GOING ON HOLIDAY IN SCHOOL TERM TIME

Well I had about two hours sleep last night worrying about how I was going to get round this.

I e-mailed the Headmaster as he won't speak to me in person and takes ages to reply to snail mail and miraculously he replied (and during school holiday time too!!)

He is sort of backing down, I think, in that I have ground him into some sort of submission.

He now says that the schools policy as agreed with govenors is that absolutely no holidays will be granted during term time, however as the LEA states that action will only be taken on parents who take there children out of school for more than 5 days and I only want 5 days, I should read between the lines and not worry about it any further [ii]

Perhaps a sort of small victory, but what about when next year comes around, we start all over again [:w]

Thanks for all your support, it's really helped
thelaceys (feeling much calmer)

Thats great news and i bet you are relieved (even though as you said next year it will happen over again)

Has the education authority been in touch yet?

It would be interesting to hear what (if they reply) response they give?

Now go and have a cup of tea and put your feet up!

What he is doing is covering his own ASS, this is what the council and local authorities do with me very often with my work. They want to be all high and mighty when telling you the RULES as if it were up to them to make the rules in the first place, when it comes to a real spontaneous situation though they are too scared to give you a difinitive answer because everyone in these walks of life has a superior.

He basically doesn't want it to be officially seen by anyone that he actually signed the release form for your child.

What a complete wuss and jobsworth.

If it were me I would have respected him more for standing his ground, whatever though YOU WON.

/RANT ON

Being a headteacher these days is being stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, receive oh-so-public caning from OFSTED for "unauthorised absences" - believe me, a less than glowing OFSTED can deliver significant emotional blows to those who provide your children's education. When it happens, and gets written up in the local paper as "local school has high truancy rate" (remember in the press and public mind "unauthorised absence" = Janet and John sniffing glue in the Arndale) will you write to the local press saying "it was me taking J&J out of school that contributed to those figures"? On the other, receive complaining parents when little Janet or John isn't getting the SATS results.

And please, don't anyone dare mention the "weeks and weeks of holiday" that teachers get. I *will* find out where you live and set up a mobile disco outside playing the Cheeky Girls Greatest Hits on constant loop. Aside from the fact that they can never, ever, take even a long weekend and will always pay top whack for holidays (and hey, we aren't complaining, that's just how it is) the 70+ hrs a week worked during term time + the weeks spent in school during the holidays means that my wife actually works longer hours and takes the same amount of actual holiday I do as a consultant. Having to drag my wife away from the computer to get some sleep at 4 am the day of my mother's funeral because she had to get a report to the OFSTED inpector that morning - no allowance for funerals there - is something that will live with me for a while.

RANT OFF/

You might have more luck arguing the educational potential than the cheaper holidays, and don't try to push the potential of a week in Disney or on the slopes.

Paul

Originally posted by easygoingeezer
What he is doing is covering his own ASS, this is what the council and local authorities do with me very often with my work. They want to be all high and mighty when telling you the RULES as if it were up to them to make the rules in the first place, when it comes to a real spontaneous situation though they are too scared to give you a difinitive answer because everyone in these walks of life has a superior.

He basically doesn't want it to be officially seen by anyone that he actually signed the release form for your child.

What a complete wuss and jobsworth.

If it were me I would have respected him more for standing his ground, whatever though YOU WON.

Headteachers are responsible to their Governors not the local authorities, and the notion that constant kowtowing is the order of the day is risible nonsense. There's a constant tension between the skilled and professional educator and their notional paymasters, who (bless their hearts) give their time freely as governors but are not educators.

As to the point of the Head's giving in, perhaps that day they had been in conferences dealing with physically or emotionally damaged children having to decide whether to call in social services (damned if you do, damned if you don't), or perhaps exclusions, or perhaps the death of a child (it does happen), or stroppy staff, or buildings that are collapsing, heating that doesn't work, someone not getting paid, or even Janet or John being left at school in the care of the staff because mum or dad couldn't make it back "because they had an important meeting".

Nor, btw, per comments made to my wife last week are (a) they responsible for ensuring the public roads outside their schools are gritted to make it possible for J&J to get to school without breaking a leg or being torn apart by wolves (b) responsible for ensuring that the fire service know where the school is.

Please DO NOT disrepect this profession in any way, shape or form There are some lazy ass f***wits in there, but there are in any profession.

Paul

Paul

Being a headteacher these days is being stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, receive oh-so-public caning from OFSTED for "unauthorised absences" - believe me, a less than glowing OFSTED can deliver significant emotional blows to those who provide your children's education

I appreciate your overall sentiments, but the OP is seeking an authorised absence in line with LEA guidance. Being rigid is more likely to result in young people having more unauthorised absences and ending up on OFSTED's naughty list.

