And I'm sorry to hear that. This was a new situation for everyone with very little guidance and nothing from up above. Ones I worked with made every effort to try and make sure the children didnn't miss out on anything . The delivery and provision was patchy across the country I understand that but there was nothing in place to facilitate a large number of children or deliver remotely with accounts etc not being in place. It's something I worked on with the schools we worked with and I don't think anyone thought it would go on so long
Well, my kid has just come home today with a 70 odd page homework book for maths during the summer holidays. Lol, the main page spelt "sumer" Based on the fact that I can't take them out during term time for being fined, I won't be letting me lad do this work during holidays. For Christ sake, if I take a 2 week holiday myself, I'm not expected to take my work gear abroad. So absolutely no chance my kid is doing homework during school holidays. It's getting burnt. And a stern message being sent to the school tomorrow saying so, as they have been told non completion will result in detention. Absolutely **** off. Over my dead body is my kid being subjected to extra work during holidays that he and I are entitled to spend together. My lad has 99 percent attendance for the entire year. He missed 2 days. Whilst we went down London for a family funeral. And his grades are above average and beyond what I expected. Rant over
To be fair the school weren't too bad bad then. I once had a family bereavement and after the funeral wasn't feeling too great I just booked a week holiday and went when returning I explained to the headteacher and she was okay with it and never received a fine. Although it would have been harsh if I had.
I’m a teacher and all of us at our school don’t moan one bit about kids going away. We weirdly encourage it. We get priced out but pay it cos the industry we’re in. Parents shouldn’t have to if they don’t work in schools. Students should be given two weeks authorised absence where they can go away. They’ll learn a lot more exploring different countries, spending times with family members and seeing different cultures rather than learning about Pythagoras’ Theorem, Trigonometry and Specific Heat Capacity.
As I say I don't doubt people worked hard, they weren't the ones making unnecessary and hurtful policy they ruined lives. Policy became infected with group think and narrow thought. Little consideration was given to the socio-economic impact of decisions and as such little or no mitigation was put into place.
Our daughter's school has been pretty uncooperative. We've not been fined, but they've refused to authorise absences, despite knowing that my wife has family abroad in a country which is very difficult to travel to. Last year we got stranded in Russia for two weeks after the Easter holidays due to bureaucratic reasons, and the school actively refused to send her work (with the exception of one or two teachers) despite our daughter constantly emailing them to try and get it sent. Most of them said she could catch up when she got back, but gave her zero support when she did return. This is how they treat a kid who is rarely off ill, and is consistently in the top 1-2% in her year group across all subjects in a selective grammar school. It's petty beyond belief.