Taking your kids out of school early

[maggie]

Children in our school are allowed up to two weeks authorised absences over the entire school year (These are as well as any sick days they have).  Most use these days to go on holidays. One of my pupils is currently in the Caribbean this week and next week.

[Archie Mitchell]

When I was at school there was no issue of pupils going away on holidays for 1 or 2 weeks. Whats the difference in a pupil going on a family holiday for a week than going on a school holiday for 1 week? Most schools now offer ski trips and that has nothing to do with education. At my school when I was in U6th, around Easter time the senior camogie team went to America for over a week and it wasnt the slightest bit to do with education. And this was in the build up to GCSE/AS/A-Level exams.

[Hardy]

The other burning question that this discussion raises for me is when did people start asking the school's permission to take their children out for a day?

I assume from the above that you have no kids Hardy?

You assume correctly. I have sons, but they are no longer kids. When they were, it was our decision, not the school's, if we needed them to be somewhere other than in school on a particular day. That was provided you didn't do the dog on it and invoke the wrath of the school attendance officer. Not that we were in the habit of taking them out when they should have been in school.

Is it different now?

[whiskeysteve]

Bit of a farce of a non-story today. Thought the first paragraph saying the most expensive rooms cost £1,450 definitely revealed this as a bit of a smear attempt at Ruane. I don't mind hearing criticism for her performance as minister, but a piss-poor attempt at insinuating she put a 7grand bill for the President suite or something on her expenses... insulting to the intelligence of their readers somewhat. Really don't care if it was about Jim Allister and his kid or whatever it reflects poorly on Simon Doyle.

If it turns out there were good personal grounds for the child being taken out, then Simon and the editors should be embarrassed, 4 pages and an editorial 

The Irish News is getting worse, only glance through the GAA these days.

[Aoise]

The Irish News has totally pissed me off this past couple of days!  What annoys me even more is that it seems that they've picked a completely easy target for a smear campaign.  Ruane has hardly had time to breath this past few months and it just seems that they've jumped on the bandwagon.  I've lost all respect for the IN and will stop buying it.  Its not that I'm a defender for Catriona Ruane as I've had issue with some of her policies in the past but I just think this is a low swipe and theres something completely un-Irish about this whole situation.  When did we start using English tabloid heading styles in condemnation?  Stinks!!!

[whiskeysteve]

Yeah, the thing I take from this is to ignore anything they say in future about Ruanes family life. Its not nice to see that writers for the paper have decided to pursue an agenda against her personally, never mind how poorly she has performed as minister. Real tabloid behaviour the way they arranged and blew up figures and the story in general.

Last Irish News bought by me anyway, sorry Paddy Heaney and 'odds and ends' Micheal McWilliams 

[Tyrones own]

Whilst I haven't been following this all that close I must say it is a bit excessive, usually and in my experience
when you see a nothing story such as this making front page and the 6 o'clock news, it's nothing more than
a smoke screen for some other agenda being pushed through whilst the focus is else where.....