i think the original subject of the topic was double standards by schools..

Zebedee..how would your child's education suffer just because another child in the class is going to Tenerife for the 5th year in a row? Your child would still be at school and not missing any lessons...

The standard of education at my son's school is a mixed bag..there are some very good teachers and there are equally some very poor ones who would perhaps be better off in another profession. My son has been taught by both and it shows in the standard of work he produces for those teachers and by the enjoyment he gets out of lessons. Luckily, he is a bright boy and is able to keep up with any school work he might miss when we go on holiday. We are always careful when we go on holiday so that we try to avoid any times when he might be doing exams.
Neither myself or Rob are in the fortunate position of being able to take holidays off in the summer months when the kids are off school..and equally we can't really afford the astronomical prices charged. Therefore, Gav will miss some school time so we can take a holiday. We try to minimise it and he is never usually doing much work in December anyway as they are on the wind down to Christmas when we snatch a week.

Right now, my son is on his second week of 3 off school due to a move to a new site. He is due to return to school on March 5th after being off since Feb 12th..this was part of my original point about double standards from schools. They whine if a parent takes a child out for 11 days instead of 10, yet because of their bad planning, the kids are off school for 15 days ( the move could have been done over the Easter period when the school was shut for 2 weeks and then the kids might have only lost a couple of days off school either side of the holiday rather than all this time now).

Zebedee..how would your child's education suffer just because another child in the class is going to Tenerife for the 5th year in a row? Your child would still be at school and not missing any lessons...

Because when they come back the teacher has to spend time helping them catch up inorder to be able to move everyone in the class on to the next topic!

The standard of education at my son's school is a mixed bag..there are some very good teachers and there are equally some very poor ones who would perhaps be better off in another profession.

I could not agree more but while there is a lack of good teachers this will continue to be a problem and a poor teacher is better than none.

he is never usually doing much work in December anyway as they are on the wind down to Christmas when we snatch a week.

its not that long since I left school but every ones excuse these days seems to be that they don't do any work in the week before the holidays. i don't know if this is true or not, it certainly wasn't when I was at school but if it is I suspect its because up to a third of the class are taken out to go on holiday so there is no point the teacher trying to teach any part of the curriculum anyway.

Right now, my son is on his second week of 3 off school due to a move to a new site. He is due to return to school on March 5th after being off since Feb 12th..this was part of my original point about double standards from schools.

I understood your point and tried to explain it. It may seem like a move could have been done over easter but I'd hope this would have been considered and done if at all possible. i'm sure that the move was planned to ensure minimal disruption but the fact is schools have massive contraints and the logistics of these things are never easy. Also I repeat that giving a whole cohort of children the same period of time off is not as disruptive to education as each child taking different weeks off.

i respect your point about all children being off at once..but the problem is that it is only my son's year that have been given these 3 weeks off. Years 7 and 9 didn't get any time off, Year 8 are getting a different week and year 11 are left to fend for themselves so to speak as they are leaving school and doing exams shortly. Year 10 is classed as an "inbetweeny" year, ie: they did SAT's last year and do GCSE's next year and so they were given the whole 3 weeks off. The other school where i live is also moving to a new site and their kids are getting a month off after Easter..so some kids will not be at school for 6 weeks.

also, with all due respect to

Because when they come back the teacher has to spend time helping them catch up inorder to be able to move everyone in the class on to the next topic!

. your child's education could also be disrupted by a teacher having to spend time helping a child who has been genuinely ill catch up with missed work..or even spend extra time helping children who suffer with educational difficulties..

In Birmingham next year we break up on Thursday 20th march and return to school on Monday 7th April!

My wife has booked to take me to Toronto this easter for my 50th Birthday. The only way she could fit the break in was if I have the Friday afternoon off school to catch the flight. She contacted my headeacher and she is allowing me to finish work at 11.30 on that Friday so I can catch the plane. This is leave of absence and will be unpaid. However the loss of 1/2 a days pay is nothing compared to the hike in price if we had to fit the break inside the holiday. I wait for cries of unfair from sanji!

Its got absolutely nothing to do with how much anyone gets paid.
Salaries are based on supply and demand. If you think you should be paid more, and can get more else where then go. If you can't then think yourself lucky you have a job. If you love your job so much it you'd do it anyway then I imiagine lots of other people feel the same way and that's why you get paid less. If the whole reward package (including job satisfaction) were so bad then there wouldn't be any nurses and the pay would go up.

It's got everything to do with pay, your annual income decides your lifestyle.
Considering the NHS is the biggest employer in the UK, then apart from either leaving Britain or migrating over to the already full private sector, then where exactly can you go.?
I believe the same applies to teachers.
Supply and demand, ? is that why we have been recruiting nurses from places like the Philippines ? so if your theory is correct, the shortage of nurses should have put their salaries up.?
I will agree with you that nurses love their job but they don't threaten to withdraw their labour and walk out, at the drop of a hat.
Maybe that is why they are taken for granted and put up with the emotional "blackmail" from everyone in society.

There's nothing "lucky" about having a job as a nurse, it takes a special kind of person to do the job, just as I believe it take a special person to be a teacher, but Nurses don't whinge like teachers.

I wait for cries of unfair from sanji!

