100% OT; school holidays

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?

--
Regards

Tony Hogarty
(Take out the garbage to reply)

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? 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?

It does have something to do with government if the travel companies are
colluding in order to charge 'above market rates' in the peak periods.

There might be something to this given the fact that many of the operators
are owned by the same large companies but tourism is very much a supply and
demand industry. Individual hotels charge more in the peak period,
airlines charge more, campsites charge more, everyone charges more.

And the problem isn't necessarily one that the UK government can control on
its own. All the European countries go on holiday at roughly the same,
adding to the peak demand.

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.

--
Michael MacClancy
Random putdown - "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't
it." -Groucho Marx
www.macclancy.demon.co.uk
www.macclancy.co.uk

Michael MacClancy said:

It does have something to do with government if the travel companies are
colluding in order to charge 'above market rates' in the peak periods.

Given that the majority of travel companies are in an extremely poor
financial position it seems unlikely that there are charges above the
market rates. Indeed you could reasonably argue that the prices should go
higher still - if the market would support that of course.

--
Regards

Tony Hogarty
(Take out the garbage to reply)

"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

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!
--
Bob Downie
bob@downie-geo#n0spam#.co.uk
Remove #n0spam# to reply directly

Michael MacClancy said:

It does have something to do with government if the travel companies
are colluding in order to charge 'above market rates' in the peak
periods.

I don't see much evidence of that - it is a fierceley competitive market. I
think it is simply that, as previously mentioned, off-peak holidays are
cheap. Consider the relative costs of weekend and weekday rates at four
star hotels. Many holiday destinations have to recoup pretty much their
entire annual operating cost over two months in the summer.

I am unhappy (read: disgusted) with people who disrupt classes by taking
their children out for holidays. It causes significant extra work for the
teachers and slows down the rest of the class at a time when it can be quite
hard keeping things together anyway, what with the kids being "demob happy."

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!).

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.

There are exceptions, of course. A friend will have to take their child out
for two weeks in term time because that is the only way they can afford to
visit her sister in Australia. That's not going to happen more than once or
twice in the child's entire school career, and the school have been
consulted and are cool with it. Some work and background reading can be
provided for the child to do while away.

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.

As long as the regions are the right size. We are likely to head into a
nightmare world where one child will be in a Berkshire school and one in
Oxfordshire; they have different half-terms. No more half-term breaks for
us for a while!

--
Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

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!!

We go and visit the relatives in the south of UK.. Lyme Regis in July with
empty beaches cos the schools haven't broken up..

...d

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.....

: 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.

Don't have kids. Works for me 🙂

Arthur

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

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
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)

ps one of the teachers at our school was going away on holiday with a group
of non teaching friends. they had to go in school holiday time and all take
the £££ hit because she could not take holiday in term time.

Arthur Clune 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!).

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

Ah, i see you have fallen for the anti sats spin of the teacher union
activists!

Sats (both ks1/2 and voluntary sats in the in-between years) are an
essential part of how our school operates. most of the kids don'tknow they
are taking them as it is just another lesson.

Bad school scare kids about sats because they fear what sats might reveal.
Good school use them as one of the tools in a battery of assessment
techniques.

pk

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.

Tony

PK said:

Sats (both ks1/2 and voluntary sats in the in-between years) are an
essential part of how our school operates. most of the kids don'tknow they
are taking them as it is just another lesson.

Bad school scare kids about sats because they fear what sats might reveal.
Good school use them as one of the tools in a battery of assessment
techniques.

I'd suggest. based on my experience, that your school is a very rare school.
Most would classify as bad schools by your criteria. If our school adopted
your schools approach, we would be happy for our kids to take them.

Tony

in message <[email hidden]>,

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? 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 already do heavily subsidise parents for their choices. I pay just as
much for your children's education as you do, despite not having
children myself. I also pay towards your family allowance, or whatever
it's called these days, and pay more income tax because I don't get
family tax credit.

Actually I think it is generally appropriate for wealth in society to be
redistributed from the relatively well off to those who are through no
fault of their own less well off, but I don't see any particular reason
on an overcrowded island of an overpopulated planet to subsidise
procreation.

