Encouraging future sailors? Not!

[Richard10002]

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One guy said he was told he would be fined £1000.


[/ QUOTE ] This makes my blood boil. Petty oficials do not set the fines even if you are guilty. The court sets the fine and they also decide if you are guilty, given the facts.
What they should say is that you are liable, if found guilty, to a fine of up to £1000.

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To be fair, that might be what he was told .... but it doesnt matter how it was put, it's the principle which matters.

The government recently spent £1 billion in one year to combat truancy - more or less zero effect. Do the truants parents get fined £1000 - I doubt it.

I know there is the odd case where a parent gets threatened with fines and prison, and it makes the press, but these cases are for kids that almost dont go to school.

The ordinary hard working honest joe bears the brunt once again, whilst the scroats with nothing to lose get away with it.

 

[akirk]

Don't worry about it - quote the 1944 Education Act which is still in force - your requirement under that act is (summarised) to ensure that your child receives an appropriate education

It is this act (still in force) which allows you to home educate / choose your own syllabus / choose whether you use the state system or private etc. etc.

If you can demonstrate that your child is still receiving an appropriate education then you are fine - the issue with unauthorised holidays will occur when the child misses an essential part of the curriculum - the school could then demonstrate that you are reducing the ability for your child to gain an appropriate education - however if you can show that the child will pick up that knowledge elsewhere (e.g. by studying during the holidays) then the school doesn't have a leg to stand on.

I would suggest that you challenge the school to demonstrate how your child is suffering (i.e. by missing curriculum), and they will be caught in a cleft stick:

either they say what the child is missing (in which case you can reverse that and say that surprisingly it matches precisely what your child will be studying during the holiday /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif)

or they admit that nothing will be learned in which case - clear to do what you will...

what they can not do is to say that your child will be suffering by absence, and not demonstrate how / what will be missed...

if the head is obnoxious - take it up with the Chairman of Governors and make it an official complaint - all governing bodies must ensure that there is a complaints procedure in place - so if there isn't tell them that they are breaking the law.

I think that you will find that you have little problem, I am sure that it will originate from an automatic response to discourage people just booking in cheaper holidays during term time, but if you feel there is a justification - then go ahead.

Ultimately remember that under British Law the parents decide where to send their child / how to educate them, not the Local Authority / School / Government. If you wish to change it that is your right...

and I hope that they enjoy the course /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[l'escargot]

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....Could get them a doctors note saying they've got some kind of contageous disease which would need at least 2 weeks to become non contageous.

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That's the silly thing, there is no requirement for a doctors note when a child is ill, a note from the parents advising the school is sufficient.

We have made it very clear with my 11 year old daughter's school that on the rare occasions we do take her out (my holidays are dictated by my employer) that we advise them of the fact she will be absent and do not "request permission". They don't push the point.

Schools are very quick to have "development days" for teachers (always tacked onto the end of holidays and weekends - I can't see any reason why they can't be held during the actual holidays) and there seems to be an increasing trend to include days out and activity days in the second half of each term now, not just at the end of the year. Any reason we take her out of school will more than match the value of these occasions.

 

[andymcp]

We take our kids out of school, every year, to catch the last couple of weeks in the Ionian before all hell descends when Italy & Germany go on hols. First year, the day before we were due to leave our eldest came back to say that they had spent the day lying out on the grass, looking for shapes in the few clouds around (read: teacher wanted to sunbathe). Coincidentally, the school had run into problems securing insurance for their own sailing programme, so we hit no problems at all.

This year for the first time we got a grumpy letter reminding us of our obligations and the possibility of a £100 fine per child. Fair enough I thought - it was so clearly a standard letter that it didn't worry me. I wrote back and explained that although they had re-introduced sailing to some of the school, it wasn't to all ages that my kids are, so we were continuing our habit of making sure they had plenty access to the sport.

I had a quick call from the head, apologising for not phoning before the standard issue letter came out, and reassuring me that they had no problem with our plans at all. As someone else mentioned, the kids kept their logs up to date and will talk about them to their peers when they get back. Last year's Sailing Holidays chart with photos, comments and our route marked on it is still on display in the school corridors I believe. I wonder if that constitutes advertising?....... /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[BenchHead]

Bureacracy gone stark raving bloody mad. I sympathise with the schools since more and more pressure is on them to compile stats on key performance indicators simply so that the government can prove that its policies are working (or not as the case may be). Fine to a point but we're now in the land of Dilbert.

I also heard on Radio 4 a while back that the UK has approx 36,000 pages of pension legislation whereas the New Zealand government has 17 (Yes that's 8 X 2 + 1). Government in this country has become a self fulfilling industry in its own right and no longer for the benefit of the people - if it ever was.

 

[john_morris_uk]

I have tried to resist commenting on this thread, but some people attitudes to schools and the teaching profession are making me very cross.

