Fined for taking a 4 year old out of school

[surveyor_101]

ClaphamGT3 said:

How dreadful to be so horribly inconvenienced by your children's education

My children all went to nursery/ preschool 4 fill days a week in the year leading up to school. It'

Schools can't say you can't take them out and then my children school decided what partial days they are going to have my kids. If they are at school it's 9-3.15. Most schools in my area are but hours have this crazy all over the place staggered entry.

The school we wanted 5 years ago didnt dictate to us 9-11.30 one week and 12.30-3.15 other days.

I can't choose what hours my children attend school. It's a school day or nothing in my book.

[surveyor_101]

Ken Figenus said:

I remember a teacher mate having a pop at me for moaning about a random Inset day that cost me a day's contract work. No sympathy. She said it was a school and not a babysitting service. Harsh.

Guess she had about as much sympathy as contract killing Contract Killer. Maybe I should have borne that in mind when having sex 8 years previously - MY FAIL. Caveat capitalistic emptor and sod the breadwinner that makes the money to pay the teachers!!! I seriously think they have no concept of working parents at times - we dont all finish at 3 either!!! Harsh.

Those who can't teach.

It's true you have to have a very very special mindset.

Seem to live in a different world especially primary school teachers. Two of my schools have had 6 months off for stuff that would ruin my career, if I told people I took 6 months off after falling down my own stairs people wouldn't pay me what they do!

[Vaud]

surveyor said:

I don’t think teachers have any concept of outside their world.

My daughter recently went on a school trio. The coach was advertised as leaving at 6.45am. Theeefore like organised people we were there at 6:30 (having overturned daylights request for 6:-15).. the teachers tuned up at 6:45 and the bus left at 7:15.

This it was apparent was intentional to make sure we were not late. Well not until they made us late... the knock on made me late for 2 days...

And that’s also overlooking the walk they did just before the summer holidays where they stopped to have a picnic lunch by a quarry lake. Cheers for showing the kids that - someone died swimming in it 2 years ago...

Valid point on timings. Our school starts at 8:50. Apparently. Bells go. The doors never open before 9.

The lake is irrelevant. People dies in rivers, on roads, at schools, in libraries, etc. Don't see things through an adults eyes - unless the school made a point of the deaths.

[creampuff]

ClaphamGT3 said:

With notice and planning, anyone should be capable of organising their work to allow for a couple of weeks of disruption. If that involves planning to use a few days annual leave then so be it.

Really? All with notice and planning. I don’t know if you just have complete contempt for people with less financial resources or if your post is just a manifest failure to think beyond your own little world, but you do not speak for everyone that works.

Even talking about ‘annual leave’ indicates your contempt or ignorance. You have no concept of the large numbers of low paid people on zero hours contracts who struggle to put food on the table, let alone go on holiday. That you can be on a school board and be this ignorant about the lives of many of your fellow citizens is quite disappointing.

Edited by creampuff on Saturday 22 September 23:00

[ClaphamGT3]

creampuff said:

ClaphamGT3 said:

With notice and planning, anyone should be capable of organising their work to allow for a couple of weeks of disruption. If that involves planning to use a few days annual leave then so be it.

Really? All with notice and planning. I don’t know if you just have complete contempt for people with less financial resources or if your post is just a manifest failure to think beyond your own little world, but you do not speak for everyone that works.

Even talking about ‘annual leave’ indicates your contempt or ignorance. You have no concept of the large numbers of low paid people on zero hours contracts who struggle to put food on the table, let alone go on holiday. That you can be on a school board and be this ignorant about the lives of many of your fellow citizens is quite disappointing.

Edited by creampuff on Saturday 22 September 23:00

I think you need to seriously untwist those knickers. Whatever it is that's working you up into this head of steam is blinding you to reason or sense.

Every year I see dozens of parents - many from the most challenging circumstances imaginable - manage this perfectly well.

[Steve H]

MB140 said:

We will have to agree to disagree. I took holidays during term time when I was at school (many moons ago) before fines and snotty letters. As did many children I should imagine. You were simply given the work beforehand or afterwards and expected to catch up. As I always did. It didn’t effect my education 1 bit. I went on to get 10 gcse all A or B. I got 3 A levels, numerous city and guilds, NC, HNC/D and finally did my degree via the OU.

When you (and the "many children") were given that work to do while you were away, did you ever consider that somebody had to prepare it for you?

It doesn't sound like much does it but teaching something to a class will not be the same as giving it to a student to work on themselves. Still doesn't sound like much work to do though, maybe an hour or so getting a reading list together and then checking that it has been done when you come back to class?

So multiply that by, say, ten kids in your class that took time out that year. Then multiply that by the ten classes that your maths teacher (for example) covers. Then multiply that by the number of subjects that you do.