If the policy of the school in question was absolutely clear at enrolment I would have less sympathy with the OP. The Daught's last school expressly forbade holidays in term time, and expulsion was the penalty (it was a fee paying school so they could enforce what they wanted to do). The upside was longer holidays at Easter, summer and Xmas , so you could usually get out a week earlier/later than the crowd and get better prices.

Regards

Pat

Originally posted by patjohnson
Paul

Being a headteacher these days is being stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, receive oh-so-public caning from OFSTED for "unauthorised absences" - believe me, a less than glowing OFSTED can deliver significant emotional blows to those who provide your children's education

I appreciate your overall sentiments, but the OP is seeking an authorised absence in line with LEA guidance. Being rigid is more likely to result in young people having more unauthorised absences and ending up on OFSTED's naughty list.

Good point, and apologies for going slightly off the rails. Didn't have a good weekend, and it infuriates me the way that teachers are treated. But please don't trivialise the effect of OFSTED by calling it a "naughty list" - this is serious sh*t.

Originally posted by patjohnson

If the policy of the school in question was absolutely clear at enrolment I would have less sympathy with the OP. The Daught's last school expressly forbade holidays in term time, and expulsion was the penalty (it was a fee paying school so they could enforce what they wanted to do). The upside was longer holidays at Easter, summer and Xmas , so you could usually get out a week earlier/later than the crowd and get better prices.

True enough, but my wife's school has a stated, clear policy in line with LEA guidance which states "A headteacher will not generally accept as an exceptional circumstance the fact that a holiday is cheaper during term-time." And they still get asked and they still get complaints and have to take the hit either in a spoiled relationship (which is taken very seriously) or in unauthorised absence.

Paul

I do sometimes despair at the nanny state we live in. Dragonbaby had a serious accident some years ago and after several operations and a spell in hospital was fashioned with a full length leg slab and sent on her merry way home.Her Head of school refused to allow her to return to school due to "health and safety regulations" even though one of her classmates was profoundly physically disabled and the school had fantastic disabled facilities. We even offered to supply an adult to assist DB for the whole of the school day but to no avail. Eventually after weeks of wrangling and constant harrassment by me to the LEA I eventually secured a home tutor for DB from the LEA for the grand total of an hour a day. Whoopee doo..
The very same school however was quite happy to send menacing letters about "unauthorised absences" in school time. Something of a double standard methinks? DB eventually returned to school and has suffered no long term educational effects due to her enforced absence from school (about 10 weeks in total).
IMHO the majority of children blemishing school attendance rates are children who are truanting (and are often perpetual offenders) and not those seeking life enhancing experiences with their parents for a few days.

I am putting my 'holier-than-thou' hat on now when I tell you that for our 3 sons we have never sought leave to take any one of them out of school during term time. The reason for this is that we believe it is not right for our children to be out of school during a time when THEY are obliged to be in school. The message we would be sending our own children is that it is all right to avoid your obligations if you want to. God, that sounds sanctimonious doesn't it. Please be easy on me with your replies, but I just had to put another view on this. That's what forums are for, isn't it?

Our kids use the 10 days authorised absence most years ands will continue to do so for the forseeable future, as businness reasons make taking holidays in the summer very difficult. I gave up stressing about it when I went to a pre school meeting for DD2 where her class teacher announced that she had cancelled the first two days of the new school year to attend a training course.

Originally posted by pjh

Originally posted by easygoingeezer
What he is doing is covering his own ASS, this is what the council and local authorities do with me very often with my work. They want to be all high and mighty when telling you the RULES as if it were up to them to make the rules in the first place, when it comes to a real spontaneous situation though they are too scared to give you a difinitive answer because everyone in these walks of life has a superior.

He basically doesn't want it to be officially seen by anyone that he actually signed the release form for your child.

What a complete wuss and jobsworth.

If it were me I would have respected him more for standing his ground, whatever though YOU WON.

Headteachers are responsible to their Governors not the local authorities, and the notion that constant kowtowing is the order of the day is risible nonsense. There's a constant tension between the skilled and professional educator and their notional paymasters, who (bless their hearts) give their time freely as governors but are not educators.

As to the point of the Head's giving in, perhaps that day they had been in conferences dealing with physically or emotionally damaged children having to decide whether to call in social services (damned if you do, damned if you don't), or perhaps exclusions, or perhaps the death of a child (it does happen), or stroppy staff, or buildings that are collapsing, heating that doesn't work, someone not getting paid, or even Janet or John being left at school in the care of the staff because mum or dad couldn't make it back "because they had an important meeting".

