Taking kids out of school

elwoodsusanm

Why is it against the law to do this for some of us and not for others. 'Travellers' are allowed to take off any time for 'travelling' . Most of them live in houses and use this as an excuse. My daughter worked in a school with a large population of 'Travellers' and saw this happen many times. They even have their own school liaison officer. Surely this is discrimination??:eek:

burlington6

It's only discrimination if you're from a minority

p00hsticks

The fact that you're posting in large pink letters really makes me want to take you seriously - NOT

trollopscarletwoman

elwoodsusanm wrote: »

Why is it against the law to do this for some of us and not for others. 'Travellers' are allowed to take off any time for 'travelling' . Most of them live in houses and use this as an excuse. My daughter worked in a school with a large population of 'Travellers' and saw this happen many times. They even have their own school liaison officer. Surely this is discrimination??:eek:

There is no legal obligation to attend formal school in Britain. And never has been.

The law only states that that an `education' has to be provided and you do not need to be a qualified teacher to provide it. Neither do you need to follow the national curriculum. The same applies to the independent sector.

Valli

Or maybe it's a thinly-veiled racist rant.

jmhgibson123

if there is no legal obligation, how come they can fine you for taking kids out for hols??

trollopscarletwoman

jmhgibson123 wrote: »

if there is no legal obligation, how come they can fine you for taking kids out for hols??

very simple.

Fined are in formal school.

Those home schooled cannot be fined.

ilikewatch

As far as I'm aware, school management still have discretion as to what leave they will authorise during term time.

There is quite some difference between:
a)Allowing a family from a legally recognised ethnic minority term-time leave to pursue a centuries old tradition.
b)Allowing a family term-time leave to drag the kids to torremolinos for 2 weeks because it'll save them a few quid.

Anecdotally, a school I am involved with has a large traveller family on roll, this family tend to travel from spring half-term until September, and have weekly learning plans and homework sent on to be collected from "post restante" locations - it is returned each week like clockwork.
The school experimented with offering the same service to families who were taking children out of school for holidays without authorisation in order to at least help them to not fall too far behind - so far no-one has accepted this offer, generally with a reply along the lines of "get lost, - the kids will be on holiday why would they want to be doing boring school work".

Personally i disagree with term-time fines too, I think that if parents have so little respect for their childrens education that they will intentionally allow them to miss school, then the children should be automatically unenrolled, with no future school having an obligation to enroll them in future. Unfortunately this would have the biggest impact on the children who most need the education because their parents value it so little.

Valli

Anyway (should the OP ever return to the thread) what is the campaign here?

Is that you you want all parents to be fined for taking children out of school?

adonis

I found this from a school Governers meeting,

Mr Peltier commented that one Year 6 child was taken on holiday during SATs week, so didn't sit the tests. The parent said the child "wouldn't pass anyway".

That is the attitude of some parents who don't care about their child's future.

meer53

adonis wrote: »

I found this from a school Governers meeting,

Mr Peltier commented that one Year 6 child was taken on holiday during SATs week, so didn't sit the tests. The parent said the child "wouldn't pass anyway".

That is the attitude of some parents who don't care about their child's future.

In my opinion, Sats are more for the schools benefit than the childrens. The sooner Sats are abolished, the better.