Not from me. I'm just remembering how "lucky" I was to have a job working unsociable hours shovelling and vomit up for X amount of years and paid a pittance for the priviledge, and at the same time "fighting" just to get the same weeks holiday as my husband, year after year

Sanji x

I can't speak for the situation with regard to nursing but the reason why newly trained teachers are being paid more is because there were real recruitment problems. They just weren't getting enough people applying to train as teachers - the crisis was so great that people willing to train for teaching in shortage subjects such as Maths now even get 'golden hellos' to entice them into teaching as a career. Not only where they not getting enough new teachers but up here in Scotland at least they couldn't keep hold of those they had, so as a result of the McCrone report it's now possible for experienced classroom teachers who have updated their skills etc through the Chartered Teacher system to earn up to £40,000 a year. Of course this has now had a knock on effect for the Universities trying to recruit experienced teachers to come and train the next generation of teachers because with salaries at that level, joining an Education Dept in a University would meant that many of them would not only have to take a cut in salary but would also get fewer holidays!

In London at least they were doing the equivalent of hiring nurses from the Phillipines by hiring teachers from Australia and South Africa but there are real problems with continuity as most of said teachers were not looking to make a new life here but were doing as part of post-training gap year and were going home after a couple of years, especiallyas they couldn't afford to buy homes here. And no doubt writing it up on their CV to help them get promotions back home! In the end, these things are about market forces and for good or bad, depending on your perspective, there is not the equivalent pool of trained teachers willing to work for the sort of salaries that perhaps Phillipino nurses are.

SM

I have the utmost respect for both professions but i would say it is a lot harder to become a nurse than it is to be a teacher. A teacher can become qualified by getting a degree of any sort and then doing a year PGCE.. a nurse takes a degree specific to becoming a nurse and right at the beginning of that has to specify which branch of nursing they are going into: Adult, Mental Health, Children's. Learning Disability or Midwifery but the first year is the same for all disciplines. There are also endless hours working on placement. How many teachers would willingly spend a saturday night scraping up blood, vomit and snot in A & E clearing up after drunks?
Teachers have it a load easier than nurses!

So many points to address, where to start....

I would regard dealing with life and death is far more responsible than a educating a child....pass me the handkerchief.!

I would never for one minute belittle the job of anyone entering in the health proffession! In fact I think what they get paid is a disgrace!! I was by no means referring to nurses when I commented on people getting paid more for having less responsibility.

In return though, I would not expect fellow proffessionals to disparage teaching. At the end of the day, would there be nurses and doctors without education?

I also want to make it clear that I was not 'moaning' about my job. I love it! I was simply writing in reply to all the people that commented about teacher's having it cushy and basically earning more than they deserve. I knew exactly what I was entering in to when I trained and would not change it.

Getting back on topic, many of my parents take their children out of school to go on holiday and I understand the reason's why they do this. We just have mutual respect for each other, so they give me notice so that I can send extra work home with the children so that they haven't fallen hugely behind when they return, so limiting the knock on effects.

Sunaholic x

I was a nurse for all my working life and did 2 years voluntary before starting my nurse training.I loved my job and in the early years my friend got paid more than me for working in Mothercare!.Would I be a teacher?not for all the tea in China!.To get back on topic theres a mother near me that is going to court on March 1st for taking her child on holiday after being refused permission.She is facing a jail sentence!.

i read about that in the paper!!!!

I do think that is ever so slightly going to the extreme! there are so many things wrong with this country and so many issues regarding terror, immigration, law and order, transport, inadequacies both within the NHS and the education system and some poor mother is being prosecuted for taking her kid out of school.... will there be any room in the jails to send her to? or maybe she could take the place of a p***ophile left free to roam the streets....

lets get things into perspective here...

Right, i have the utmost respect for all good teachers. I have every respect for those in the nursing profession.. i respect the fact that every single person in all types of profession have got a significant role to play in our society...i just can't understand who has the right to dictate when or not i can take my holidays with my family...which is the position it appears that i am in.

I dont know alot about being a nurse except what i have seen when my son has been in hospital..... he has eczema,asthma,peanut allergy amongst others.But i know quite a bit about teachers as a couple of my friends are teachers.... and they say the worst thing about teaching is the abuse and lack of support they get from the parents

Val,As my holidays were allocated,usually in June,I had to keep my children off school or do without a holiday.I think the mother facing jail has kept her child off school before.I think its extreme as he is in primary school but I think they may jail her to stop other parents taking holidays in term time.

This topic seems to be now turning into a teacher vs nurse debate which is better suited to forums elsewhere on the world wide web.

So safe this topic being closed, may I suggest that we refrain from making these comments even though they might be interesting

Many thanks

MarkJ HT Mod

i just can't understand who has the right to dictate when or not i can take my holidays with my family...which is the position it appears that i am in.

I can't speak for everyone, but I think you will find it is probably the stance that your local LEA (enforced by the government) is taking rather than the school or individual teachers. At our school we fully understand that holidays sometimes run in to term time, but we have to be seen to be inviting parent's in to discuss with them how we can not authorise it.

Not sure this hepls much though

If you want to know the dates of holidays to the particular school that your child attends, then this site will tell you by simply putting in your postcode.
click here

i just can't understand who has the right to dictate when or not i can take my holidays with my family...which is the position it appears that i am in.

It seems the head teacher has that right, but I must say that the folowing link (by being typed in red) is enough to rattle anyone.

click here

sanji x

Not all teachers whinge sanji, bit of a sweeping statement you made there!

Thanks to all that contributed to the topic.....

Will lock this one now

MarkJ HT Mod