SWMBO is assistant head of a primary school and she gets EXTREMELY fed up with parents taking their children out of school during term time for spurious reasons. I am not suggesting that the sailing trip you plan isn't a noble and good thing, but lots of people seem to think that they can choose to make their children attend on a whim.

In general terms, if your child doesn't attend school, how can you complain about any lack of progress that your child makes?

And why the cheap jibes at teachers from a lot of people? Yes there are lazy teachers (and lazy lawyers, doctors.....) but don't tar the whole profession with the same brush. Most of the teachers I know work longer hours in very difficult circumstances under more pressure from public and Government than they deserve or need.

Don't cite long holidays. SWMBO will be writing 13 schemes of work, plus planning, and training some new teachers this summer. She will get three weeks off sailing with me. During term time, she is in school at 0730 and never leaves before 1730 - often not until 1830. She then works in the evenings AND Sunday afternons and evenings. She is working on her planning as I type this.

Sideways swipes at schools because some children succeed when they live onboard their parents boats and have no formal schooling makes no sense. As someone else has pointed out, those children are usually self selected from a bright and successful background. However they will not have taken part in many team sports, their relationships with their peers and some of their social development will have been challenged, and they will be lacking in subject knowledge in many areas. They will probably get by, because they will have had good support and have benefited in many ways by their experiences around the world. The fact that they 'get away' with what they have done is no excuse for criticising schooling for the way they try to educate the majority.

For the majority of children, school is important and essential part of their growing up. The problem is that because we have all been 'educated' we all think we are experts at education and can choose when our children attend.

 

[l'escargot]

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....SWMBO is assistant head of a primary school and she gets EXTREMELY fed up with parents taking their children out of school during term time for spurious reasons. I am not suggesting that the sailing trip you plan isn't a noble and good thing, but lots of people seem to think that they can choose to make their children attend on a whim.....

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Then (head?) teachers should learn to differentiate between the spurious and the legitimate and deal with them appropriately - standard letters carrying threats of fines whatever the circumstances only serve to put peoples backs up and elicit comments of the type here.

The attitudes of some schools and some members of the teaching profession also make me very cross.

 

[Richard10002]

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In general terms, if your child doesn't attend school, how can you complain about any lack of progress that your child makes?

And why the cheap jibes at teachers from a lot of people? Yes there are lazy teachers (and lazy lawyers, doctors.....) but don't tar the whole profession with the same brush. Most of the teachers I know work longer hours in very difficult circumstances under more pressure from public and Government than they deserve or need.


For the majority of children, school is important and essential part of their growing up. The problem is that because we have all been 'educated' we all think we are experts at education and can choose when our children attend.

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I think many will have some sympathy with your wife although, as soon as my sister became a teacher quite a few years ago, she declared it a doddle.... prepare the lessons in your first year, (hard work), modify them a bit in future years, (doddle), prepare new lessons occassionally, (doddle), loads of holidays, (doddle). She is still a teacher, and still thinks its a doddle.

A friend of mine became a teacher at the age of 50, having been quite high powered in the business world. he declares that the teaching part of the job is a piece of cake, it's the politics, long meetings which achieve sweet FA, and a complete inability to make quick decisions, that makes his life difficult.

Your wife is management, so a bit more than just a teacher, and she is bound to have managerial task which require longer hours and a bit more work - I dont know of many good managers who start at 9 and finish at 5, so she is not really much different to most in a similar position, but in different jobs.

On the kids:

Who was complaining?

Firstly, I think a lot of us are speaking from experience of being that child .... if a kid is going to fail school by missing 2 weeks out of the year, they are going to fail school full stop. So what if they do a little worse than they might have done.

Secondly, you can ask for authorised leave, and some heads are sympathetic, whereas others arent - consistency would help rather than an automatic letter effectively refusing permission - If there is some discretion, (which there is), there is no way that a 2 week RYA sailing course at the end of the last term of the year should be refused... NO WAY!

Thirdly, this is a government imposed thing which kicks the good kids and the good parents in the teeth. The billion quid they spent on combatting truancy had no effect whatsoever. So I would suggest that it is that part of their house they get in order before getting tough with ordinary Joe, and that part of the problem which your wife has more concerns for than the more responsible of her customers, (unless she is priviledged to be at a school which doesnt suffer from truancy to any degree).

I can see where you are coming from, but the problems are somewhat deeper than kids having a few weeks off at the behest of their parents.

 

[BrendanS]

Rather unfair, the teachers that really make a difference are the ones that put in time, and use the days for preparation to actually work, and there are some of them.

If your sister is doddling through, mention to her that we don't think much of her, and she isn't preparing lessons which challenge her and her charges.

 

[andymcp]

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Don't cite long holidays. SWMBO will... get three weeks off sailing with me.

