{"id":614,"date":"2009-06-16T16:30:46","date_gmt":"2009-06-16T15:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/?p=614"},"modified":"2009-06-16T20:01:16","modified_gmt":"2009-06-16T19:01:16","slug":"educationeducationeducation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/06\/16\/educationeducationeducation\/","title":{"rendered":"Education….Education…Education…."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Is<\/a><\/p>\n

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I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going on Holiday in October Term time AND taking my 9 year old son with me. I take him out of school every year for a holiday and for other activity days, as was agreed with his school that I be allowed to do so in advance of enrolling him.<\/p>\n

Flexi Schooling<\/a> is the correct term for it.<\/p>\n

I take my responsibility as a parent very seriously and TBK consistently scores in the top percentile in his class\u00c2\u00a0 and receives glowing praise every year from his teachers, he has friends in school who come home to play (please read create havoc<\/em>), and is fully integrated into society, he is bright and articulate, and as bias as I may be as his mother I do have the school reports to back this up, His education and social skills are not suffering because of it, if anything they are prospering.<\/p>\n

YET the local paper is yet again reporting on an increase of “Truancy Fines<\/a>” and while the article itself didn’t really rub me up the wrong way.\u00c2\u00a0 As, I will never have to pay a truancy fine for my son\u00c2\u00a0 as we’ve the proper protocol in place for our educational choices, But taking out holiday leave from the debate,\u00c2\u00a0 it still leaves the question unanswered of WHY these young people feel the need to play truant in the first place?*<\/span>,\u00c2\u00a0 W<\/em>hat really wound me up was the ignorance of some<\/strong> of the commentators who posted both before and after me.<\/p>\n

These trips or in some peoples eyes “absenses” provide an education kids just can’t get when in school and also teaching shouldn’t just happen, and in our life DOESN’T, just happen from 9am – 3pm in the classroom!<\/p>\n

On our holiday, just like last year, we will be teaching TBK Maths (currency conversion), Geography (he knows where we are going and surrounding countries) History, (we often like to visit cultural and historical monuments while away and actively encourage TBK to involve himself in the culture). R.E. (Turkey (this years destination)\u00c2\u00a0 is a predominantly a Muslim country) and much more, all on a one to one basis for periods of time he would never get in the classroom.<\/p>\n

Previously he’s also been out of school to have the opportunity to attend HESFES, (the home educators seaside festival) where he has taken part in wood work and metal work excersizes,\u00c2\u00a0 fabric painting and labyrinth building amongst other things, using skills he’d have never developed sat behind a desk.<\/p>\n

We’ve taken him out of school to have a hands on learning experience\u00c2\u00a0 as a zoo keeper for the day.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s had time off to go to an archery day, and to attend other exhibitions and events. Once, when he was in reception class, I even kept him off school on a Monday JUST so he could have a day off, As over the weekend he had participated in clay building with us, visited a monkey sanctuary, spent an afternoon playing drums and for a child of only 6 this was a lot, he needed the rest!<\/p>\n

So how about we stop stereotyping parents who take their kids out of the classroom for any period of time as losers (as one commentator metioned) or selfish (as another did) and look at the beneifts these extra curricular activities can and do provide!<\/p>\n

The real time and effort should be concentrated on dealing with the parents who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s children aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t getting any education through truancy because the parents just don’t care!<\/p>\n

\n

* Yes I played truant as a teen, and I was duely punished for it by my mother, But I know why I did it. I hated my English teacher and she hated me, proven fact as she marked all my work down and told me , and my mom, I woudln’t get higher than a D,\u00c2\u00a0 myc oursework was sent to the invigulator and came back marked higher and I left school with a B (lit) and a C(lan)\u00c2\u00a0 Take that Mrs Smith! <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Maybe if I’d have been listened to as a teen and moved to another class I’d have attended those sessions I missed and maybe that tis the answer now, listening to what our young people want!<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going on Holiday in October Term time AND taking my 9 year old son with me. I take him out of school every year for a holiday and for other activity days, as was agreed with his school that I be allowed to do so in advance of enrolling him. Flexi Schooling is the … Continue reading Education….Education…Education….<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[63,95,102,140,104,105,1],"tags":[150,148,146,557,147,149,59,61,566,145,58,151],"class_list":["post-614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-health","category-home","category-opinion","category-parenting","category-the-blonde-kid","category-wbiagw","tag-absense","tag-complaint","tag-education","tag-family","tag-flexi-school","tag-holiday","tag-kid","tag-kids","tag-opinion","tag-school","tag-theblondekid","tag-truancy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6WGy-9U","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":135,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2006\/08\/14\/hurrah\/","url_meta":{"origin":614,"position":0},"title":"Hurrah!","date":"August 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The blonde kid has gone on holiday, the big kid has gone out to the pub, My sister is out being a dirty girl in a flat she's \"flat sitting\" with her boyfriend.My step dad has just announced to my bemused mother that he wants some \"bikini shots\" of her(not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "WBIAGW"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":260,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/11\/10\/were-home\/","url_meta":{"origin":614,"position":1},"title":"We’re Home","date":"November 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"We're back off holiday - Ok so we've been back for weeks and I have so much Tunisian goodness to share and I still have hundreds of photographs to process but I've had so much other stuff going on to get around to doing it .... Since getting home Steve\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "WBIAGW"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":151,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2007\/04\/11\/you-better-believe-im-pissed\/","url_meta":{"origin":614,"position":2},"title":"You better believe I’m pissed!!!","date":"April 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Children who grow up without their biological father are more likely to be unemployed, commit crime and leave education early, according to research by think tank Civitas. They are also twice as likely to be homeless. Lone-parent families are three times more likely to live in rented accommodation than couples\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "WBIAGW"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":166,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2007\/07\/13\/back-to-normalish-in-the-world-longest-blog-entry\/","url_meta":{"origin":614,"position":3},"title":"Back to normal(ish) in the world longest blog entry….","date":"July 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, We've been back nearly a week and in typical fashion I have again failed to find time to blog! Ah well nothing surprising about that but this time at least I have an excuse....washing and bloody mountains of it. You know how it is when you return from holiday\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "WBIAGW"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1017,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2011\/03\/16\/a-day-off-school-telling-the-story-of-eqnz\/","url_meta":{"origin":614,"position":4},"title":"A day off school, telling the story of #eqnz.","date":"March 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Today TBK had an unexpected day off school (long story), and as ever when he is off school not through illness or inset day we set him some work to do at home, Maths, Art and some Literacy. TBK wanted to just make up a story, but James wanted something\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Family"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":239,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/09\/02\/ill-never-be-but-i-can-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":614,"position":5},"title":"I’ll never be, but I can do!","date":"September 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've felt \"off\" most of the day. I can't quite out my finger on what was wrong. I'd blame it on PMT but it's not quite that time of the month. I'd blame it on lack of sleep, but I slept just fine. I would even try to say it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Facts About Me"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":619,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions\/619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}