There's More to Education than School

HE topic of fines issued to parents and guardians for a child’s non-attendance at school continues to rear its ugly head. I fully expect, with the school holidays on the horizon, we shall see and hear much more about it.

Personally, although I think it is absolutely vital that we ensure our children take full advantage of all the opportunities that a free education can offer, I believe this “big stick” approach is wrong.

While I agree that in the past some, but by no means all, parents have had a rather lax attitude towards school attendance, there are circumstances in which absence is not necessarily detrimental. As a society we must look at education in a much rounder sense than just that provided within a school environment with a fairly rigid approach to the curriculum.

Learning and achievement can take many forms and travel and exposure to new experiences is one of the most rewarding. With some “blue sky” thinking schools should be able find ways in which learning can continue to take place no matter where the pupil is physically situated.

There are those parents who choose to home school or send their children to private school, and the inspection regime that so closely dictates the agenda of local authority educational provision is much more flexible in approach.

There is of course the argument that it is the responsibility of parents, in putting their offspring first, to manage their lives accordingly, but this is easier said than done.

For many families, especially where perhaps one parent works away, or in the case of several children being at different schools with different term times, the dilemma of what to do with children during school holidays and when to take any kind of affordable holiday, can be a challenging one to resolve.

What we must do is to have meaningful dialogue at a local level to look for ways in which we can to find an appropriate solution. I’ve seen very little about how and where the fines paid are to be spent by the schools in question, boosting ever-depleting funds I suspect. Surely not?