School Fines - Discrimination Against The Family Unit

[Prettytom 1,648]

4 minutes ago, Chekhov said:

No  it is not irrelevant at all !

Either every day in school is critical or it is not.

They cannot have it both ways, not morally anyway.

In which case, nor can you.

 

So, now that you’ve taken your lad out of school for an unauthorised holiday, can you please stop banging on about the COVID school closures.

 

Sauce for the goose and all that.

[Chekhov 488]

1 hour ago, Prettytom said:

In which case, nor can you.

So, now that you’ve taken your lad out of school for an unauthorised holiday, can you please stop banging on about the COVID school closures.

Sauce for the goose and all that.

Not sure what you mean, but in any case I do not think any parent should be allowed to keep their child out of school for seven months.....

[Chekhov 488]

1 hour ago, Chekhov said:

Our child learnt more from a trip to S Korea, AUS and NZ than he would have done from staying on school for those two weeks .

Do you agree or not ?

@Prettytom appears to have missed this question.

The question is, is it yet another that he will find too hard to answer (so he'll ignore it) ?

[pfifes 309]

7 hours ago, Chekhov said:

As I said above I do not think it really has much of an effect, other than to cause much ill feeling (even more since they shut the schools for seven months when it suited them).

 

>>The problem is, even if sympathetic to parents unable to afford a holiday out of term time, if schools allow this it would be very disruptive so on balance<<

 

It depends how long they were off for.

One week off school really cannot be so critical, it really cannot, and that's before one accounts for the educational and social benefits of most holidays.

I don’t think it is particularly disruptive on an individual basis for a child to have a week off school.  I don’t buy into this ‘every day counts’ campaign and I do think children can find a holiday a good learning experience (that does depend on the type of holiday though!).

But, the problem is that it if schools were happy for children to be taken out of school on holidays  during term time there will be a relatively high number of children on absent due to being on holiday and that is disruptive for teaching.  Particularly as the holidays would likely be clustered during popular times for holidays outside term time.

So in balance, I think the fines are unfortunately necessary as a deterrent. 

[El Cid 221]

13 minutes ago, pfifes said:

I don’t think it is particularly disruptive on an individual basis for a child to have a week off school.  I don’t buy into this ‘every day counts’ campaign and I do think children can find a holiday a good learning experience (that does depend on the type of holiday though!).

But, the problem is that it if schools were happy for children to be taken out of school on holidays  during term time there will be a relatively high number of children on absent due to being on holiday and that is disruptive for teaching.  Particularly as the holidays would likely be clustered during popular times for holidays outside term time.

So in balance, I think the fines are unfortunately necessary as a deterrent. 

When my child missed school for a trip to Egypt, no fine was issued, so perhaps some schools are ok with it?

[Chekhov 488]

1 hour ago, pfifes said:

I don’t think it is particularly disruptive on an individual basis for a child to have a week off school.  I don’t buy into this ‘every day counts’ campaign and I do think children can find a holiday a good learning experience (that does depend on the type of holiday though!).

But, the problem is that it if schools were happy for children to be taken out of school on holidays  during term time there will be a relatively high number of children on absent due to being on holiday and that is disruptive for teaching.  Particularly as the holidays would likely be clustered during popular times for holidays outside term time.

So in balance, I think the fines are unfortunately necessary as a deterrent. 

I don't think the fines act as a deterrent, they just **** people off.

There is a bigger point here, yet again we are being told how to live our lives, how we should bring our own kids up. And not just the broad idea "kids must be educated at school" (which few people would disagree with) but down to the minutia. 

[RJRB 688]

4 hours ago, Chekhov said:

If you are implying most parents agree with fines you are wrong, as I am sure you know.

But, to authoritarians, this is yet another example of what they love, personal freedoms is of little importance, society should be telling people how to live their lives

If you are implying that most parents take their children on holiday during term time then you are wrong.

I can quite see that those that do or would like to are united in their dislike of getting fined.

 

[Chekhov 488]

1 hour ago, El Cid said:

When my child missed school for a trip to Egypt, no fine was issued, so perhaps some schools are ok with it?

How long was he off for and when was it ?

I have heard from more than one source that different schools have different policies, which, BTW, promotes even more ill feeling.

My lad went to S Korea, AUS and NZ, an exceptionally educational trip, even @Prettytom cannot bring himself to deny that, yet we are being fined for taking him, when, incidentally we had to take him when we did ! Nobody goes to New Zealand's South Island in their winter and our summer.....

As an aside, we were talking to a family from Denmark and they were astounded we were going to be fined. The school were fine with their kids having time off (and it was lot ;longer then our lad had off school) though they had to write about it when they got back and make a presentation to the other kids about what they had seen and learnt, far more positive.

I cannot see our schools doing that for a few reasons, no the least that they would not want kids who could not afford such holidays to feel left out. The old story, bring everyone down to the lowest level.....

[Chekhov 488]

2 minutes ago, RJRB said:

>>Chekhov said:
If you are implying most parents agree with fines you are wrong, as I am sure you know.

But, to authoritarians, this is yet another example of what they love, personal freedoms is of little importance, society should be telling people how to live their lives<<

 

If you are implying that most parents take their children on holiday during term time then you are wrong.

I can quite see that those that do or would like to are united in their dislike of getting fined.

Err no :

 

Do you think parents who take their children out of school during term time to go on a family holiday should or should not be fined?

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/2024/03/04/51f36/2

 

Yes - 30%

No - 56%

Don't know - 13%

 

And, let us remind ourselves, nobody has ever voted for this iniquitous and authoritarian policy. 

 

[Chekhov 488]

14 minutes ago, Chekhov said:

Err no :

 

Do you think parents who take their children out of school during term time to go on a family holiday should or should not be fined?

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/2024/03/04/51f36/2

 

Yes - 30%

No - 56%

Don't know - 13%

 

And, let us remind ourselves, nobody has ever voted for this iniquitous and authoritarian policy. 

 

So @butlers was wrong then.....

[RJRB 688]

17 minutes ago, Chekhov said:

Err no :

 

Do you think parents who take their children out of school during term time to go on a family holiday should or should not be fined?

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/2024/03/04/51f36/2

 

Yes - 30%

No - 56%

Don't know - 13%

 

And, let us remind ourselves, nobody has ever voted for this iniquitous and authoritarian policy. 

 

The fine is there for a purpose.

If the question was do you think drivers should be fined £100 for exceeding the 30 mph speed limit by 4 mph I doubt that there would be overwhelming support from motorists.

There is also a flaw in your logic when comparing  this issue to the school lockdown closures.

Teachers have a syllabus to get through by progression over a term or school year.

If all pupils were absent for a period then measures can be taken to pick up where they left off.

If a number of individual pupils are missing at different times  it would be far more difficult to cater for.

[El Cid 221]

1 hour ago, Chekhov said:

How long was he off for and when was it ?

I have heard from more than one source that different schools have different policies, which, BTW, promotes even more ill feeling.

 

I recall it was a week off school, it was around 10 years ago. Schools dont want to irritate the parents of their pupils, they prefer not to issue fines.

I believe many schools turn a blind eye to an extra week off.

At the end of term some go on a rewards trip to Alton Towers, on a school day!

Alton Towers is much less educational than Egypt or S Korea etc.