Schools should be able to fine parents who take their children on holiday without permission
No, they should not. State schools punishing parents because they dare to put their family needs before the diktat of the school is the very epitome of fascism – the state knowing best. Young suggests that a few days out will somehow damage the child’s education. oh, yeah? So when teachers go on strike and cause disruption and loss of school days, that doesn’t?
It will effectively give carte blanche to parents to take their children out of school whenever it suits them…
Yes. Precisely. And this should be their absolute right in a free society. The case in question revolves around a parent wanting to take the child to America for six days for his grandfather’s memorial. Clearly the grandfather chose an inconvenient time to pop his clogs. Should have got permission from the school, I suppose…
A few days out will not damage a child’s education and the matter of ensuring that a child is educated rests with parents, not the state. Schools should not have the power to fine anyone for anything – the very notion of them having quasi-judicial status is an anathema to a free, liberal society.
So, I hope the parent who is challenging this abomination in the courts wins. It really is time the big state was rolled back. And, frankly, Young’s dystopia where schools are prisons whereby day release is at the whim of the governor is one in which I don’t wish to live.
Young’s whole argument rests on two very unpleasant principles – that the state knows best (it doesn’t) and that the parent concerned doesn’t understand the complexities of the school curriculum. Fuck me what a patronising prick this man is. As well as being a vile little fascist.
There’s actually quite an easy solution to this problem. Parents should be given the right to take their children out of school whenever they wish, provided they sign a disclaimer accepting full responsibility if the child’s education is harmed in any way.
Sensible parents who only exercise this right in a few situations under unusual circumstances, such as the one you outline, LR, won’t have any problem with signing such a disclaimer because, as you rightly point out, such absences will have little or no effect on a child’s progress.
Less responsible parents (and, sadly, there are remarkably more of them than many responsible parents realise) who constantly whip their children out of school for a couple of weeks at the end or – worse still – at the beginning of a term, or during vital periods like in the run-up to exams, in order to grab a cheap holiday, won’t then have the right to come whingeing to the school asking for freebie extra lessons or complaining that the school aren’t doing their job when their kids flunk all their tests or come home moaning that all the others know stuff that they don’t.
In a sensible society – one where the state was not expected to wipe everyone’s bums and do their thinking for them – such agreement would be implicit.
Authoritarian shit, not fascist, actually.
But, the period where this is most likely to happen is about now, after the exams, when “school” is filled with “end-of-term activities” usually meaning sports, shudder, or anything at all that has no connection with education.
As if our education system wasn’t totally fuck-up enough already?
I remember sports days. I would wander off to the far end of the field and read a book.
In later years (5th & 6th form) a small hip flask of whiskey accompanied the book while I ‘Marshalled’ the cross country run. 😈
Thinking carefully about what you have written, I think that you’re right, although I don’t think that it’s helpful for a child to miss out on the curriculum and the rest of the class to dumb down to his level (a week or two behind is a lot).
Ultimately, if the parents are the type to abuse that sort of liberty, the child, unless he breaks his mould, is going to turn out shit anyway. A pathetic swot like me would have been aghast at missing school time unless it was serious stuff – the great cities, for example, not an all-inclusive in Gran Chavia.
At my nephews’ school (independent, not in Britain), extended holidays within reason are tolerated, as some of the parents are rich/famous/workaholics. My brother and sister-in-law are sadly only the latter, and want to extract every single penny’s worth out of something they are paying for. If that means touring Europe in ten days, so be it.
As a taxpayer, it’s unfortunate that someone values my contribution to the education of their children so lightly. But until I can pound facts into some chavspawn’s head with a mallet, having him sit in a classroom dreaming of a beach is the same as having him sit on that beach. I’ve still paid.
I just had another thought. It wouldn’t be just the idiots who didn’t want to go to school – what sentient pupil would want to be lectured to by some of the cretins in the State school system?
Ultimately, the parents are the customer and the school is the service provider. It’s about time they started to behave accordingly. As far as taking children out of school… Well, that’s a matter of personal responsibility. We had that once. When I was growing up.