MSE News: Four out of five back right to take kids on term-time holidays

unforeseen

FBaby wrote: »

Disruptive for the other children? Why? If anything, the less pupils in the class, the more individual attention they can get, so I would think they benefit too. Parents are always complaining about too large classes.

So when the child comes back to school, 30 kids have to twiddle their thumbs while Sir/Miss tries to do a quick catchup on what the child missed. I call that disruptive

Murphy_The_Cat

unforeseen wrote: »

So when the child comes back to school, 30 kids have to twiddle their thumbs while Sir/Miss tries to do a quick catchup on what the child missed. I call that disruptive

Ah, but when it suits the school, its "different" and part of their "education".

zagfles

Pincher wrote: »

Radio 4, You and Yours today, Monday 6th June.

As it turns out, the father who won the court battle runs a claims company. He is going to help parents claim back their fines.

Suitcase chaser...

duchy

Moto2 wrote: »

Teachers need term time off too

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9658675/Teachers-caught-at-wedding-after-sending-children-home-for-staff-development.html

The school I worked at used to close for training days but no one was in school that day as the training was done on the preceding two evenings after school.....thus effectively giving the teachers a day off at the expense of parents who had to make alternative arrangements for the day . I felt this was completely wrong.

maman

duchy wrote: »

The school I worked at used to close for training days but no one was in school that day as the training was done on the preceding two evenings after school.....thus effectively giving the teachers a day off at the expense of parents who had to make alternative arrangements for the day . I felt this was completely wrong.

Surely that's just a version of flexi time or time off in lieu. Lots of workplaces operate that way. The children would have been at home in any event.

duchy

maman wrote: »

Surely that's just a version of flexi time or time off in lieu. Lots of workplaces operate that way. The children would have been at home in any event.

Two ways of looking at it ....from the school viewpoint it cost them nothing and gave the teachers a day off. From a working parent viewpoint it meant arranging , possibly paying for childcare or having to take a days leave that could be better used in the holidays. The lost working days/costs to parents would run into thousands.

For me it was a nice benefit as my son was a student there so we got a day off together...had I worked at a different school it would have cost me a days childcare. And no prospect of getting the day off as it was a term time day. Flex is usually a benefit not an expense to the employee but staff working at other schools were disadvantaged by this along with all other working parents.

Compulsory flex time ....not exactly a perk !

maman

duchy wrote: »

Compulsory flex time ....not exactly a perk !

I'd have thought the staff would have been asked and agreed to work the evening sessions in lieu of the day off.

I really don't see how parents were disadvantaged. Their children would have been at home because the school was closed whether the training was held on that day or not.

If schools reverted to the old system then school holidays would get to be 5 days longer and teachers would get back the 5 days holiday they gave up when training days were introduced. I'm sure that would be very popular.

FBaby

unforeseen wrote: »

So when the child comes back to school, 30 kids have to twiddle their thumbs while Sir/Miss tries to do a quick catchup on what the child missed. I call that disruptive

I addressed this in my post. Teachers don't have to help the child catch up and I have never seen this actually happen. It is only referred to as an excuse.

Marvel1

duchy wrote: »

Teachers are employed to teach .....

children, excatly and parents take them out during this term time, when they are plenty of half terms to go away.

maman

FBaby wrote: »

I addressed this in my post. Teachers don't have to help the child catch up and I have never seen this actually happen. It is only referred to as an excuse.

Of course teachers have to help children 'catch up'. Whatever the circumstances they are accountable for achieving the highest possible standards. It doesn't have to be with extra classes or redeploying TAs but it will happen one way or another. And if they don't then the Headteacher and Ofsted are on hand with a big stick!


Sometimes it's unavoidable like illness. It's when the child's absence is deliberate that teachers moan and rightly so IMO.