School Term Time Fines

Pont

blueberrypie wrote: »

Various people can issue fixed-penalty notices for truancy:

From http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Schoolslearninganddevelopment/YourChildsWelfareAtSchool/DG_066966
"As an alternative to prosecution, authorised local authority staff, police officers and headteachers can issue penalty notices to parents of children who are not attending school regularly. The penalty is £50, rising to £100 if not paid within 28 days. If you fail to pay a penalty fine, you will be prosecuted."
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Good grief - I stand well and truely corrected! When on earth was this one sneaked through?
Still I guess the argument would centre on the statement on 'not attending school regularly'. If a child is attending school every week throughout the year and then takes a one-off holiday they would still be termed a regular attender (as the holiday would be a irregular occurance).
I've got to say if I received any such penalty notice - I would see them in court! As a matter of interest who were the cheques made out to (for those who have received these fines for taking a holiday during term time)?

Spendless

Curlywurli wrote: »

I wish that I could take ten days off work during term time, but I think that this would possibly cause uproar! People are quite happy to let their children take ten days off, but how would you feel if your child's teacher took ten days off?

So long as you are a primary school teacher, you don't want to go the very first 2 weeks of the new academic year or you want to go when children take sats if you teach those years it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

Our council website says how much it fines £50 per child, per parent. I assume this means that they will fine each parent regardless of whether they live in the same household or not?? Or doesn't it? It doesn't say anythingabout it being per week though.

Zziggi

Spendless wrote: »

So long as you are a primary school teacher, you don't want to go the very first 2 weeks of the new academic year or you want to go when children take sats if you teach those years it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

Our council website says how much it fines £50 per child, per parent. I assume this means that they will fine each parent regardless of whether they live in the same household or not?? Or doesn't it? It doesn't say anythingabout it being per week though.

£50 per child, per parent, per week. It is irrelevant whether one parent (usually dad) lives in the same household or not. I do know of one dad who got a £100 penalty notice because his ex took their daughter out of school on an unauthorised holiday. He got fined £100 as she was away for 2 weeks and he was completely unaware of it as he lived about 200 miles away and there were "contact issues" after a messy divorce. he tried to challenge it but was told that he hadparental responsability so he is responsible (as is his wife) of ensuring school attendance for his daughter. I did think this was a bit harsh.

Zziggi

I object to these fines and the fact that this whole authorised/unauthorised absence thingy requires me as a parents to "ask" the school's permission to go away so they can authorise the absence. I know that fines and court action is needed for some families but it is just waaay too much for the "average" "normal" family.

To lie would be the easiest way to avoid a fine and I can fully understand why some people would do this. Get a (fake) letter from your boss to say you can only take term-time holidays is another method for those who have friendly bosses as schools usually accept these (or they do round here). When i found out that our school is now obliged by the LEA to go down this "fining" route OH and me decided that we were not prepared to lie (or not at the minute) nor would we turn down a holiday in term-time if WE felt it was what is best for OUR family. I don't wish to lie because (a) my kids wouldn't be able to keep their mouths shut! (b) sun tan!! (c) it makes the parent look like a fool when staff sense what has gone on and makes the parents look untrustworthy. So the only way i feel that i can do this is refuse to financially support the school anymore. We would only ever go away for a week and with 2 kids, I reckon i put in close to £100 per year in all those little events that are forever cropping up. So if i don't cough up these donations then i have that money to pay my fine (if i am given one). I am not happy with this situation because i feel i should contribute to school trips and support them with their £2s for x y or z. But what do i do? I am not prepared to lie, i am not prepared to "ask" permission from the school and i am not prepared to be out of pocket for things I do not feel i should be penalised for. I've been keeping a tally so far this year from september and it's £44 I've kept back. I don't feel what i am doing is right but sometimes you have to decide what you believe is correct for your own children/family. I know if loads of parents in the school did this then school trips would suffer as would all the "extras" the kids get and it doesn't feel right that my kids go on trips that i haven't paid a fiver for. However many, many parents openly lie and report illnesses when they go away, also i know of many who have blatently "lied" by their boss stating they must have 2 weeks off in term-time. These parents still cough up for school trips. I guess we all deal with it our own way. The bottom line is, is that these rules generally affect those parents who are not the real problem that these rules are supposed to affect. Also these rules turn "decent" parents into liars (or in my case, a tight aarse) for wanting quality family time within their means.

