Bulgaria Ski discussion board

So with this proposal from Gove the twonk to prevent head teachers from showing some discretion re taking kids out of school and completely banning it, I have to put a stake in the ground.

I will continue to take my children out of school for family holidays at a time that suits us. Of course, it's important to take the timing into account and but at the ages my kids are I see absolutely no problem with it.

I resent the attitude of the state on this matter when teachers regularly take inset days during term time (there is one today for example - a day after half term), cry off because of some snow or show the kids a film as "a treat" on a Friday afternoon.

This move will do nothing to stop truancy and if Gove thinks this will prevent kids rioting then he is living in some alternative reality.

I could not afford to take the kids skiing in half term, especially if our summer holiday doubles in price going in school holidays. The travel companies are fleecing families with the prices they charge in holidays and I would rather pay a fine than pay their rip off prices.

There will be a time when I won't really have a choice due to exams etc. but until then I will not be told what to do by that fathead.

I run my own business and my attendance is critical but even I can organise things to take time off. It seems ridiculous to assume that kids cannot cope with a small distruption to their normal routine - especially when younger. When I was young I had two periods of extended illness (3 weeks or so), I also had 3 months off college due to to a bad road accident. I still managed to pass all my exams.

Who's with me?

[jez steps off soap box and back to web cams...]

Oooooo, don't get me started

The overzealous paranoid nanny state that the UK has become is simply the destruction of personal choice, liberty and common sense. The government with its continued expansion of removing decisions from individuals where there own lives are concerned is harping to an era more akin to `1984' where the self serving faceless minority dictate to the masses. The governments propaganda pushed daily through controlled media leads us to believe that we are threatened around every corner, and that we are either to stupid or incapable to decide on a suitable course of action, especially where the welfare of our children is concerned...
Jez, go for it, life experience for a growing child is much more important than anything he/she may learn in a classroom...
Of course there will be an onslaught of baying, `the UK is not as bad as you make out etc etc'.... I'm sorry, it is, and its getting worse, sadly the amount of apathy amongst the populace will not produce change any time soon...

I am with you also, so much that we are taking our daughter out of school next week to go to boro. Infact our daughter has no school today because the school is closed to pupils because of a "parent and teacher review". In our day it was called parents evening, and was done in the evening not in school time. They can't have it both ways.
To be fair to our school they are very good about allowing time off, just fill out a form and you are allowed 2 weeks with their permission. The reason being we live in a holiday town and alot of parents earn their living in the holiday period, hence they can not go on holiday themselves at the same time.
This gov proposal is seriously flawed.