Fined for holiday in school time

chloe99_2

bylro - perhaps it is not the parent that is wrong, but that to which, and the method by which, the school system as it stands today is trying to catch the children up (you do know dont you that most countries on the continent do not begin formal education until age 6 or 7 years, and that by middle secondary school their children have surpassed ours?)

chloe99_2

aarrrggghhh - just read the rest of this thread!!!

Come on people, 3 weeks out of an entire school year??? Do you really think that children who are off sick for 3 weeks can't and don't catch up? Do you really think that the current system of disallowing term time holidays has, in and of itself, improved learning outcomes for the more disadvantaged children? Do you really really think that children from supportive family backgrounds will be educationally disadvantaged from missing 3 weeks out of their entire 13 year school career???!!!

OP - I hope you challenged the fine with ed welfare - I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with whether or not children should be taken out in term time, but the fact is that most local authorities only prosecute a very small % of their non payers due to the excessive costs invovled. You booked the holiday when it was allowed, your child has a good attendance record - compared with most of the cases of unauthorised absence I should imagine they would be almost falling off their chairs to have such a great excuse not to prosecute you.

chika

kelloggs36 wrote: »

I am starting a new school in January, and have just been informed that I have a group of children once a week for Literacy who are year 3 (aged 7) and who are on P levels. This means that they are unable to write anything! How they have reached year 3 still on these levels, I will be interested to find out. Not that I have any miracle cure - any teachers out there?????

Perhaps they spent three weeks in Disneyland when they should have been in class learning?

Seriously that is some sort of SEN, do they have EAL? Ask the school for their IEP's. I wish you luck!

jellyhead

clarabella23 wrote: »

I had a letter at the beginning of the year saying that the 10 days holiday they previously allowed was no longer in place. Maybe every school/area has there own rules then?

I think so, because our school does allow ten days unless the child's attendance figures for the year are below a certain amount, not sure what that is though, perhaps 85%? I got a letter from school one time when my son's attendance dropped below 80% in one half term period. It was generated automatically so I think there are certain trigger points which lead to certain children being looked at or referred to the LEA etc.

I don't know what the school would do for a 3 week holiday though - I'd have assumed that 2 weeks would be authorised and the third week unauthorised but I don't know, having never done it.

I've seen in threads on here that some children aren't authorised for any time off, not even one day in the year but that's not the case with either of my children's schools.

jellyhead

clarabella23 wrote: »

It was all in term time, but we hadn't hard confirmed dates for school holidays at the time of booking- I thought the first week would be during half term as they started back at school later this year than they normally do. We went the 3rd to the 20th of November, but half term ended up falling the week before.
Thanks for all your replies.

The holiday was unauthorised so I think you will have to, and should, just pay the fine.

I do think there might be an issue over the term dates - perhaps you could suggest that the LEA publicises them more widely and makes parents more aware that the dates are on the LEA website a year or more in advance. Nobody should be getting their mixed up by a whole week as the LEA dates should be available and it's only the 5 INSET days which are inserted at shorter notice by each school themselves.

Last year I booked my holiday 9 months in advance (only one of those 3 day cheap ones through the newspaper token) so I checked the dates in advance and found out that we started school a week later than I expected, so we were able to go on the cheap september break when half the country were already in school.

Every time there's a thread about the Sun holidays there are people who don't know that the term dates are available so far in advance and think they have to wait for school to send out the dates.

Takoda

If you went in Nov you probably saved more than £50 so just pay up and remember your great holiday!

chloe99_2

I disagree. Its not about op not knowing what the term dates were, but about the fines system not being in place when the £1000s holiday was booked. It is not reasonable to expect her to have cancelled this holiday merely because she was breaking new unauthorised absence rules. I do agree that the holiday was unauthorised, but the circumstances are extenuating ie the fines system was not in place when it was booked. Common sense should prevail at the LA and if she explains the situation they may let her off.

bylromarha

chloe99 wrote: »

bylro - perhaps it is not the parent that is wrong, but that to which, and the method by which, the school system as it stands today is trying to catch the children up (you do know dont you that most countries on the continent do not begin formal education until age 6 or 7 years, and that by middle secondary school their children have surpassed ours?)

Nothing to do with our formal education system - there is a growing lack in children upon entering school at age 4/5 of a basic ability to communicate at an appropriate level for their age. School spend the early years helping more and more children speak in sentences, widen their vocabulary and pronounce sounds in the way they should be - doing at school what should have been done already at home.

The age children start school in UK compared to Europe is a completely different matter.

kelloggs36

It is very noticable how children can't spell. This is because they don't speak properly. Vey fink that words don't have the 'th' sound because they don't use it! One of my children in my class, wrote 'Im gonner go to the shops wiv my muvver'. He looked totally blankly at me when I asked him to read it back to me, there was clearly no understanding of proper pronunciation.

milliebear00001

chloe99 wrote: »

I disagree. Its not about op not knowing what the term dates were, but about the fines system not being in place when the £1000s holiday was booked. It is not reasonable to expect her to have cancelled this holiday merely because she was breaking new unauthorised absence rules. I do agree that the holiday was unauthorised, but the circumstances are extenuating ie the fines system was not in place when it was booked. Common sense should prevail at the LA and if she explains the situation they may let her off.

She was breaking the OLD rules too. They allowed her a maximum of two weeks - she booked three, so she would still have been fined under the old rules.