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For many people, three consecutive weeks of sailing (if yours are) would be a very long holiday inded. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Richard10002]

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Rather unfair, the teachers that really make a difference are the ones that put in time, and use the days for preparation to actually work, and there are some of them.

If your sister is doddling through, mention to her that we don't think much of her, and she isn't preparing lessons which challenge her and her charges.

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She does, and is, (using prep days, and challenging her charges). She is well respected and does a good job. She just never succumbed to the "we're really hard done to" complaint.

Compared to the "real world", teaching is a doddle, (for teachers, not necessarily for management).

Several of the things my mate wanted in a new career were:

No responsibility for paying the bills
no employees and no "customers"
wages get paid at the end of every month
long holidays would be good
regular hours
Reasonably well paid

He's doing the job... I see him preparing, and he gets good feedback from the kids and his peers.

Nothing will convince me that teaching is a tough job, (in itself)

 

[Lakesailor]

I lived next door to a great bloke who had been in industry and then became a maths teacher.........oooh, as well as doing a law degree and running a taxi firm.
He made himself most unpopular when he was given the "short straw" job of taking 3b or somesuch form after the scheduled teacher had gone off sick with stress at the thought of the double period.

After he got back to the staff room they gathered around the "newbie" and asked him how he'd got on.
"I told them we'd reached an understanding pretty quickly and they were a great bunch of kids." Unfortunately, as he told me, he carried on with "this teaching is better than working for a living." He was virtually ostrasised by the staff.

His life "before teaching" had equipped him to deal with the pupil stress and he loved it.

He also passed his law degree and carried on with his taxis.

I can't tell you what a bloody mess his garden and house were. But he was a great bloke, with great kids.

 

[B175Chris]

Tell them it is against your religion not to sail during the week of 'Sailadan'

Problem solved.

 

[Richard10002]

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Unfortunately, as he told me, he carried on with "this teaching is better than working for a living." He was virtually ostrasised by the staff.

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Big mistake. This is the kind of thing that should be discussed away from work, and only with close friends/relations.

 

[DJE]

[Rant]What do they expect. The school summer holiday in Hampshire is now down to five weeks and they are farting about with their "six term school year" project which amounts to giving the kids two weeks off at the start of November for God's sake. Oh yes and for three days in August the 16-year-olds are supposed to be available to attend "Enrolement Interviews" at the 6th form colleges. So of course we are going to take them out during term time; they've put all the holidays in the bad weather![/Rant]

 

[KevB]

Did you get the schools permission before hand? We have to write in and ask to take our son out of school if it's in term time. If we don't it's unorthorised. Generally allowed a max of two weeks "authorised" absence per year.

 

[sailorgirl]

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Now let's see - oh yes, sailing. Waste of time. What did learning about sailing ever do for us? Well, apart from teamwork, social skills, leadership, physics (as in righting moments, wind forces etc), meteorology, technology (pulley systems, advanced composite materials and so on), and maybe lots more??? Nah, don't teach you nuffink.

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You missed out maths... my then 14 year old son suddenly realised that algebra and trig made sense whilst doing the nav to get us across Channel.

 

[CalicoJack]

I had not wanted this to become a rant against teachers, who have little to do with the absence policy, but to point out the unfairness of the system which allowed footballers to have time out, but not sailors.

 

[srp]

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You missed out maths...

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Well, apart from teamwork, social skills, leadership, physics (as in righting moments, wind forces etc), meteorology, technology (pulley systems, advanced composite materials and so on), and maths, what did sailing ever do for us? (apologies to the Pythons).

There's a simple answer for those who want a rant against teachers - there's nothing to stop you having a go. Salary varies but for an older teacher is currently about 29-31k, holidays are ok, but not quite all they're made out to be at 57 days a year, but there is the added bonus of being told to eff off about twice a week, occasionally shoved around or hit, and more rarely having a parent come into the school with a baseball bat. Couple that with working under a management that don't know how to manage and a large proportion of ones peers who have never experienced anything apart from school/college/school and it must surely be the dream job.

 

[Lizzie_B]

I once worked for a primary school head teacher who used to adopt a similar stance with parents who she thought were of a different political persuasion to herself.

She threatened court action against very concientious parents of a bright kid, who was a year ahead of her peers, if they took her out of school for a family holiday during term time. This was necessary because the father ran his own business and was the major maintainance contractor to the county's schools so school holidays were impossible for him to take leave in.

They phoned the county educational welfare officer who laughed down the phone and told them to take their holiday. She said 'I have enough problems trying to deal with the kids that only go to school for two weeks in two years'.

I suspect you would get a similar response from any county EWO. The school's head wouldn't dare refer the matter. He/she would be a laughing stock.

Also- if they have put it in writing that they would authorise absence for other sports they haven't got a leg to stand on to refuse leave for attending a course recognised by a sport's national governing body. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif