100% OT; school holidays

"Tony Raven" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Tony Hogarty said:

You're preaching to the converted here. I'm childless and happy to be so,
but beginning to get really disturbed by the level of subsidy we are
expected to put into those who choose to have children.

When you retire with no family to support you, you will rely much more on
society being able to support you with healthcare, social services, pensions
etc etc . That is only possible if there is a new generation of economically
active people to provide that support. I have children, who will form that
new generation, that cost me way beyond anything I receive in subsidy so I
guess for now you are subsidising my children at a modest level and I am
subsidising your future old age at a far higher level.

Quite right and well put.

I'd be curious to hear Tony H. estimate what percentage of the cost of raising
somebody else's child is subsidised by him.
--
Mark South: World Citizen, Net Denizen

Tony Raven said:

Tony Hogarty said:

You're preaching to the converted here. I'm childless and happy to
be so, but beginning to get really disturbed by the level of subsidy
we are expected to put into those who choose to have children.

When you retire with no family to support you, you will rely much
more on society being able to support you with healthcare, social
services, pensions etc etc .

Surely thats only relevant if you trust the government to continue to
provide those benefits. I don't, so I take precautions so that I'll be able
to provide for myself without any outside help, either from the government
or from anyones children.

....of course, I don't expect to last until retirement, because of all the
extra work I have to do to cover for people who have children.... maternity
leave, christmas, holidays (which *must* be taken at a certain time to suit
the children) etc...

Regards,

Pete.

David Martin said:

On 18/6/04 9:16 am, in article QMpH5nByTq0AFwZx@downie-geo#n0spam#.co.uk,

Bob Downie' bob_news@downie-geo#n0spam#.co.uk said:

Those of you down south may not realise this, but in Scotland school
holidays start 2 weeks earlier than in England. The cheap prices in
early July suit us very well!

Three weeks earlier in some areas!!

yes but under Scots Law, your children are required to spend those
weeks At The Berries.

A
--

email = audmad aaatttt hhhottt mmmaailll dddoottt ccccoommm

"Peter Connolly" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Tony Raven said:

Tony Hogarty said:

You're preaching to the converted here. I'm childless and happy to
be so, but beginning to get really disturbed by the level of subsidy
we are expected to put into those who choose to have children.

When you retire with no family to support you, you will rely much
more on society being able to support you with healthcare, social
services, pensions etc etc .

Surely thats only relevant if you trust the government to continue to
provide those benefits. I don't, so I take precautions so that I'll be able
to provide for myself without any outside help, either from the government
or from anyones children.

How well do you think your investments in Unilever will be doing after you
retire, unless there are consumers who want and can afford their products?

Who do you think keeps the economy going? Can you tell me why it is that the
world's fastest growing economies are those with the largest populations?

Did you ever notice that US economic growth was correlated with population
growth?

For extra points, guess whose children will be the abovementioned consumers.

Quoted message said:

...of course, I don't expect to last until retirement, because of all the
extra work I have to do to cover for people who have children.... maternity
leave, christmas, holidays (which *must* be taken at a certain time to suit
the children) etc...

Yeah, we heard it all before. It's called Reaganomics and Thatcherism and
Objectivism. The idea is that you pick the bits you like and keep them and
don't pay for your share of anything else.

People who reason like that are the type who suddenly discover a reason to leave
the pub when it's their round. Is that a shoe that fits you?
--
"You need to declare a jihad on your own ignorant ass."
- Ed Dolan in alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Those of you down south may not realise this, but in Scotland school
holidays start 2 weeks earlier than in England. The cheap prices in
early July suit us very well!

Three weeks earlier in some areas!!

yes but under Scots Law, your children are required to spend those
weeks At The Berries.

True, but those with English grannies are exempt.
--
Bob Downie
bob@downie-geo#n0spam#.co.uk
Remove #n0spam# to reply directly

Tony Hogarty said:

MartinM said:

As many of the people on this NG appear to have children of school
age, what does the panel think of proposals by the government to
reduce the cost of taking holidays in school holidays. Can they do it
anyway?

I don't see what it has to do with the
government in all honesty, unless we are moving to a society where we have
to subsidise parents for their choices?

If a man with a bowler hat and suit knocks on my door and offers me and
my family a cycling holiday somewhere nice and warm with mountains and
sea, I'm going to grab it with open arms.

So there.

John B

Arthur Clune said:

Just zis Guy, you know? <[email hidden]> wrote:

: And we lost top spot in the league tables one year because two children were
: removed without permission during SATs for family holidays - children thus
: removed score zero on the SAT and bring the average for the entire school
: down (so much for league tables!).

If I had kids I think I'd try and take them out of school on SAT days as a
policy.....

Ditto.
As a parent I find the emphasis on SATS and there relevance is pathetic.
IME they have little or no bearing on how a child moves through the
school system and only serve as a means for teachers, governors and
education authorities to gloat about how well they have done compared to
their colleagues.

