Anyone been fined yet for taking kids out of school?

*Louise*

daisiegg wrote: »

Was this in the last couple of months? Because the fines have only just come in. That is the point of the OP's question...

Mine wasn't that recently but I know people who were away in December who didn't have any problems.

This thread made me check the schools websites and local councils policy but there are no reference to fines in any, just 'if you have to take term time holidays, let your school know in writing, it will be an unauthorised absence'

Just a thought though- is this another instance where England has different rules? Very confusing :-/

balletshoes

yes Louise, this is in England where the rules have changed.

FBaby

I've never heard of the 90% attendance nor 5 previous days however, I picked up from the information letter we received last term that there was an element of discretion from the head teachers.

I will be taking my kids out of school the last three days of the school year. We'll see if I am fine, but my gut feeling tells me that I won't. Unless the kids are seriously ill in the next 5 months, their attendance will be over 90% (never been below that in their entire school life so far). My son will finish year 6 and the last few days are known to be about celebrating their end of primary school. My DD school last week is 'activity week', that is a week of activity having fun with half of the activities costing money, so they would be hard push to fine for missing this. If I am, I'll pay, however, no way will we agree for my husband to pay too. He won't be coming with us on our trip. I understand only parents with parental responsibility can be fine. Neither he, nor my kids's dad have parental responsibility, so expect only I to be fined if it happens.

eezer

Haven't been fined by our LA for taking my kids out, but had I been, I would have been invoicing them for the cost of childcare on the forthcoming teachers strike.

suejb2

O.P how old is your son please? Is he under 5 as legally they don't have to start school untill the term they turn 5 in.
However,playground chat the other day a parent is counter fining the school as (s)he was fined for taking the child out on the last week of term before Christmas and he "investigated" what exactly the child missed in that week.It turned out to be a dvd every day word searches and reading,basically not school work.

barbarawright

eezer wrote: »

Haven't been fined by our LA for taking my kids out, but had I been, I would have been invoicing them for the cost of childcare on the forthcoming teachers strike.

And what good would that do except provide a bit of entertainment to the school secretary?

Nicki

eezer wrote: »

Haven't been fined by our LA for taking my kids out, but had I been, I would have been invoicing them for the cost of childcare on the forthcoming teachers strike.

Why? It's not part of a teacher's or a school's job description to provide childcare for your children. That's your responsibility I am afraid. If schools are shut for whatever reason be it weather industrial action or bubonic plague it's down to you to pay for your own little darlings childcare or look after them yourself.

eezer

Don't recall mentioning invoicing the school, but the LA.

One one hand the criticism is about parents not valuing a child's education by taking them out in term time, yet their education surely is affected by a strike. It's either one way or another.

cte1111

The fines have been around for ages, it's just that the 'discretion' of the head teacher is now much more limited. I know other parents at my children's school who were fined 3 years ago. They had to pay £50 each, so it's obviously gone up since then.

Someone on another thread was fined as a step-parent btw. This was before the new rules too I think.

Gloomendoom

suejb2 wrote: »

O.P how old is your son please? Is he under 5 as legally they don't have to start school untill the term they turn 5 in.
However,playground chat the other day a parent is counter fining the school as (s)he was fined for taking the child out on the last week of term before Christmas and he "investigated" what exactly the child missed in that week.It turned out to be a dvd every day word searches and reading,basically not school work.

Sounds like school work to me.

In any case, isn't that a bit like being fined for speeding and then trying to counter fine the police on the grounds that while you were speeding, you didn't have an accident or kill anyone?