropriate to the needs of the economy. currently we are aiming to churn out self-starters - great for the middle classes who are born into an achievement-based environment, a bit of a shock to the offspring of benefit claimants, who believe the state will always be there to provide for them.

must go... got to get back to my little claimants. true to its original aim, today school will keep the children of the poor off the streets... mostly...

baNANA said:
However, I don't see any point in learning a second language if you can't read and write your mother tongue, if a child leaves primary aged 11 unable to read and write I'd say that school had failed them and no amount of computer time, second language or PSHE will make up for that.

I have to disagree a little here. Learning a second language helps a child understand how their own language works. It helps them understand grammar far better than just teaching English grammar does. Still, I have to agree that learning to read and write English is of the utmost importance.

As for nobbling the parents' benefit as a punishment for a child's truancy - this is ridiculous. You cannot legislate or punish to make a bad parent good. Other strategies are needed.

My own belief is that it should be the other way round. Academic achievements should surely be the main aim of education - the rest should be the icing on the cake!

Yes Anagram it is all relevant.

We need to take some of the subjects out of the mix at primary school ...so that more time can be given to the basic skills ...then perhaps the expectations at secondary can be met so that fewer children become disenfranchised with the process.

Also ...perhaps the truancy at primary is more parent lead ...while at secondary it is more individual pupil lead??

However ...I refer back to my original post on this thread ...

"Personally ...I would prefer all children to leave school with a love of life, an understanding of emotional health and well-being and a sense of citizenship...academic achievements should be the icing on the cake not the whole cake!! "

JessM 'Imagine being forced to wear clothes dictated by someone else etc...' ! I think we all went through that at school - that's the system. We might find it hard to do now, but that's because we're adults. We accepted the regime when we were at school - why should today's children be treated any differently? What has changed?

JessM your comment regarding your 15 year old's wrong socks and his exclusion from mock GCSE resonated with me, my son was almost excluded from an actual GCSE, wrong shoes! Sorry to digress again, but I'm sitting here typing this whilst watching Newsnight and Tony Blair is on talking about tax evasion so I'm just off to the to the bathroom to throw up! Might be a while.

Yes, I was responding to a post about teaching standards - I agree we've digressed from the truancy issue, but perhaps it's all relevant?

I agree re second languages baNANA. Gove would like to reverse the trend but many schools have reduced the numbers of language teachers over last 5 years or so.
There used to be lots of adult illiteracy in the past. No question. Things were not all rosy.
The OP reflects a trend in recent politics (Blair did it too) of coming up with headline grabbing but totally impractical ideas which are then allowed to quietly die. (Yes Minister...) The mechanism for penalising parents via child benefit system does not exist. Would cost a fortune to set up. Tax system, child benefit admin, justice and education all separate processes Flat rate benefits never seem "fair" but they are cheap and easy to deliver.
Never been in favour of fining parents. I remember the day when I struggled to get my truanting 15 year old to school to sit is mock English. A teacher then sent him home because he had white socks on which were not acceptable uniform!!!!!!! Schools can often be part of the problem. Imagine being forced to wear clothes dictated by someone else, spend a whole day with about 28 14 year olds, having to sit on hard chairs, speak only when spoken to, put up with the other 14 years olds and do what you are told, when you are told to do it... Just one day would tax most adults I suggest. That's before you start on other aspects of school life.
I suspect the parents who get fined are NOT the ones who take kids out for trivial reasons, but the ones with more complex problems.

granjura most of the threads on Gransnet end up digressing

Perhaps we are digressing here, and this discussion belongs to a new thread, please. Merci

Jacey take your point about children being beaten and intimidated in days gone by and my late father in law was one of those who was forced to write with his right hand, I gather left handed people were considered to be deviants, and I thank God my left handed son didn't live then.

However, I don't see any point in learning a second language if you can't read and write your mother tongue, if a child leaves primary aged 11 unable to read and write I'd say that school had failed them and no amount of computer time, second language or PSHE will make up for that.

Of course no one would advocate going back to teaching by rote, Jacey, and I know a lot more subjects have to be taught now, but I still maintain that teachers should be competent in the basics before they're granted a licence to teach.

OK ...I'm sticking my head on the block again ...

There is a cohort of teachers ...and others of a similar age, in all walks of life...who were taught when it was deemed creativity was all that mattered and correcting spelling, teaching grammar and punctuation was inhibiting creativity ...well meaning liberals ...don't you just love 'em Everything was taught through topics, not subjects.

And yes, historically, children were taught in classes of 50 ...by rote ...never leaving their seats ...beautiful copperplate handwriting (children being beaten for blots or trying to write with their left hand) ...everyone's handwriting was the same ...then came 'creativity' ...free spirit ...being an individual ...and therefore creating one's own handwriting style.

These children who were taught by rote ...had a basic education of the 3 Rs ... no science, or technology, or drama, or art, or ...you get the picture.

Today's primary children are also being taught P.S.H.E, computer time and a second language ...you can only get so much in a 'pint pot'.

that's the sad part, anagram. decades of reading the pupils' slang has left me uncertain of things i once knew perfectly well!

Ooops apologies Anagram- and on this I totally agree. Getting teacher's reports full of spelling mistakes used to really annoy me too. My first Head Teacher agreed to check all my reports to parents for the first couple of years, as English is not my mother-tongue and I taught French and German.
At least I had a minor excuse, lol.

granbunny - I just can't help wondering why you would need any help with spelling, punctuation and grammar if you are a qualified teacher. Surely teachers should be competent in the basic skills they're employed to impart to our children?

granjura - thank you for being so diplomatic, but I was referring to the lack of literacy among teachers, not the influence of modern technology upon today's children.

oh, but not upper case. i know when to use it, i just don't like the way it looks