100% OT; school holidays

in message <[email hidden]>, Graeme

(') said:

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

The overcrowding is a matter of the island having about 900% more people
on it than it can reasonably support, and lifestyle doesn't make the
least little bit of difference to that!

Quoted message said:

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.

Bugger that. When I can't earn my own living and care for myself any
more it's time to pop my clogs. I am _not_ going to spend ten years
sitting in a 'home' gazing increasingly vacantly at a television.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
; ... of course nothing said here will be taken notice of by
; the W3C. The official place to be ignored is on www-style or
; www-html. -- George Lund

Simon Brooke said:

The overcrowding is a matter of the island having about 900% more people
on it than it can reasonably support, and lifestyle doesn't make the
least little bit of difference to that!

I vaguely remember reading that even the Netherlands would be able to
support its entire population by more economic use of resources. It did
however involve everybody becoming vegetarian...

Roos

Tony Raven <[email hidden]> wrote:
: Arthur Clune wrote:
:>
:> Even more OT, but house price rises are down solely to a speculative bubble
:> now.
:>

: ITYM house price rises are _up_ ;-)

I ment what I said. Ah, the joys of english grammar 🙂

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

PK said:

Richard Goodman said:

The school's responsibility is
simply to deliver the scheduled lessons.

You seem to have a very narrow view of what schools are all about!

And that response is why so many parents now have a poor view of our
education system.

John B

Paul Rudin <[email hidden]> wrote:

: ... and there I was thinking that historically low interest rates had
: something to do with it, silly me 🙂

That's what has caused a bubble, yes.

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

PK said:

JohnB 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....????

That depends what type of 'problem' you are referring to and whether
fell within the school's responsibility.
Perhaps you could clarify.
I send my children to school to receive education not for the purposes
of creating figures for teachers, governors and government to use for
their own political ends.

John B

In article said:

Just zis Guy said:

(otherwise it would have made
vastly more sense to start with KS1 tests and follow the cohort up,
to provide value-added measures).

That WAS always the intention! But you need a run of data to form a
basleline and trend to measure added value against.

That would explain those secondary schools who test on entry to
provide a baseline because "the SATS are useless for that", no doubt.

JohnB said:

PK said:

Richard Goodman said:

The school's responsibility is
simply to deliver the scheduled lessons.

You seem to have a very narrow view of what schools are all about!

And that response is why so many parents now have a poor view of our
education system.

John B

Why?

the Education system is not about delivering lessons - sit them infront of
pc's with cd roms if that is the case.

It is about delivering education. it is about partneship between schools,
teachers, parents and pupils each repecting each other and the rules of the
school. Part of those rules are : holidays in holday time, school in school
time.

pk

Paul Rudin <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

: 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).

Even more OT, but house price rises are down solely to a speculative
bubble now.

... and there I was thinking that historically low interest rates had
something to do with it, silly me 🙂

Let's just say that the causes are many, and to pick on any single factor
can give an overly simplistic picture. But then again, complex issues let
anyone pick their own favourite factor to back up an argument :-)

Graeme

Simon Brooke <[email hidden]> wrote in news:v0dbq1-t11.ln1
@gododdin.internal.jasmine.org.uk:

Quoted message said:

I am _not_ going to spend ten years
sitting in a 'home' gazing increasingly vacantly at a television.

You'll bloody well do as the nurse tells you!

:-)

Graeme

Simon Brooke <[email hidden]> wrote in news:v0dbq1-t11.ln1
@gododdin.internal.jasmine.org.uk:

Quoted message said:

The overcrowding is a matter of the island having about 900% more people
on it than it can reasonably support, and lifestyle doesn't make the
least little bit of difference to that!

I'd be interested to see where the 900% figure comes from. However, the one
aspect of lifestyle I mentioned, i.e. more people living on their own,
separated families etc. means more houses are required so that does
contribute to over-crowding. I wasn't referring to lifestyle as in whether
you like going to the pub etc.

The effect may not be large, but it is significant enough for it to be
fairly regularly [1] quoted as a reason for increased housing needs on such
bastions of truth as Radio 4 ;-)

Graeme

[1] about once every two or three months - roughly the frequency at which I
used to force myself to endure "You and Yours"

PK said:

JohnB said:

PK said:

Richard Goodman wrote:
> The school's responsibility is
> simply to deliver the scheduled lessons.

You seem to have a very narrow view of what schools are all about!

And that response is why so many parents now have a poor view of our
education system.

John B

Why?

the Education system is not about delivering lessons - sit them infront of
pc's with cd roms if that is the case.

You know what I mean.

Quoted message said:

It is about delivering education. it is about partneship between schools,
teachers, parents and pupils each repecting each other and the rules of the
school. Part of those rules are : holidays in holday time, school in school
time.

Of course it is.
My 10 year old daughter has just brought in her report.
Under more than one subject it says:
"Some entries may be missing or incomplete due to unavailability of staff".

John B

Peter Connolly said:

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.

Good luck with the farm.

