A “common sense approach” should be applied to parents in England taking children out of school for holidays, the Local Government Association says. Strict new rules on term-time holidays – including fines – were introduced in 2013 to punish parents over absences. But the LGA says the current system “does not always favour families”.

Campaigners say a “blanket ban” remains unworkable, but schools minister Nick Gibb said the government was determined to raise pupils’ attainment. A Freedom of Information request to councils by the Press Association found 86,010 fines had been issued by 98 councils in 2014-15 for pupil absence – either because of holiday or truancy. The figure was up from 62,204 in 2013-14 and 32,512 in 2012-13.

The LGA says families often struggle with the high cost of holidays out of term-time. Councillor Roy Perry said family holidays can have “social and emotional benefits which are of lasting value and support to children”. “It should not be something for which they are unduly punished,” he said.

And I still favour kids having days off for iconic local events like the Lincolnshire Show. Our children now live in a very urban and media driven world obsessed with common approaches to everything. Its common outcomes not the same way of doing things for everyone that matter – a key principle in our guidance developed for Defra on local level rural proofing- still worth a read

I know I will face many howls of derision when I mention rural proofing, however the issue here is how it is applied not the value of the process itself! Anyway interesting stuff in this article as set out below “Schools, according to the latest Ofsted report, which was released yesterday are getting better. Seventy per cent of schools, according to the report, are now “good”, or better. That’s four per cent more than three years ago, which is, of course, better than four per cent less. But it’s still not good enough. Even the man who wrote the report says it isn’t good enough. He thinks it isn’t “satisfactory” for schools to be “satisfactory”. He thinks his own report could be summed up as “could do better”.

The man who wrote the report, who’s called Michael Wilshaw, and who’s a “sir” outside the classroom too, knows “Ofsted” isn’t the kind of word that cheers a teacher up. He knows it can make teachers forget about the child who’s sitting in front of them, and the things they’re trying to teach them, and the interesting things the child might say. He knows it can make them forget about the stories, and the games. He knows, in fact, that it can make teachers forget about the teaching and think about the test. And he knows that teachers don’t like tests. They don’t like “teaching to the test”, or marking tests, or being put in league tables on the basis of tests.

He knows, because he used to be a teacher, that teachers think teaching isn’t just about tests. In this, they are very much like everybody else. They are, for example, like the people who work in hospitals and care homes, who didn’t decide to train as nurses, or work as healthcare assistants, because they liked ticking boxes on lists.

These people didn’t decide to work on a ward, or in a care home, because they wanted to be put in league tables for how quickly they brought a bed pan, or wiped a bottom. These people think care isn’t about league tables and lists. And they’re right. They’re right that league tables can make you forget about the person you’re meant to be looking after or teaching, and think instead about numbers, and boxes, and lists. And they’re right that you shouldn’t need them. Schools, and hospitals, and care homes, shouldn’t need to be put in league tables. People shouldn’t need to be put in league tables. But, unfortunately, they do.”

I am deligthed to reveal we have just been appointed as part of a consortium to help RCPU develop their new rural proofing materials. Please let me have any thoughts on good practice in terms of the design and delivery of rural services. I mention this in relation to this article as a reflection of the fact that the whole issue of social media in relation to the delivery of services in rural areas is an important and increasingly wide spread element of the rural proofing discussion. Your views would be most welcome!

“The Royal Opera House gets £26,342,464 for 2011-12 but goes down in real terms by 15% to £26,430,676. The Southbank Centre takes a 15% knock but will still receive £20,709,928 for the next three years.”

Outside London, the other big beneficiaries are predictable enough.

“The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) also gets a cut of 15% on its current funding of £16,414,895, going up to 16,466,778. Opera North goes up from £10,060,274 to £10,092,692, another real drop of 15%.”

Have a look at the full list of losers. It would be interesting to understand how much rural proofing went into the development of this list.