....plus they are also something for the media to play games with.

John B

Tony Hogarty <[email hidden]> wrote:

: You're preaching to the converted here. I'm childless and happy to be so,
: but beginning to get really disturbed by the level of subsidy we are
: expected to put into those who choose to have children.

It's the nature of taxation - I don't approve of my taxes going to nuclear
missiles. I do like the NHS. Overall, it's good. You (rightly) don't get to
in detail, only to vote for a party that will steer things in a way more
to your liking.

Arthur (childless and remaining that way)

--
Arthur Clune http://www.clune.org
"Technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook

Tony Raven said:

Just zis Guy said:

And we lost top spot in the league tables one year because two children were
removed without permission during SATs for family holidays - children thus
removed score zero on the SAT and bring the average for the entire school
down (so much for league tables!).

We remove our children from school for the duration of the SATs. SATs have
become a pernicious exam pressure on the kids. They were introduced to test
the teaching and ensure the teachers were doing an adequate job of teaching
the curriculum. That has been successfully palmed off into testing of the
children with all the unnecessary pressure on them to do well in the SATs. We
have told the school we will be quite happy for the children to take part once
it reverts to being treated as a test of the teaching and not the children.

I couldn't agree more.

John B
(parent of 4)

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 12:17:05 +0100, Bob Downie

bob_news@downie-geo#n0spam#.co.uk said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

yes but under Scots Law, your children are required to spend those
weeks At The Berries.

True, but those with English grannies are exempt.

On researching this, it seems you are right. It also seems that the
converse is true ie 'English' children with Scottish grannies (whether
or not that Granny now lives in Scotland) are entitled to be absent
from their English school in order to be present in Scotland during
the berry season. Similar provisions apply for the tattie howkie
season later in the year.

I shall be writing to sonandheir's headteacher accordingly.

A related ordinance requires that all Scots 'of a certain age' or
above must, on encountering a school age child during the relevant
period, remark 'You're no At The Berriest/Tatties?' (Actually this may
be a Dundee-only byelaw, I need to double check this point).

A
--

email = audmad aaatttt hhhottt mmmaailll dddoottt ccccoommm

Mark South said:

How well do you think your investments in Unilever will be doing
after you retire, unless there are consumers who want and can afford
their products?

There goes my investment strategy! I was hoping that people would always
need soap!

Quoted message said:

Who do you think keeps the economy going? Can you tell me why it is
that the world's fastest growing economies are those with the largest
populations?

I've never studied the subject, but I would think it's a bit more
complicated than that.

Quoted message said:

Did you ever notice that US economic growth was correlated with
population growth?

Oddly enough, no. Despite what you'll say in your reply, the US economy
doesn't affect me in such a personal way that I feel the need to keep a
continual eye on it.

Quoted message said:

Yeah, we heard it all before. It's called Reaganomics and
Thatcherism and Objectivism. The idea is that you pick the bits you
like and keep them and don't pay for your share of anything else.

Yep....works for me. We don't all have to share the same views, and I'll
defend that right for both of us.

Quoted message said:

People who reason like that are the type who suddenly discover a
reason to leave the pub when it's their round. Is that a shoe that
fits you?

No, I'm a size 10 teetotaller. (I believe) I'm actually quite generous to
other people, but I also believe that *I* should determine where my money
goes to, not the government.

Regards,

Pete.

Bob Downie said:

Quoted message said:

If the government really wants to do something to control prices (and if
it's not the case that the tour companies are colluding to raise them)
then
it might have more success if it followed the German practice of
staggering
school holidays by region much more than at present so that people don't
all go off at the same time.

Those of you down south may not realise this, but in Scotland school
holidays start 2 weeks earlier than in England. The cheap prices in
early July suit us very well!

England's not down south! School summer holidays in Italy started two
weeks ago and go on until late September. Everyone still goes on
holiday in August.

--
Jules

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 09:05:03 GMT, Simon Brooke <[email hidden]>
wrote (more or less):
....

Quoted message said:

In a rational world different schools would take their
holidays at different times (probably by area, so that the secondary
schools in Aberdeen took theirs at a different time from those in
Edinburgh)

....

You'll find that for many holidays, they do.

--
Cheers,
Euan
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JohnB said:

As a parent I find the emphasis on SATS and there relevance is
pathetic. IME they have little or no bearing on how a child moves
through the school system and only serve as a means for teachers,
governors and education authorities to gloat about how well they have
done compared to their colleagues.

no there are there for schools to use and to inform parents how well schools
ase doing - the purpose of y2/6 sats was and is not primarily to test the
kids there are there to test the schools - which of course is why teaching
unions set their face against them from the start.

pk

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 08:15:52 +0100, Michael MacClancy
<[email hidden]> wrote (more or less):
....

