Cracking down on truancy!
 

Of course, the headmaster knows better if a parent should be allowed to take a disabled kid on holiday... I actually find this mind-blowing. What is happening to the UK?

Family of severely disabled boy barred from taking term-time holiday - Education News - Education - The Independent

Re: Cracking down on truancy!
 

Absolutely ridiculous. Tbh if the child only has that time to live, he shouldn't be in school. He should be doing things he truly enjoys doing. Parents could surely "homeschool" him in the eyes of the government if they wanted? Poor sod :(

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Just another way the state wants to control our children. Honestly... You have to apply for leave during the school year for your ****ing kid? He/she is your kid, should you not be able to take him/her wherever you damn well please? And its up to the headteacher whether or not the kid goes on holiday? Its almost like applying for leave from work. But oh wait. There is no choice in going to school, and theres damn well no salary either ! Theres a choice in working, AND you get paid!

Bullshit if you ask me.

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When my taxes are paying for the teachers, facilities, and school infrastructure, who the hëll do parents think they are taking children out of school during term time? A crack down on "voluntary absence from the classroom" is long over due.

Maybe parents should (at least) be billed for the teachers time and facilities they have wasted? :sneaky:

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Wasted? The teachers still have to go to work to teach the other kids. :confused:

Maybe the parents who decide to homeschool should be refunded the tax monies that they are forced to pay into the "education" system.

Its not often you can catch me complimenting the systems here in Canada, but at least I can take a weeks hols off school in the middle of April to go to Florida with my family and I don't have to get permission from anyone at the school.

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It does appear to be an ill-thought-out policy, more to do with Gove's dogmatic "I know best" attitude than with any intention or expectation that it will actually make the education system more effective. I have recent, though second-hand, experience of the vagaries of the system.

My two sisters requested special leave for their kids during our recent family trip back to the UK. One was denied (but took the child out anyway and damn the consequences), the other had her request accepted. Both had requested leave of absence for a day (a Friday) to attend a family gathering in honour of my father. He's in rapid decline with complications related to Parkinson's disease (dementia, incontinence, severely compromised immune system, etc etc) and is not likely to be around much longer. It was the first time that there was an opportunity for him to have all his grandchildren at the same gathering, and almost certainly the last such opportunity.

The sister who had her request turned down explained all this, but was denied - despite the fact that her school friends subsequently told her that during the Friday in question, the last of term, they had played games and watched movies for almost the entire day. She is monumentally unimpressed with the head teacher and has written to him, copying all and sundry, asking for a full explanation of his denial given that he ought to have been aware of how his teaching staff were planning to fill the day. This will no doubt feature in her defence if she is prosecuted for unlawfully taking a child out of school...

The sister whose application was granted works in support of a number of local government and charity sector organizations in continuing education, so knows the jargon to use to get things done when there are boxes to be ticked. Apparently she described the family get-together as a "living funeral" - not an expression I'd heard before - and the head teachers of both her kids' schools (primary and secondary) were quick to say yes.

It will be interesting to see whether, and how quickly, the policy is reversed now that Gove has been unceremoniously demoted to Chief Whip.

Re: Cracking down on truancy!
 

You have a different opinion. There is no need to justify it, but teachers and schools are provided to teach children. If the children aren't there, that obviously isn't happening, so an opportunity cost for the children. Furthermore if every child was taking a week off here and there the school calendar and curriculum would be a nightmare for the teachers to manage with all the kids trying to catch up here and there with different parts of the curriculum.

I am inclined to agree that parents who make appropriate alternative teaching arrangements for their children should get some sort of rebate or tax credit.

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So taking it to the case of this child here who was denied leave to go on his possibly last vacation with his mum and dad- really? I don't think his state-forced 'education' is going to help him in the grave...

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So, yes, opportunity lost on the child. Opportunity to go on his possibly last vacation-lost.

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Agreed 100%. Terminally ill children shouldn't be required to go to school, and in deed should not be in school at all if their attendance would be disruptive.

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I don't think it specifically says in the article, but isn't "attendance" one of the many points upon which a school is judged in the UK these days? Poor attendance, authorized and non-authorized, lowers the appearance of it being a "good" school.

No excuse for the story here, but shows how the bureaucracy works.

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I didn't read all the posts properly at first and thought this was in Canada but surprise surprise it's the UK

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And if they are being judged on attendance, it is surely easier to put the pressure on parents trying to take unusual time off, rather than dealing with persistent non-attenders, which would probably be more difficult even if more important. Have to keep the figures looking good, which surely indicates the real value of league tables, etc.

