“About three weeks into it all I went up to the headteacher and said, ‘sir, you know what’s going to happen and the time has come, we’re going to have to leave on March 4. Unfortunately because everything’s up in the air the kids are going to be gone about three weeks’.
“He said, ‘wow, you can’t get three weeks off, I won’t confirm it’.
“I said there’s nothing you can do about it, I have got to take the kids. We have never been apart.
“We went, we came back and I received a notice from the council that we were fined.”
Well, you can't say you
weren't warned...
Craig, who is disabled because of a spinal injury, said it was important he travelled with his family because his wife, Nicola, 33, is his carer.
Bet he 'can't work'. But
can go lay down the law to the head & travel...
He added: “The headteacher said the kids should have just gone to Jamaica for one week and your wife should have come back with the kids and left me there.
“I said how can I come back home? I’m vulnerable.”
Really?
“I paid the fine but I just think it’s not fair because it’s not humane, it can’t be human to think like that, to think that somebody’s family does not matter.”
Like your kids' education & the rules
everyone else has to follow don't matter, you mean?
11 comments:
The standard of education is this country is so piss-poor that three weeks away is hardly going to make any difference, although I agree that 'rules is rules'.
That very expresion says it all.
If the fine was less than the extra cost of taking the kids in the school holidays, what's the problem?
Penseivat
"Dad-of-three Craig Fowler planned a 9,000-mile round trip to attend the funeral after his brother was shot 15 times in Jamaica.
But when he asked to take his two daughters, Shaniya, ten, and Shenae, six, away "
At that point, right there, is where I stopped reading the 'article'.
I'm ambivalent about cases like this. Yes, 'rules is rules' but the interfering bansturbators and busybodies who infest education are unsympathetic to say the least.
The rules are stupid and irrational. My daughters went to the local primary school and we always took them out of school for an extra week at Many half term. Children don't actually do much work in primary schools anyway. Even at the local grammars we did the same. Didn't seem to have hurt them. Both went to Cambridge and are running their own - successful - businesses.
It's just envy from the teachers unions.
It's been proved in court that taking kids for a one-off holiday can't be construed as being in breach of the school attendance requirement: it needs repeated absences to do that. His mistake was sticking it up the head: hell hath no fury like a head teacher scorned . . . .
I have a feeling Jannie that the court case that you are referring to has already been overridden by a later precedent. This being in spite of the original decision being obviously correct. It is obvious that this particular law was brought in to deal with terrible parents who failed to ensure that their kids attended school. It is obvious that the law has since been abused by bullying jobsworths. For this reason I have some sympathy for the guy. I fail to see why he is acting surprised though.
Stonyground
From the newspaper article ..."Dad-of-three Craig Fowler planned a 9,000-mile round trip to attend the funeral after his brother was shot 15 times in Jamaica."
Aaaha!T'would appear that melanin-enrichment includes the presumption of immunisation from any legal process.
One might even begin to wonder if the fate which befell Fowler's brother was in any way indicative of his chosen life-style and whether or not siblings frequently have similar life-styles.
Just askin'.
What a pity Craig Fowler decided to live in England and raise his family. Had he stayed in Jamaica he would have been on hand to support his wider family there.
Oops, silly me! In England he can get all the support he needs from the NHS and Benefits Agency.
"The standard of education is this country is so piss-poor that three weeks away is hardly going to make any difference..."
Good point, actually.
"If the fine was less than the extra cost of taking the kids in the school holidays, what's the problem?"
Another good point.
"At that point, right there, is where I stopped reading the 'article'."
Heh! No article like this ever lacks for chavnames.
"The rules are stupid and irrational. "
There is a certain 'can't they both lose?' aspect to these, inevitably...
"His mistake was sticking it up the head: hell hath no fury like a head teacher scorned . . . ."
I suspect this isn't his only absence, somehow.
"What a pity Craig Fowler decided to live in England and raise his family. Had he stayed in Jamaica he would have been on hand to support his wider family there."
Yet another good point!
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