Quoted message said:

If the government really wants to do something to control prices (and if
it's not the case that the tour companies are colluding to raise them) then
it might have more success if it followed the German practice of staggering
school holidays by region much more than at present so that people don't
all go off at the same time.

....

The UK does not take all its school holidays simultaneously even
today.

--
Cheers,
Euan
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Smalltalk links (harvested from comp.lang.smalltalk) http://html.dnsalias.net/gawnsoft/smalltalk

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 09:15:10 +0100, "Richard Goodman"
<[email hidden]> wrote (more or less):
....

Quoted message said:

Personally I just think they should be more tolerant of taking a few days
off either side of school hols. Ten days in a year as a guideline is fine,
but it's ridiculous to say if you take an 11th day the sky is going to fall
on your head - or a fine in your wallet. One more day doesn't make much
difference to the child's education. Most parents are responsible and will
try and minimise the time out. ...

And the parents who are not sensible and who do not minimise the time
out?

--
Cheers,
Euan
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Simon Brooke <[email hidden]> wrote in news:jumaq1-1ba.ln1
@gododdin.internal.jasmine.org.uk:

Quoted message said:

I don't see any particular reason
on an overcrowded island of an overpopulated planet to subsidise
procreation.

The overcrowding is largely due to a change in lifestyle, i.e. more
people living alone (this is also a large factor in house price rises).
One reason for subsidising procreation is that, with an ageing
population, it's those wee buggers who are going to subsidise you when
you get old and doddery. Also, if you are counting the cost of education
as a subsidy, we could do away with it and have an totally uneducated
population, but then we'd have no viable economy and not be able to
produce a damned thing.

Any subsidy directly received by parents for any sprogs they happen to
pop is more than paid back when those said sprogs start paying tax. To
use the rather naff phrase, they're an "investment in our future" where
the government loans parents a few quid on the condition that they get it
back with interest from the kids in later years.

By the way, Scotland has a declining population (going by the last two
censuses), so that should in some way balance out part of the
overcrowding created by more houses with fewer occupants in each.

Graeme

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 12:32:21 +0100, Jules
<[email hidden]> wrote (more or less):

Quoted message said:

Bob Downie said:

Quoted message said:

If the government really wants to do something to control prices (and if
it's not the case that the tour companies are colluding to raise them)
then
it might have more success if it followed the German practice of
staggering
school holidays by region much more than at present so that people don't
all go off at the same time.

Those of you down south may not realise this, but in Scotland school
holidays start 2 weeks earlier than in England. The cheap prices in
early July suit us very well!

England's not down south!

It is from here.

Mind you, so are bits of Alaska.

Quoted message said:

School summer holidays in Italy started two
weeks ago and go on until late September. Everyone still goes on
holiday in August.

--
Cheers,
Euan
Gawnsoft: http://www.gawnsoft.co.sr
Symbian/Epoc wiki: http://html.dnsalias.net:1122
Smalltalk links (harvested from comp.lang.smalltalk) http://html.dnsalias.net/gawnsoft/smalltalk

Tony Hogarty <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

MartinM said:

As many of the people on this NG appear to have children of school
age, what does the panel think of proposals by the government to
reduce the cost of taking holidays in school holidays. Can they do it
anyway? Is this the soft option to the £100 fine idea?
Presumably the tour operators will counter by saying it's not school
holiday holidays that are expensive, it's the term time ones that are
cheap.

Looks to me like a classic supply and demand issue. High demand out of
term time means the suppliers can charge a higher rate but lower demand in
term time means lower prices. I don't see what it has to do with the
government in all honesty, unless we are moving to a society where we have
to subsidise parents for their choices?

We had a letter from our head teacher last year saying she would not
sanction any non-term holidays; not that we have the choice anyway,
with all the Baker days we don't have enough leave to cover the
existing hols let alone taking extra ones.

JohnB said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> And we lost top spot in the league tables one year because two
children were removed without permission during SATs for family
holidays - children thus removed score zero on the SAT and bring
the average for the entire school down (so much for league tables!).

We remove our children from school for the duration of the SATs.
SATs have become a pernicious exam pressure on the kids. They were
introduced to test the teaching and ensure the teachers were doing
an adequate job of teaching the curriculum. That has been
successfully palmed off into testing of the children with all the
unnecessary pressure on them to do well in the SATs. We have told
the school we will be quite happy for the children to take part once
it reverts to being treated as a test of the teaching and not the
children.

I couldn't agree more.

but of course when your children have a problem at school you will expect
the school to pull out all stops to help....????

our year 6 class were observed by head and lea inspector a few weeks befores
sats this year. The lesson ran normally and the 10 minute "plenary" at the
end was a sample SATS question on the topic covered. the class worked
together to see how what they had just done related to the sats question. A
precess that comined consolidation of learing with SATS preparation.

That is a good example of Sats preparation, if your kids attend a poor
school that has the kids sitting past papers for weesk befre sats, i suggest
you move them to a better one!

pk