However, re holidays, it's just the same as rush hours. It's completely
barmy that every school takes its holidays at the same time so that
everyone with children wants to go on holiday at the same time, just as
it's completely barmy for every workplace to start at the same time and
end at the same time to dump commuters onto the transport
infrastructure at the same time - and don't get me onto artificially
tinkering with the clocks so that people can go to work at the same
time by the clock irrespective of the fact that we live on a planet
with a tilted axis of rotation... these are not rational policies for a
rational world.

In a rational world - in a rational world there would actually be a lot
less work to do, but I digress. In a rational world different people at
different workplaces would start work at different times, spreading the
load on the transport infrastructure (and many more people would work
from home). 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) to spread the load on the holiday infrastructure. Mind you,
in a rational world people wouldn't do the sort of appalling jobs in
appalling places that make them feel the need to go away on holiday - I
haven't been away on holiday since 1988. When you look at what's on my
doorstep, you'll understand.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; MS Windows: A thirty-two bit extension ... to a sixteen bit
;; patch to an eight bit operating system originally coded for a
;; four bit microprocessor and sold by a two-bit company that
;; can't stand one bit of competition -- anonymous

PK said:

Ah, i see you have fallen for the anti sats spin of the teacher union
activists!

Er, up to a point, Lord Copper. Plenty of people have profound reservations
about the whole idea which are nothing to do with either the reasonable or
the unreasonable concerns of the teaching unions.

Quoted message said:

Sats (both ks1/2 and voluntary sats in the in-between years) are an
essential part of how our school operates. most of the kids don'tknow
they are taking them as it is just another lesson.

Not the case at any school I've come across, and certainly not the case at
the one where I'm a governor (and that is not a bad school, in my view).

Quoted message said:

Bad school scare kids about sats because they fear what sats might
reveal. Good school use them as one of the tools in a battery of
assessment techniques.

Bad schools may even tell parents their children will be in trouble if their
children don't have extra coaching to get the next level up in SATs
(happened to someone I know). Good schools adopt a low-key approach and try
to get something meaningful from the detailed results, like measuring the
performance of a cohort as it moves up the school inna value-added stylee.

Value added is the only useful thing you can measure with SATs in my view
(what is the point of a table which ranks schools according to their
admissions policy and catchment area?). Amazingly, it was pretty much the
last thing to be done. Why might that have been, I wonder? What would have
been the point of introducing a system which makes selective schools look
good mainly because they are selective? Surely not a political agenda...

--
Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

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.

We call them Blair Breaks. As you may recall, early in the present
government's last term parents were berated for taking their children out in
term time simultaneous with our esteemed leader taking his kids out of school
during term time to go on holiday. Following that furore it all went quiet.
Now his children have left school I guess he feels safe to put this "do as I
say, not as I do" topic back on the agenda but subtlely repacked as the fault
of the holiday operators. Cynic moi?

The educational experiences our kids have had from term time breaks has far
outweighed their loss of education at school and has not disrupted their
classes or their educational achievement one iota. To the contrary geography,
history, cultures, languages and religion have all been brought vividly to
life by the trips we've taken and enabled them to extract far more from their
formal education and share that with their class colleagues.

Tony

Simon Brooke said:

We already do heavily subsidise parents for their choices. I pay just as
much for your children's education as you do, despite not having
children myself. I also pay towards your family allowance, or whatever
it's called these days, and pay more income tax because I don't get
family tax credit.

Actually I think it is generally appropriate for wealth in society to be
redistributed from the relatively well off to those who are through no
fault of their own less well off, but I don't see any particular reason
on an overcrowded island of an overpopulated planet to subsidise
procreation.

Simon

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.

--
Regards

Tony Hogarty
(Take out the garbage to reply)

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.

Tony

Tony Raven said:

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.

Correct motorcycle.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Simon Brooke said:

We already do heavily subsidise parents for their choices. I pay just as
much for your children's education as you do, despite not having

You might care to look at it as paying, retrospectively, for your own
education.

ian