--
Keith Willoughby http://flat222.org/keith/
"He swapped five photos of his wife
For one of Barry John"

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

Quoted message said:

It is about delivering education. it is about partneship between schools,
teachers, parents and pupils each repecting each other and the rules of

the

Quoted message said:

school. Part of those rules are : holidays in holday time, school in

school

Quoted message said:

time.

No, that is your opinion about what the rule should be. Perhaps it is an
actual rule of your school, but different schools and local education
authorities appear to have different rules. Some of them, perhaps many or
most (certainly it is the case where my daughter attends) actually have a
rule which says you can have up to ten days absence in term time for holiday
arrangements - we took eleven, two years ago. This was to visit my parents
in NZ, whom my daughter hadn't seen since she was four and would not have
been able to see again for at least another four years, after her GCSE's and
A levels finish.

Then there is a question of what should happen if you break a rule. It does
happen. Most people would think that the penalty should be proportional to
the infringement, which was clearly not the case for the child who was
excluded from school, albeit temporarily, for being one day over the ten.
Common sense, courtesy, flexibility and the reasonable exercise of
discretion are all much better than rigid rules and fines in this respect,
IMO. In our case we took the eleven with permission, and no harm was done
to anyone.

Rich

"Richard Goodman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

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

Quoted message 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.

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. The government doesn't spend enough on
education, directly and indirectly creates a system of inequalities where
many parents don't want to send their children to their most local school,
leading to the damned 'school run', and then complains like mad about
parents even of primary children taking their kids off a few days early or
coming back a few days late. Absurd!

Rich

Especially as the girl in question was then expelled for a further 6
days!!!
My experience of taking pre-school children and even pre children
holidays is that there are no shortage of parents willing to take
their kids out of school.

Mike Gayler said:

Why are we, as a society, intent on bending over for parents?

IME its the kids that rule the world today :-(

John B

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

Quoted message said:

Richard Goodman 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.

If you take your child out, then the child misses some programmed lessons.

The school has an obligation to the child and the teacher will inevitably
have to spend time filling in the bits the child missed. and if they don't
and the child performs poorly in sats, you will be the first to complain
that the school has not done it's job

ie you taking your child out reduces the teaching resources available to

my

Quoted message said:

child and every other child in the class.

Take a child or two out for a week at the start and end of every term and
the whole class is disrupted and damaged.

Your choice and actions damage my child.

pk (School governor)

Then every chid who is ever ill (and thus away from school) 'damages' your
child as well? And every child that needs extra tuition because its not as
bright as yours 'damages' your child as well? (Or maybe vice-versa, perhaps
if your child is stupid you should take it out of class to do all the others
a favour?)

All lessons will have to cope with a span of childrens abilities, caused not
just by by absence but varying capabilities, interest in the subject,
problems at home, etc etc. Teaching must be able to take that variability
into account. If it can't, the lessons are doomed to fail from the word go.

Tw (parent)

--
Tumbleweed

Remove my socks for email address

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email hidden]> writed in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Michael MacClancy wrote:

snips

Quoted message said:

Holidays in school holidays have /always/ been more expensive. It's
not like it's a secret. If you don't want hassles like taking
holidays at peak times, don't have kids. If you do have kids, their
education comes first. That's my view anyway.

snip

But it's not just the kids and their parents - it's the whole support
mechanism for education too - teachers (bless 'em), school administrative
staff, cleaners, school nurses, even the lollipop man - and their
families who are affected by this.
Following your reasoning (which is perfectly sound) then if you don't
like the holidays - then don't work in an education related area, but how
far do you take that?
My dearest is a skool nurse, so we are lumbered with taking our hols
during the 'peak period pricing plan' - but it goes with the territory.
The pricing is just simple supply & demand - parents who whinge don't get
my vote - chances are that in a few years the little darling will be off
to uni and they will be able to go off on their holidays off peak, and
pay off peak prices.
Why are we, as a society, intent on bending over for parents?

Rant Over

Mike - Leicester

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:21:25 +0100,

Not Responding 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.

It was educational listening to interviewed parents last night. Their
justification was consistently along the lines of "it's the only way
we can afford a foreign holiday; we have no choice".

Which is bollocks if you ask me. I used to work for a travel company
and I can tell you that there are plenty of late deals in July and
August - there is even some quite nice stuff like villas. Even in
today's market where the tour-ops have cut the number of rooms there
will be plenty of lates.

Also the choice of holiday makes a big difference. Camping in France
or a bike tour in the low countries (hey I had to make it at least
obliquely on topic) can be quite affordable.

Quoted message said:

Since when has a foreign holiday been a basic need? My children
(eldest is 8) have never been overseas.

I had never been abroad until I was an adult.

--
Andy Leighton => [email hidden]
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_

JohnB wrote:
..>> It is about delivering education. it is about partneship between

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

schools, teachers, parents and pupils each repecting each other and
the rules of the school. Part of those rules are : holidays in
holday time, school in school time.

Of course it is.
My 10 year old daughter has just brought in her report.
Under more than one subject it says:
"Some entries may be missing or incomplete due to unavailability of
staff".

move to a better school.

the gb i sit on would be more than unahppy with such a report

pk