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I am of the opinion that if the child is able to keep up with the curriculum (which will most likely require some work on the part of the parents) then it should be up to the parents to decide if they miss school due to special circumstances. The current policy is obviously fomenting some serious power abuse on the part of headmasters. As the mother of this kid said, he is NOT going to have a career, I'm pretty sure he won't fall very much behind if he misses a week of school, and the headmaster must realise this. He/she only denied the vacation because he/she could.

I don't agree with your opinion that as a taxpayer you somehow have the right to demand that other people's kids attend school every day. You can't force me to drive my car every day because you already paid for the highway, or to take my kids to the park because your tax money helped pay for it. All kids should attend school regularly, but if they are able to get good grades then it's up to the parents to decide when family life is more important than going to school.

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This is the third such article I have seen in the UK papers over the past couple of weeks, one involved a boy being refused time off to attend a parents wedding and the second one was about a girl who was excluded from the 100% attendance award because she took one day off to attend her Mother's funeral. I am all for encouraging attendance at school, but this has gone way too far.
My son misses quite a lot of school because of sporting commitments, the agreement with the school is that it is his responsibility to discuss with his teachers what he will miss on a particular day and to make sure he catches up. He is just going into Grade 11, he is a year ahead, is in the enhanced class for Maths and always places on the honour roll.
We have never had any problems from the school about his absences and his education is not suffering. Its a balance.

Re: Cracking down on truancy!
 

There was another story recently (cannot remember which newspaper I saw it in) that discussed a student being denied a day off to attend their grandfather's funeral. The parents were threatened with prosecution and fines if they took the student out of school for the day.

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I suspect the key phrase here is "threatened with." This smacks of the Head trying to intimidate parents, rather than any real likelihood that a case such as this would be prosecuted. There are already a huge number of prosecutions (and successful convictions, fines and even terms of imprisonment) for parents of truants. It seems most of these are for habitual offenders, where the parents are not sufficiently engaged to ensure the child gets to school.

A parent who actually bothers to ask the school for a leave of absence is almost by definition sufficiently engaged in their child's education for that absence not to be detrimental to the child. It might upset the school's Ofsted numbers, but that's just another indication that school league tables are pointless at best and counterproductive at worst.

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The article mentions a father who is currently fighting in court a 2,500 fine for taking his son to his grandfathers memorial without school permission.

I just don't understand how attendance is a measure of anything when it comes to schools. In my view, student performance is the only valid measure of how well a school is doing.

I can't imagine the government imposing something similar here in Canada. But then again, bureaucrats can go wild without warning...

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Headlines can be somewhat misleading, can't they? The child in that case had 22 days of unauthorised absence from school between September 2013 and March this year, according to the news report of the preliminary hearing. It may well be that attendance at the great-grandfather's memorial was the final straw that led the school to refer the case to criminal prosecutors: not all of the time away from school was in connection with that memorial.

If convicted, the parents will likely be fined up to 1000 pounds. If they'd paid up the original fine it would have cost them 120 quid tops - which some might consider a reasonable fee for more than four weeks' unauthorised time away from school. It was their choice not to pay the penalty charge which has landed them in court, and exposed them to the risk of a career-damaging criminal record. Having read a few details of the case, I am less inclined to be sympathetic with those parents than with the parents of the terminally ill child in the Indy article.

I do completely agree with you, though, that measuring a school's performance on the basis of the attendance record of its pupils is plain daft. The school has no direct control (though I suppose some amount of influence) over whether and how much the parents and guardians of its kids care about their attendance. It makes about as much sense as a league table of goalkeepers ranked in order of how many goals their team's central midfielders have scored.

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I agree. Its ridiculous. Me, I am absent from school for various "unauthorised" reasons during the year, nothing more than a phone call to the house by the secretary, who speaks to my mum/dad, and they confirm that yes I was absent and this is why. Full stop, end of situation. No "permission" needed. We even go on vacation in the middle of April because its more convenient at that time, and all my mum needs to do is phone the school and let them know, they can't say that I am not allowed to go on vacation :unsure:

Tbh I think the whole thing there in the UK is going too far. Oakvillian you said the £120 fine was 'reasonable' for four weeks absence? :eek:

The kid is in the custody of the PARENTS, not the naffing state! It should be their decision on when/why they leave school, and for how long (within reason) and there definitely shouldn't be a 'fine' either.