Nor, btw, per comments made to my wife last week are (a) they responsible for ensuring the public roads outside their schools are gritted to make it possible for J&J to get to school without breaking a leg or being torn apart by wolves (b) responsible for ensuring that the fire service know where the school is.

Please DO NOT disrepect this profession in any way, shape or form There are some lazy ass f***wits in there, but there are in any profession.

Paul

Clearly your very angry and rightly protective of your good lady's proffesion and comittment to it, my references to local councils etc were referring to my profession, another one with 70 plus hours a week, Education should not be disrespected its true, its also true that many heads annoy parents by being aloof, intransigent and often pig headed. This child was only 5 for godsake and the parents were not being obstructive and deserved to be responded to, as I said my nephew is 8/9years old and his head teacher was prepared to hear me out and listen to the positive side of me taking him out of school.

Originally posted by easygoingeezer
Clearly your very angry and rightly protective of your good lady's proffesion and comittment to it, my references to local councils etc were referring to my profession, another one with 70 plus hours a week,

Having called on your profession's services in the past few weeks (often at odd hours) I'm not going to quibble over that. Though it was all resolved in the end, we had some anxious times over the speed at which the coroner's office proceeded.

Originally posted by easygoingeezer

Education should not be disrespected its true, its also true that many heads annoy parents by being aloof, intransigent and often pig headed.

Well, temper that with "some" and we'll split the difference. I think in summary my point is please don't tar all headteachers with the same brush.

Originally posted by easygoingeezer
This child was only 5 for godsake and the parents were not being obstructive and deserved to be responded to, as I said my nephew is 8/9years old and his head teacher was prepared to hear me out and listen to the positive side of me taking him out of school.

Again, no issue when put this way, everyone deserves a fair hearing and I'm glad that the OP got it resolved to their satisfaction

Anyway, that's enough of a rant on my part and shall post no more on this subject. Thanks for hearing me out.

Paul

Originally posted by DragonLady
I do sometimes despair at the nanny state we live in. Dragonbaby had a serious accident some years ago and after several operations and a spell in hospital was fashioned with a full length leg slab and sent on her merry way home.Her Head of school refused to allow her to return to school due to "health and safety regulations" even though one of her classmates was profoundly physically disabled and the school had fantastic disabled facilities. We even offered to supply an adult to assist DB for the whole of the school day but to no avail. Eventually after weeks of wrangling and constant harrassment by me to the LEA I eventually secured a home tutor for DB from the LEA for the grand total of an hour a day. Whoopee doo..
The very same school however was quite happy to send menacing letters about "unauthorised absences" in school time. Something of a double standard methinks? DB eventually returned to school and has suffered no long term educational effects due to her enforced absence from school (about 10 weeks in total).
IMHO the majority of children blemishing school attendance rates are children who are truanting (and are often perpetual offenders) and not those seeking life enhancing experiences with their parents for a few days.

I was just about to make almost the same comments about the Nanny State. It's got totally crazy and I so understand why parents take their kids out of school for a holiday. When my kids were school age, I worked in a school - the main reason I did this was so that I wouldn't have the worry of their care during holidays. But I did pay the price - literally - and holidays were always more expensive than just a few days either side of the breaks. Even though the kids are now adults (apparently) and I now work in a non-school environment I can nonetheless see why parents feel aggrieved at this sort of interfering. I also agree that the main source of interrruption in school is most certainly not caused by kids taking holdays = they actually tend to be the kids of the more responsible parents, who will make darned sure the kids catch up!

Think I'd be tempted to say the kids are sick.... and blame the suntan on something else [:p]

A few years ago, when I was in the education system, I took about two holidays a year, which usually lasted 2 weeks each. We never did bother asking for permission just would simply go away; my form tutor always put me away on 'work experience' as we travelled with my mothers work (BA).

I often do see passengers who will have the same issue as you do and they will just go away anyway and face the consequences. Let's face it, they have kids who don't go to school for weeks on end simply because they can't be arsed; so five or six days on a trip that is going to be educationally beneficial anyway shouldn't really make the school governors throw their toys out the pram.

I never have understood why they are so concerned about attendance Ð it was blatantly obvious that there weren't many teachers who gave a rats ass about children anymore (granted there were some, but not many). The education system is failing and it sounds like it's still going down the drain; I finished college not that long before becoming crew and that was a real dump.

Have a great holiday.