100% OT; school holidays

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

"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. chapmancentral.co.ukchapmancentral.co.ukOpen ↗

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.

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 clune.orgclune.orgOpen ↗ "Technolibertarians make a
philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook

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

Arthur Clune said:

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

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!).

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

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

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

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)
jasmine.org.uk~simonOpen ↗

;; 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. chapmancentral.co.ukchapmancentral.co.ukOpen ↗

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

"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