:eek:

Re: Cracking down on truancy!
 

Kids miss work and therefore performance is lowered.

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The school system has really lowered in quality in the last 15-20 yrs. It used to be about the kids and their learning experience. Now its all about the state, the numbers, how "good" the school is, etc, etc. No one gives a shit about the kids anymore :(

(I know this because grandparents used to work in the system)

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Parents wanted to see league tables to compare schools and quantify every step of their child's learning. But then they want it both ways, term-time holidays + excellent grades. That can only mean extra work for teachers.

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:lol: And we all know the likelihood of that happening

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They have a plan of work for the term, if families want to take their kids out then the teacher should not have to subsidize that.

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Careful... nobody has suggested parents can't take kids out of school. In this case (the banker from Chelmsford with a dead American grandfather), the parents don't appear to have followed the "rules" for permission/notification, and the child was away from school for a total of 22 days of unauthorised absence in half a school year. I don't think anybody would have batted an eyelid if the trip to the States for a family memorial had been the only such absence in the year, and the Head would doubtless have looked rather more favourably on the request. But for a child to be missing over four weeks of schooling is taking the piss out of the system a bit.

Of course, the problem with all of this is that it's the articulate, engaged parents who make a fuss when the system works against them. It's the disengaged, don't-give-a-flying-whatsit-about-truancy parents who the rules are supposed to catch. But no school, or local education authority, would be able to implement one rule for the "nice" people and another for the chavs - much though they might want to ;)

And I fundamentally disagree with your point that the parents have sole responsibility for their child's attendance at school. There is (in the UK at least) a legal obligation to educate your child. I gather there is a formal notification/certification process to go through if you choose to home-school; otherwise, you are obliged to ensure your child's attendance at a recognised school. If parents (persistently) break this legal obligation, it is appropriate that there are sanctions in place to discourage them from doing so again.

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I think the key word there is "unauthorized". Who gives the authorization? If the school, it shouldn't be any of their business as they should not dictate what a child does - the parents should. If the parents approved those absences that is their business, so long as the child makes up the work.





There is a legal obligation to educate your child here in Canada too but we seem to manage to see that that is done without parents having to ask the school's permission.

Re: Cracking down on truancy!
 

I couldn't agree more.

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Why bother going to school at all? They can just 'make up the work'.

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How is the teacher being expected to subsidize that?

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If you think they can just make up work with no teaching involved, then I suppose it works.

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Its not just the teacher who has to subsidize it, with non paid over time to review the work caught up on (if that happens) but it is all the other kids who have to subsidize it too, with the loss of their learning time. When they get stuck with Johnny with his tan, who can not do the group work because he was out, and the rest of the group have to get him up to par, before they can continue with the new learning.

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Seems like an odd school system over there, never heard of parents needing permission to take their kids out of school for temporary absences.

Seems like not sending kids to school at all these days, and just home schooling based on the government curriculum is the way to go, too much politics in public schools these days.

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And what about Johnny with his tin can who is a slow learner and creates the same issue in class, attends daily but still can't keep up with the group?

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In the UK, the child would generally have an assigned aide nowadays.

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Every time my children take time out of school, whether for a medical appointment, an extracurricular event, or (heaven forfend) a vacation, we are expected to inform the school board. In my school district, this is done through an online notification system. On one occasion when one kid was unwell and we forgot to do the notification, we had a phone call from the school office by about 9.15 that morning asking where the child was. Sure, we don't have to "ask permission" for the very occasional absences that my children take, but I'm quite sure we'd be called in to see the principal and explain ourselves if one of our offspring was absent for a total of 22 days between Labour Day and March Break.

Re: Cracking down on truancy!
 

We most certainly need permission here (US), in fact if my daughter misses one class, even due to something like taking a test elsewhere in the school, the attendance office emails me like a shot. The school loses funding for each day a child is out, even if authorized.

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I would not call that needing permission, more of just informing you.

My sisters kids school only requests parents inform them in advance, but no permission is necessary according to her and she has never had an issue with the school and missing some days.

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They are informing me because they need it authorized.

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This.

People often seem to think of their child in isolation, "little Johnny being out for a week is no big deal". But imagine what would happen if every child in a class of thirty took even just one whole week out at random times of the year? It would reduce the teaching calendar/ plan to complete chaos! :frown: