Lyn

No chance of a long weekend, the Academic Review day is a Wednesday. We still have the normal parents evening which for year 10 is in April.

I'm totally baffled

Regards Jackie

Re: Academic review meetings. We call them Pupil Progress meetings. We have 2 per year, one about now and the other in May/June time

The idea behind it (and it wasn't a teacher that thought this up) is that the form tutor and child with or without a parent there discusses the start made to the year and their progress. What targets they might have and how to achieve them. Interviews take 15 mins. We only invite parents to the first one not the second on later in the year when we look at how well or not the pupil has achieved against the targets set. It matters not to me if a parent attends or not. It is nice to meet them but if they can't make it its not a problem.

I have mixed feelings about it. It helps some kids but makes no difference to a lot. The kids lose 2 days teaching again that can be critical in a module that may only have 14 available lessons over a term.

Being a teacher I have never been able to attend any such meetings for my own kids as I can't get time off work!

Good idea about putting all 5 teacher days together in one week. However having sat through about 80 dire INSET days in my teaching career to date I think I would lose the will to live by Wednesday of that week.

Hi De Hi

I can see the point of them if we didn't have the normal parents evening plus all the written progress reports we have throughout the year. Sounds like teachers enjoy the inset days as much as the parents enjoy having the kids home for an extra day . Are they really beneficial to teachers or are they a bit like the Academic reviews, helpful to some and make no difference to others.

Regards Jackie

Just a point of information. INSET days are not an extra days holiday for the kids. The 5 days per year were taken out of the teacher's holidays by Ken Baker (Sec of ed) in 1979. The kids are in school for 195 days but the teachers are in for 200. Basically Ken cut the Summer hol from 7 to 6 weeks and spread the other 5 days round the year.

Ken's thinking was that when he looked at school car parks in the week before the summer hol ended he would see loads of teacher's cars because the staff would be in there preparing for the new term. He reasoned that if that was the case then we wouldn't miss the week and so took it off us!

Hi de hi

I know the inset days are not 'extra' as such but when we as parents are given the dates of half terms and then two days before they break up they are sent home with a letter stating that the Friday before the half term and the Monday after will be inset days, they are 'extra' days that parents who work or have child minders have got to arrange at short notice. It wouldn't be so bad if they gave a bit more notice; surely they have an idea as to what school holiday they are going to attach them to.

Could the NUT have done something about teachers losing these five days from their holidays if enough were against it. I am sure by the time the holidays come round you are all ready for them.

Regards Jackie

We're in Scotland and our council sets the inset days at the start of the school year. The schools are put into cluster groups (ours has 3 secondary schools plus all the feeder primaries) and the whole cluster is off on these days. The council also puts the details of the inset days on the school holiday page of its website so that parents know all the days when their kids will be off.

Hi All

Couldn't resist coming back into this topic just to give you an update on the Academic Review I had with my son's head of year. He is in year 10 so studying for GCSE's. His head of year went through every subject that he is taking and she told me his expected GCSE Grades for each.

Now I know that my son is not stupid and throughout his school years has always maintained good grades. We went through the subjects and his expected GCSE grades were A* - B. Very good I told her; now the fun starts. The final subject that we discussed was Geography. I sat patiently whilst his head of year told me his expected Grade (A), she then went on to tell me that his Geography teacher could not praise him enough, how he was one of his best students blah blah blah. I let her finish her speech then stated that although I was aware he was bright I didn't realise that he was a genius. I then pointed out to her that he did not choose Geography as one of his options but she had missed out ICT which he does do so please could she tell me his expected Grade for that subject. The look on her face was priceless as was her embarrasment. God help our kids if this Head of Years performance was anything to go by.

Regards Jackie

. the question still remains tho Jackie was your son in fact an ICT genius and likely to get an "A" or was the head of year actually talking about another child all the way through your interview

lyn

Lyn

I am pleased to say that all his expected grades were A* - B. I am not as stupid as the head of year, I did ask if all the other expected grades where correct and if she had the right child. She assured me they were and it was just an error on the schools part that they had him down for Geography and not ICT.

