Truancy penalties - should they be tougher?

Doesn't Japan have a very high suicide rate? I believe children are 'coached' from the age of two to get them into the best nursery school and this hot-housing continues throughout their school life. There has to be a happy medium between such pressure and parental indifference.

yes, greatnan, that had been my understanding of the japanese system, previously. however, it seems that the pressure is consistent - on pupils, teachers and families.

Teachers in UK are supposed to have quite a bit of prep time within school hours these days. Not enough to do all prep and marking I am sure, but then the school day is only about 6 hours long.
I have taught secondary and know how tiring it can be. But I don't think it is more tiring than many other jobs that have far less leave. Teachers are fortunate in their hours, their leave and their pension scheme.

I left teaching in 1979 - my last four years were as Head of a large remedial service and it was a lot less stressful than actually working at the coal face.
When I was a classroom teacher, Head of the Remedial Dept. and Head of Third Year, I had only eight free periods out of 40, so obviously I did a lot of marking, lesson plans, reports, staff meetings, etc. in my own time. (Most other teachers were reluctant to take any of my classes).
I know teachers get more free periods now, but I think the pressures on teachers is much greater, with constant interference from the government, endless forms to complete, targets to be met, and breakdown of discipline in some schools. I don't grudge them a decent salary and any other improvements in their working conditions. I don't know if things have changed, but I am pretty sure I paid 6% of my salary in pension contributions. My Civil Service pension was non-contributory, but the benefit was factored into our salary structure.
It would be good if workers in the private sector could be given some security but that would mean less profits for shareholders. I seem to remember that some large companies gave themselves 'pension holidays' and of course Maxwell simply stole pension funds - was he the only one?

lesson, 50 minutes. group of 28. planning, prep and marking - seven hours. add to that, the other 22 groups if you're a new teacher, 15 if you have other things to do as well...

Yup if you are a new teacher it is a lot tougher, unless your department head is well organised and has got lots of lesson materials organised on the intranet. But, unlike when *Greatnan" and I were teaching there are virtually no other compulsory duties e.g. I was obliged to give up on dinner hour a week to do supervision of dinner queues, supervise at break time etc.
And there were the joys of doing your own worksheet duplication using the dreaded reprographic machines of the time. All of this added up to quite a lot of additional work - and no computers to assist. And I don't recall any additional help from TAs - however struggling the learners were.
All teachers are required to do these days is teach, prepare and keep up to date.

Oh, how well I remember lunchtime duty in the playground. We didn't wear trousers to work in the 1970's, but maxi skirts came in and I used to wear an ankle length thick skirt with thick tights underneath.
I made it my business to be very friendly with the school secretary so I got much of my duplicating done for me.
One of my big problems was getting other departments to understand that my classes needed worksheets pitched at their level but when I started part-time lecturing at my former teacher training college, I discovered that my two hour lecture was the only introduction to children with learning difficulties that they got in a three or four year course. I am sure things have improved very much since then.

decades of experience, jessm, and i am the well-organised head of department. don't know about other schools but we still have duty - i have break, lunch, start and end of school, two days a week, plus on call two lessons. most people have a tutor group with pshee lessons needing contributions and teaching. academic mentoring of individual students and providing revision sessions, as well as fun activities in after school sessions - all part of the job. offering AS and A2 lessons as extras after school in our 11-16 school. all my department's courses are individualised so there is a lot of production of teaching materials, even if the photocopying is carried out by the print room staff. our materials are written at levels 2-3/4-5/6-7 (and often for basic english - pupils with very little spoken english who need pictures and a few words).