Former Education Secretary's Rant

[securespark]

Some parents are more interested in taking their children on holiday than their education, Nicky Morgan says.

Around 1m kids missed lessons last year by taking holidays during term time.

The DfE says that children should not be taken out of school without good reason.

Maybe, just maybe, there are some parents, especially poorer ones, who are weighing up the benefit to the child of being able to take them on holiday at the cost of a few days education against not being able to take them at all.

Instead of lambasting parents for doing this, why didn't the former Education Secretary launch an attack on the holiday companies and hoteliers who routinely and cynically raise prices to sky high levels during school holidays?

During half term, prices can rocket by several hundred percent.
If they were brought closer in line with those outside holiday periods, unauthorised school absences would surely plummet.

 

[DaveHerns]

Children need education more than holidays. No-one actually "needs" a holiday . Wants, maybe.

 

[crystal ball]

Its called free market economics and has been practised since the year dot

 

[Burnerman]

No one thinks that missing a weeks school will make any difference in the long run, but if absence was approved there would be a mass exodus - so schools can't approve.
John

 

[Brigadier]

Children need education more than holidays. No-one actually "needs" a holiday . Wants, maybe.

Kids often do f all educationally towards the ends of terms, so why not take them out early for a family holiday, saving hundreds (if not thousands) to boot?

 

[Mottie]

If schools are that bothered about kids missing days to go on holiday, why do they always have 'teacher training days' during term time?

Through work reasons, some parents don't get the opportunity to spend quality time with their children. Under those circumstances, a week or two spent full time with their kids can be more beneficial to the children than school time, especially, as has already been said, in the last few weeks of term.

 

[Doggit]

Odd how until a couple of years ago, you could ask the head for permission to take the kids on holiday, and they'd just asses the situation. Then the govenment changed the rules, and said you weren't allowed to, so what changed that they need to be so draconian; is it that we are dropping down the education leauge tables, so they need kids to work harder, simply because they know they can't get the teachers to do a better job.

There are too many targets, too many lax teachers that should have been got rid of a long time ago, and too many fadish teaching ideas that have left a generation of yougsters needing remidial english and maths lessons when they get a job, and left universities to lay on extra courses to bring them up to scratch. And now universities are told that they've got to take kids from deprived schools who aren't as bright as other applicants, otherwise they'll be penalised.

Most schools are only teaching to get the kids through the exams, and in the english lessons, they only read the chapters that are in the exams, so they don't read complete books nowadays. My daughters doing her GCSEs in a few weeks, yet they went on a visit to a local Hospice today for the RS course - nothing to do with the exam whatsoever, but she missed a maths lesson because of it. In her maths class, they are doing tests on part of the maths curiculum that they haven't even learnt yet, so her term grade objectives are way down on earlier years.

Companies have a right to charge a going rate for their services, but we all know the holiday companies are taking the p**s in the way they charge but I suspect there are greater issues at stake. If school holidays were staggered, the holiday companies would raise their prices to cover the extended period, but legislation would eventually be brought in to stop them, but at least parents would have a longer period in which to select their holidays from work, and it could give more flexibility to everyone; unfortunately, that would require too much far sighted thinking from the current bunch, so don't hold your breath.

Until eveyone stops this incessant demand/right to go to university, and accepts that education should be based on meritocricy, and not socialy engineered, our children will be doomed to a second class education.

Gove had the right idea to try and improve educational standards, but Nicky Morgan is just an empty vessel making a lot of noise.

 

[noseall]

Children need education more than holidays. No-one actually "needs" a holiday . Wants, maybe.

Completely clueless. No wonder you are single.

 

[IWalkLikeHimaMartian]

Until eveyone stops this incessant demand/right to go to university, and accepts that education should be based on meritocricy, and not socialy engineered, our children will be doomed to a second class education.

.

MERITOCRACY!
Education is a product of society! It is part of the socialisation, internalisation process.

 

[Mottie]

MERITOCRACY!
Education is a product of society! It is part of the socialisation, internalisation process.

I don't even understand what that means.

My two kids didn't go to Uni and they're not doing too bad - both have jobs around the £40k pa mark. Mind you, I don't know what they do with it - spend it on rent, holidays and having a good time, as far as I can tell. A lot of their friends did go to Uni and as soon as they got their degrees, they went straight back working full time where they had worked part time during Uni breaks - Argos, Macky D's, Pound stores, Weatherspoons etc. and they're all coming up to their thirties soon. Only thing I can see that they have got out of their uni days was a lot of parties and socialising - they are still living at home with their parents, depressed and in debt!

None of them, not one, has got anywhere near a job in which their degree was of any use.

 

[blightymam]

I never saw the point in doing a degree in something like history, architecture etc unless want to be a teacher. Some degrees seem to be a bit pointless in the subject matter but they do seem to be looked at favourably now by employers more nowadays. I did a degree in photography as a mature student and it did open doors and I got my first job as a photographer as soon as I finished.

My pops used to prefer to employ folk who'd worked their way up than fresh out of uni, found they were far more clued up and very good at their jobs. Makes more sense in some types of jobs for sure.

Children need education more than holidays. No-one actually "needs" a holiday . Wants, maybe.

This charity disagrees with you!

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel...mportance-of-the-family-holiday-10336068.html

 

[noseall]

This charity disagrees with you!

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel...mportance-of-the-family-holiday-10336068.html

That's why he's divorced, unhappy and living on his own.

 

[blightymam]

That's why he's divorced, unhappy and living on his own.

How do you know if David is unhappy? Do you know each other outside this forum?

 

[noseall]

How do you know if David is unhappy?

Comes across as a miserable old git.

Do you know each other outside this forum?

Probably that windbag that shoved me out of the way to get to the front of the queue in that greasy spoon in Walton-on-Thames.

 

[blightymam]

Completely clueless. No wonder you are single.

That's why he's divorced, unhappy and living on his own.

Probably that windbag that shoved me out of the way to get to the front of the queue in that greasy spoon in Walton-on-Thames.

Then there's this:

Comes across as a miserable old git.

Careful, I think you're taking lessons in irony at the same school as Himmy!