That's a few hundred hours work and no staff time is allocated to pandering to this kind of thing; you were lucky you had teachers that bothered to do this for you in their own time.

Ken Figenus said:

I remember a teacher mate having a pop at me for moaning about a random Inset day that cost me a day's contract work. No sympathy. She said it was a school and not a babysitting service. Harsh.

Guess she had about as much sympathy as contract killing Contract Killer. Maybe I should have borne that in mind when having sex 8 years previously - MY FAIL. Caveat capitalistic emptor and sod the breadwinner that makes the money to pay the teachers!!! I seriously think they have no concept of working parents at times - we dont all finish at 3 either!!! Harsh.

Most teachers are working parents, very few of them actually finish at 3 o'clock and plenty of parents treat school as something that is there for their own convenience.

surveyor said:

I don’t think teachers have any concept of outside their world.

My daughter recently went on a school trio. The coach was advertised as leaving at 6.45am. Theeefore like organised people we were there at 6:30 (having overturned daylights request for 6:-15).. the teachers tuned up at 6:45 and the bus left at 7:15.

This it was apparent was intentional to make sure we were not late.

So their past experience of the outside world has taught them that not all parents will arrive on time and accordingly need to be told an earlier time.

Inconvenient for the parents who do take their role more seriously but hardly the fault of the teachers.

surveyor_101 said:

Those who can't teach.

I may or may not agree with the sentiment but it's probably best not to criticise the people tasked with teaching punctuation, while using poor punctuation.


Let's eat Grandma. Let's eat, Grandma.




For the record, I'm neither a teacher or a parent which might make me the best or worst person to comment on any of this .

[creampuff]

ClaphamGT3 said:

I think you need to seriously untwist those knickers. Whatever it is that's working you up into this head of steam is blinding you to reason or sense.

Every year I see dozens of parents - many from the most challenging circumstances imaginable - manage this perfectly well.

I do not have a head of steam. I’m just informing you that it is disappointing that somebody on a school board can have their head jammed so far up their backside that they have know knowledge of the working poor.


How do you have sufficient information about what the parents from ‘challenging circumstances’ that you have just decided it’s no problem for them to take time off work to indulge in half school days for extended periods?

[ClaphamGT3]

creampuff said:

ClaphamGT3 said:

I think you need to seriously untwist those knickers. Whatever it is that's working you up into this head of steam is blinding you to reason or sense.

Every year I see dozens of parents - many from the most challenging circumstances imaginable - manage this perfectly well.

I do not have a head of steam. I’m just informing you that it is disappointing that somebody on a school board can have their head jammed so far up their backside that they have know knowledge of the working poor.


How do you have sufficient information about what the parents from ‘challenging circumstances’ that you have just decided it’s no problem for them to take time off work to indulge in half school days for extended periods?

I deal with parents in both primary schools regularly, I speak to the school business managers regularly, I speak tonthe head teachers regularly. It gives a reliable sense of what parents see as issues and what they don't.

Let's turn it round though; I'm interested to know what entitles you to such a strong contrary view....

[Vaud]

ClaphamGT3 said:

I deal with parents in both primary schools regularly, I speak to the school business managers regularly, I speak tonthe head teachers regularly. It gives a reliable sense of what parents see as issues and what they don't.

Let's turn it round though; I'm interested to know what entitles you to such a strong contrary view....

Not directed at me, but one local school as a 4 week transition period. Most are 1-2 weeks (reasonable). 4 is not. The parents are annoyed and the head, staff and governors refuse to engage on the topic.

[ThunderSpook]

I tend to think transition periods are only of use to children who haven’t been to nursery, otherwise it’s also frustrating for the child.

[Countdown]

creampuff said:

Even talking about ‘annual leave’ indicates your contempt or ignorance. You have no concept of the large numbers of low paid people on zero hours contracts who struggle to put food on the table, let alone go on holiday. That you can be on a school board and be this ignorant about the lives of many of your fellow citizens is quite disappointing.

Edited by creampuff on Saturday 22 September 23:00

If they're on zero-hours contracts surely it would be easier for them to take the odd half-day leave?

[Gareth1974]

Countdown said:

creampuff said:

Even talking about ‘annual leave’ indicates your contempt or ignorance. You have no concept of the large numbers of low paid people on zero hours contracts who struggle to put food on the table, let alone go on holiday. That you can be on a school board and be this ignorant about the lives of many of your fellow citizens is quite disappointing.

Edited by creampuff on Saturday 22 September 23:00

If they're on zero-hours contracts surely it would be easier for them to take the odd half-day leave?

I believe that many zero hour employers tend not to ask the employee back again if they decline work when offered, especially on a repeated basis.