School Holiday Fines

foxster99

julie777 wrote: »

thanks for your advice you seem very knowledgeable. Do you have qualifications or are you a well-informed parent?

I'm an attendance officer at a high school.

Guest101

foxster99 wrote: »

I'm an attendance officer at a high school.

Wow that's actually a thing? I presume that it's a self funding project

foxster99

Guest101 wrote: »

Wow that's actually a thing? I presume that it's a self funding project

How would it be self-funding?

And, yes, it is a "thing" i.e. I am employed in this role. As opposed to your thing, which consists of spending all day posting on forums, according to your forum log. I take it that you have nothing more useful to do?

Guest101

foxster99 wrote: »

How would it be self-funding?

Number of penalties issued?


I presume the reason your role exists is because there's a problem at the school?

foxster99

Guest101 wrote: »

Number of penalties issued?


I presume the reason your role exists is because there's a problem at the school?

The money from penalty notices is received by the Local Authority that issues them, nothing goes to the schools. It is not sufficient to cover the LA's administration costs i.e. there is no profit made.

Every high school I know of has some form of attendance officer or a person in a role that includes the duty. In addition, there are usually one or more other members of the senior staff that are also involved as part of their responsibilities.

Our school attendance is very good, one of the highest in our county. The excellent results our students achieve reflect this. We chart our GCSE results each year and compare them with student attendance and every year, statistically, those who get the best results are those that spend the most time in the building. That is not government BS or propaganda but fact from the coal-face.

takman

FBaby wrote: »

I know it is hard for some people strongly anti term-time holiday to believe that some teachers and heads are not as categorical about its negative impact as them.

The reasons why I wasn't fine is that firstly I don't make a habit of it, secondly, my kids attendance is otherwise exemplary (no sick day last year, only one this year so far and that was as due to fever following the meningitis injection and thirdly, both of them are straight A students. The school doesn't believe that their education will be affected by a few days away (and indeed, they have always caught on what they've missed within a few days) and most importantly they have bigger fish to fry.

The last time I took them out of 10 days, a number of teachers actually offered themselves to email them the learning they were missing.

I'm not the type to go and shout about my rights as a parent if I'd been fined, I would have paid it without a fuss, but I also don't believe that this legislation is aimed at pupils like my kids and I am confident that their studies has not been detrimentally affected by these few days out of their whole education as was whoever decided not to refer the case to the LA.

If they can catch up on 10 days of lessons in only 2 school days then that must be most inefficient school in the country :rotfl:

maman

Guest101 wrote: »

Number of penalties issued?

That's a joke surely. :rotfl:
I expect it's funded by the school (rather than rely on diminishing or non-existent EWOs) because not only do they realise the correlation between regular attendance and high standards but Ofsted would be on their backs if attendance was poor.

maman

Guest101 wrote: »

I presume the reason your role exists is because there's a problem at the school?

Maybe there's a potential problem with parents making a moral stand by going on holiday in term time.

Spendless

maman wrote: »

there's 13 weeks to choose from.

These sort of comments always make me smile. I haven't got/had 13 weeks to chose from this year.

Feb - half term - husband working abroad, no choice in that, it was when a conference involving people from other countries was set up for.

Easter - Yes, could go then.

May half term- husband's sister got married during this.

6 weeks summer hols hols - 3 weeks taken by other members of staff, work policy is 1 off at a time, and if you cover for another workmate for hols not even a coinciding half day off.

Oct half term- taken by workmate I cover for.

Xmas - No one allowed time off from early Dec until Jan due to nature of business.

I make that a maximum 5 weeks I could have off that coincides with schools being closed. Just as well I booked it early and DH could be off the same weeks!

Mine are in GCSE/A level years so we aren't going out of term time anyway but I'm glad I've only got 2-4 years left of all this and I'm out of this.

FBaby

If they can catch up on 10 days of lessons in only 2 school days then that must be most inefficient school in the country

That's why there are grammar schools to support more able pupils. The local school is a typical comprehensive that tries to cater for all kind of pupils. I wish it provided more for academic children, but at the same time, I think it offers the right environment for my kids, learning independent skills and dealing with people from all sides of society. But yes, it only took a few days to catch up as it was just before Christmas and the amount of learning had significantly reduced already.