Inset Days vs School Holidays

moneysavvy35

This is just a little rant.....

My sons school has already had 4 inset days so far - I just got another letter stating their are having an inset day on 22nd (coinciding with polling day) then another on 03/06.

How comes the govenrment has made up this rule about it being so important about investing in kids education and thierfore fining parents if they take kids out of school for holidays, but can then decide that they have a teachers training day.

Don't get me wrong, I know teachers need these training days, but I just dont understand how the govenrment can then turn round and say right cause your taking them out of school and its not with our say so you have to get fined.....

rant over...

have a lovely day everyone...:D

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

The kids aren't losing any teaching time. If it weren't during term, you'd break up a week earlier instead in July, or go back a week later. But then, any changes from the govt that came in term wouldn't be as effectively implemented and issues that come up in school would be left until then.

There's new safeguarding guidelines coming out. We all have to know them and work out what needs to change immediately they come into force. The best way to do this is to dedicate InSET time to it, as we can book specialists to come in, etc, and there's no way anybody can miss it. It's certainly not a jolly, as it's about protecting children.

You want staff to do the best they can straight away and improve things sooner rather than later. It's probably the most effective way to do it.



And, of course, staff have children at school as well; they have to deal with them, too.

Nicki

moneysavvy35 wrote: »

T
How comes the govenrment has made up this rule about it being so important about investing in kids education and thierfore fining parents if they take kids out of school for holidays, but can then decide that they have a teachers training day.

Because when teacher training days were first introduced by Kenneth Baker back in the day, the school holidays for teachers were shortened by a week and that week is used for teacher training throughout the course of the year. Most schools think it is most effective for training purposes to spread the training (and therefore the inset days) over the whole school year rather than have it all in one block at the beginning or end of the summer holidays.

I am not a teacher, but I am a parent of school aged children and am old enough to remember the social history behind this. You are no worse off in terms of number of days off school than parents were before inset days were invented.

As for your second point, if you take your children out of school on a normal school day, of course they have missed a day's teaching which may (depending on your child's ability and what was taught on that day) mean they have trouble accessing the curriculum for a longer part of the year, due to knock on effect of missing something which might be important. Obviously that doesn't apply if school is shut and there is no teaching.

Anecdotally, I was ill the day my german class was taught about masculine, feminine and neuter nouns and how that affected how verbs were declined, and I struggled with german for months as a result even though my teacher did quickly explain it to me on the following lesson and even though I was a bright student.

GobbledyGook

Turning polling day into an inset day can be a reduction in days off in areas where schools are used as polling stations.

People would be more annoyed if the school was closed for voting one week and then closed the next for an inset day.

daisiegg

As Nicki said, when the whole school is closed, your child does not miss teaching. When school is open and child goes on holiday, child misses teaching that is happening in their absence. It is quite simple, I think.

IrishRose12

I don't know what the arrangements are for schools in England etc but here in N.Ireland we have 5 baker days and 5 exceptional closure days each school year.
I work in a school. What parents and others need to realise that teachers still have to learn aswell. There is that many new things, policies, requirements for children to learn now that it's just not possible to just make do and learn as you go!
Also there are sometimes people from outside of the school that have to come in and train the staff on certain things, and we have to fit in around their diaries. They can't be in 25 schools at the same time to train the staff. Our last inset day we had someone in training us in the new computer system and new interactive whiteboards. He had been doing this in schools all over N.Ireland and still had a list of schools to go to right up until June when we finish for summer!
One of these inset days are also used in our school to write the children's school year reports. Again these aren't just simple run of the mill straight forward things to do.

You children aren't losing teaching time. These days are allocated for these very things. Every school across the UK and Eire get the same amount of holidays, they just differ in when they get them.

Taking your child out of school to go on holiday, or keeping them off school as you just slept in.......... that's affecting your child's education and they are missing teaching.

pollypenny

Here we go again! :hello:

Mrs_Soup

Actually having an inset day on polling day is saving them a day off if their school would have to close for polling.
I quite like it when they add an inset day onto summer half term as it gives more options for long weekend/holiday etc.

Indie_Kid

Isn't the polling thing out of the schools control anyway?

Spendless

When my kids school was used as a polling station, the HT said they also had to use that day as a teacher training day. No idea if this varies around the country. I also thought how many inset days a school had was standard around the UK at 5 per academic year, but the OP mentions 6 in total, so does that vary too?

I used to dislike the week in May when school was shut on Mon for BH, open Tues, Wed, shut again on Thurs for elections and open in Fri. When eldest was very little, I took him away that week in order to avoid the open, close going on at school.

Alchemilla

OP please will you lobby your MP for the removal of teacher training days? Also it would be great if you could copy in Mr Gove.
I should like those 5 days of my holiday back.
Thanks.

And thanks Nicki for being so sensible.