Had kids in school for 3 years and this year I took them out for 3 days. I was told i must fill in a holiday form to "ask permission" as this was the only way an absence would even be considered. I didn't but wrote a polite but firm letter to the Head stating what i was doing and why and that I hoped he would see fit to authorise the break. It was authorised. i don't intend on taking the kids out again but if i get a free Pontins break in the summer, I may do so.

monkeyspanner

Rosie75 wrote: »

Unfortunately it is never the parents, but the schools who get the blame when results and / or attendance are not up to scratch, and who are subsequently penalised financially or - in the worse cases - threatened with closure. I suspect we probably agree, however, that there needs to be a significant move towards personal, rather than state, responsibilty.

In the school my daughter attends the school takes credit for reasonably good results in science and maths. In fact this level of results is attained due to a large proportion of parents paying for private tuition in science and to a lesser degree maths. I know of a large number of parents who have taken this up with both the headteacher and the governors to no effect other than the kids being subject to sarcasm and worse from the teachers involved, because personal information about the complaints are routinely passed back to the teachers. As a result most parents in this situation keep their heads down to protect their children.

So it can work the other way that a school can appear much better than it is because the parents have recognised there ....."needs to be a significant move towards personal, rather than state, responsibilty" and taken the action needed, and in effect subsidised the school teaching budget.

vikingaero

I have mixed opinions on this.

A holiday isn't a right, it's a privilege. As a parent I value my childrens education more than a silly trip abroad. For one parent to justify the trip just because they may be watching DVDs doesn't validate removing your child from school. Another parent may well justify important lessons in the run up to tests as irrelevant.

At DD1&2's school we have one parent who insists it's their family tradition to take their children away to Wales in the first and second week of the January term. Coupled with the fact that their children are fragile and have high levels of asbsence due to illness. The point I'm using about this family are that they are likely to have pished off the school and make authorised absences harder for the rest of us in the future.

There are ways of mitigating costs. For instance we like a week in Cornwall every summer. But the lodges we rent are £1,200 for a week in the summer and only £400 when we rented pre-school days. We figured that as it takes us just as long to drive from Kent to Cornwall as it does for Kent to Scotland then we would head to Scotland where a lodge is costing us £700. Although part of the reason to visit Scotland is that it's never really that busy up there.

blueberrypie

Pont wrote: »

Good grief - I stand well and truely corrected! When on earth was this one sneaked through?

I believe it was about three years ago - I remember reading about it, but didn't pay a great deal of attention because it doesn't affect us directly - we are a) not in E&W, and b) home-educators - but you learn a lot of stuff about LA powers (real and imagined ;-)) when you hang out on home-education forums ;-)

shimmershelly

Once again, thanks to everyone for their input. It has been an interesting thread to read. To be honest, if we are having our family holiday somewhere within Europe, I prefer to go July or August. That six week holiday can seem really long when you are trying to find things to amuse the kids and a two week trip abroad really breaks it up, which is why I haven't taken my children out of school for years. We've been to Florida twice in school holidays over the years but had a fortnight of thunderstorms and extremely high humidity both times, plus it's hurricane season then. It's only an idea to go to Florida again this year, we probably won't even go. We have a house on the market over there and hopefully it will be sold by then, although their property market is as bad as ours. Just fancied a last holiday before we say goodbye to it
Thanks again for all your replies, I didn't mean to open a can of worms

Spendless

shimmershelly- have you looked to see what date yur children are back at school after summer hols. Mine start back thurs 3 sept but talking to someone who lives in midlands her kids don't go back till tues 8 sept and when i checked the holiday prices come right down for the end of august.

zziggi- please have you got any links about fining per parent, per child, per week. Just loooked up my council's again to see if they've added 'per week' but they've changed the website since xmas when i last looked and there's only references to a £50 fixed penalty notice, but not how it's made up.

This question is on behalf of a relative- her children attend a different school to mine, all in the same town, same LEA. Her kids will go to a different secndary to mine. All schools under my relatives kids school pyramid have been told no holidays can be authorised in term-time(blanket ban) from 1st jan 09 but no other schools in the town have had this rule put on them. Can an LA say schools under x pyramid no term-time hols but not say this to all the rest of the schools in my town?

PolishBigSpender

There are fines if you take your children out of school?

Whatever next?