Keegan: ‘Unacceptable’ number of parents letting kids skip Fridays

22 comments

1. Who gives a shit. What have they got to look forward to by going to school to either:

   A) Get a minimum wage job

   B) Get a degree, thousands of pounds of debt and get a minimum wage job

2. This literally is bullshit and nonsense. I was a teacher and I’m so sick of this idea that children who aren’t in on a Friday are skipping without cause. Covid hit children hard in this country – really hard. I had three tutees that were off for months with it and still have not recovered fully. One has cardiac problems now and another serious respiratory illness.

   Students who repeatedly aren’t in on Fridays are off school, more often than not, because they’ve done four days and they’re exhausted and broken. There’s a lot of talk about children’s poor mental health post-Covid and, yes, it has worsened. But everyone seems to completely ignore their physical health that has also taken a beating.

   At the school I worked in, we had a huge push for improving attendance (and, being in an affluent area, ours was bloody good compared to the national average). At one after-school session, we went through the persistently absent students and found that, when we excluded those with genuine, long-term, physical illness, our persistent absence rates were lower than pre-Covid. The vast majority of persistently absent children were persistently very unwell.

   There’s absolutely no evidence at all to show that the children who are off aren’t genuinely unwell, there’s no evidence to show that the parents who are working from home want their child there (I now work from home some days and really, really do not want my children here while I try to work). Most people who WFH are just as likely to WFH on Mondays as Fridays – why aren’t the kids all truanting then if WFH is the cause?

3. I can think of quite a few things the tories have done to the education system which most people would consider unacceptable.

   Good to see them shoehorning the old ‘parents working from home’ reason in there though.

   Those commercial landlords need their shoes cleaned again Gillian?

4. Studies show around two fifths of sick days are taken on a Monday or Friday…

5. I think that some parents are being lazy or at least not all the ball with things but I also think that this might be deeper structural issue and that we need to see *why* kids aren’t going to school when they should be, what’s making them do this beyond laziness and holidays.

   Tbf I rarely missed school I think, I only missed it because I was ill/had a doctors appointment or to see family abroad (they all live abroad). I was the kind of person and still am to some extent who disliked missing school.

   Not that I enjoyed school that much but still.

   Lol people are downvoting this comment, but yeah I don’t think that it’s simply lazy parents or kids wanting to go on holiday, there must be other factors at play as the school system is probably failing some pupils (it failed me for the most part).

   Edit also Keegan is so out of touch, like most politicians are but she really isn’t aware of what things are like in education in my opinion (from the perspective of a teacher or student). It’s about time that the this position in parliament is done by someone who has formally worked in education as a teacher or SENCO.

6. Why is a 4 day work week beneficial for adults but not children?

7. Did she say this in Parliament?

   Oh no, wait. It’s Friday, isn’t it? They normally knock off for the week on Thursday afternoon.

8. This is a very British problem. I grew up in Canada and everyone just skipped an odd day here and there, including missing a week to go on holiday with parents. It was normal and kids usually were able to catch up quite easily.

9. I don’t agree with kids skipping school, whatever the excuse or prevalence of it.

   I think there is a much more sinister problem which is that of so called “home schooling”. I know of two young adults in my small family circle that have been “home schooled” for the entirety of their high school years.

   In both cases its left the persons involved damaged in that they have no formal qualifications and they are socially under developed due to the lack of interaction with peers at school. Its now making the transition to work and adulthood very difficult.

   I understand there are frameworks to regulate home schooling but its not been evident on either of these cases and many others I’m sure.

   I would suggest that its close to impossible to provide a high school child the depth and breadth of education and social development provided in a traditional school setting. To deprive them of this is a form of neglect and something the education system should address urgently.

10. The government basically told everyone they didn’t give a shit about kids being in school when they made it essentially illegal to be in the classroom during COVID, not surprising that parents are taking their kids out of school for long weekends

11. Fuck off. Remember covid? Schools open, schools closed, schools open, schools closed. Remember after half term schools were open for a day and then they closed them again. They created this culture.

12. Bless her she’s finally found something to do. Oh it’s punishing parents. In other news these fuckers are complaining people aren’t having enough kids (more tax payers yay!).

13. Question is why are they going to school 5 days a week? I could have hated school half as much if it was 4 days a week.

14. Tried teaching my kids to skip. Didn’t have a long enough rope though.

15. Why would you let your child skip Fridays? Life is already hard and being behind can only make life even harder!

16. Tories really don’t like workers having the power to choose when and where they do their jobs do they.

17. Why is it a problem for Schools and the Government to worry if a child takes the odd Friday off school?

    We’re not talking every friday, just those Friday’s when there is a long weekend or once in a blue moon, I don’t see the issue here.

    Teachers would probably benefit from teaching a smaller class too?

18. > 50,000 more pupils were absent at the end of the week compared with the start

    Oddly, this flips around when you look at [the working world](https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/content/news/workers-are-more-likely-to-be-sick-on-monday-than-any-other-day-of-the-week/). 35% of all sick leave is taken on a Monday, compared to only 3% on a Friday.

19. Lol @ the downright refusal, of those devoid of any practical teaching experience, to believe that the Friday ‘thing’ is actually a thing and possibly getting worse.

    The kicker in the teeth is when it’s obvious that two of your learners, obviously best friends, take a Friday off and return on the Monday with the exact same story.

20. What’s wrong with skipping? Good honest fun and an anaerobic workout.

21. It’s not just parents “letting” kids skip. I have 1 child with 8 years of 100% attendance and 1 child with poor mental health currently at 72% attendance this year. If we were feckless parents, surely both kids would have poor attendance?

    We couldn’t wait for our child to reach the top of the CAMHS wait list, so we are paying hundreds of pounds per month for private therapy. There is a mental health crisis behind these figures also. 

22. Fuck her. Our educational system is outdated and DELIBERATELY opposed to boys. It’s industrial revolution nonsense and FUCK IT.