And to top it all I have just had a phone call from the school saying that his requested holiday for the last three days of this term have NOT been approved; we are off to Tenerife on the 15th. I phoned the school and asked them; as on the last day they finish at midday, the day before that they also finish at midday in order to deliver parcels to the local pensioners and the Friday they are watching videos in most lessons what exactly is my son going to miss. The reply was nothing at all, and after speaking to the head of the upper school he informed me that as long as the school have been informed where he will be on those three days he will not be marked as being truant and to enjoy our holiday. What is the point in putting in a holiday request to have it denied then to be told 'enjoy your holiday'. Think the staff have been at the sherry a bit early.

Regards Jackie

Hi Jackie Maybe your son should try sitting the Geography exam anyway - obviously he's going to pass with flying colours based on his excellent grades so far without even having any work submitted for this subject My son dropped History and Media in Year 11 after passing both exams with the required grades at the end of Year 10. He joined the Psychology class in Year 11 (and did extremely well, even taking, and passing the advanced paper) but even right up till February of Year 11 he was still on the register for Media and History and his name could never be found on the register for Psychology
Hope you have a great holiday - you'll need it after all that!
And by the way - I'm sooo jealous - I wish we could go away for xmas, but we have those "every year for the rest of your life" family commitments

Hi Jackie. Unfortunatly these things happen and it is usually (though not always) down to our over reliance on not very good IT systems in schools.

As for the holiday permission it may well be that the school has a policy on not granting permission for holidays in term time but the Head of year you spoke to is more pragmatic.

The only things that will happen with your son missing the three days is that he will have 6 sessions (half days) of unauthorised absence on his record, not really a problem if he is otherwise a good attender (92% or better) and the school will have a larger unauthorised absence rate than it need have.

Perhaps he should have taken Geog. More fun than ICT anyday in my opinion! and you get field trips

Cyberspacekadette

That is exactly what is happening with my son. Every week since September I have had a letter telling me he has not attended school for the last lesson every Tuesday(ICT). When I queried it with the school they found that he was not on the register for that lesson. He's on the Geography one though so that's OK

Hi De Hi

Will the absence be unauthorised though as I am informing them where he will be during this time. I don't know :shrug.

Hope you all have a brilliant Christmas and New Year

Regards Jackie

It is the school that decides whether an absence is 'authorised'. So if you have taken your child out of school and the school refuses to accept your explanation for the absence then the school has not authorised the absence. It's a bit academic really unless someone has a child that either misses a huge amount of time through ill health. Then it should be authorised up until a point where the school or LEA require some sort of medical opinion to continue authorising. If a pupil takes regular unauthorised absences then the school may contact a Social worker to call round and see why the pupil does not attend. Neither of the above would apply in your case though.

And if anyone is wondering why I am posting in work time. I am typing this whilst supervising 'naughty' pupils in the Isolation room.

Well at least the computer in there works!

For some years until I retired I was a school secretary and still go in to invigilate exams. I used to send out a standard letter to parents who asked for their children to take holidays in term time saying it could not be authorised and would therefore be considered an unauthorised absence. So far so good and of course we knew parents would still take their children away, but it used to amuse me at the end of the year how many of these were changed to 'authorised' absences so that the school kept its place in the league tables

I can quite believe that Aslemma - thank you

Aslemma

That is exactly what the head told me when I asked would my son be marked as truant or unauthorised absence as they had not approved the holiday. He said neither because although they had not approved it I had informed the school where he would be so it would be marked as authorised. Confusing or what

Regards Jackie

Mrs Chivas here. Our local authority has decided that schools cannoct sanction holdiays for pupils. Their is a blanket ban on this from the LEA. Letters went out in November. How they police this I dread to think.

As for exams through the year there are now options to do modular courses. Many AS exams can be sat in January or June. This is not the government doing - this is the exam boards doing. For example in my subject pupils sit 2 AS papers. We choose to enter pupils for both in the summer exam period (exam some time in June) but could enter them for one in Jan and one in June if we wished to teach to that time frame. Worth noting is that fact that exams shift in time each year. My subject has been examined in the last 6 years anywhere from end of May to the middle of June at AS. The GCSE has moved from early to late June.