Taking kids out of school on holiday: how flexible is your school?

elisamoose

A post from 'the other side'.am a school attendance office,dealing with the admin of this with the final decision being that of the Principal.The law is clear that absence can only be authorised in exceptional circumstances but does not define this! iN practice this means that the Principal or heads opinion is what counts.So in some schools a family wedding abroad is exceptional but in others not. in a school which struggles with attendance due to many children being taken to their home country for family occasions,the Head may not authorise and then issue penalty notices so that Ofsed can see that they are trying to address poor attendance.In a school with good attendance and few holiday requests , the Head is quite likely to be more flexible.

local authorities ( who issue penalty notices on behalf of schools and academies) have varying policies . In my LA an absence of more than 6 sessions can result in a penalty notice. it is up to the school to decide whether to request a penalty notice.

FBaby

Our local schools are not flexible at all. If you are off for a holiday, regardless of the circumstances, it will be unauthorised and referred to the LA. However, our council does offer some flexibility in that they will not apply fine for any absence of 5 school days or less.

SingleSue

When mine were younger, we were allowed to take holidays during term time due to the younger two disabilities which made it hard for them to have a holiday during the busy time (it was actually written into youngest's statement that he should not be at school for the last bit of term due to the changes in the classroom/timetable)

As time went on, I gradually moved the holiday so that we would start to get the first few days of school holidays, then the first week and then finally, the whole two weeks out of term time. It was a struggle at first with lots of meltdowns but we finally got there, something I believed was important once they moved to high school.

This year we are going out of school holidays...youngest is at college and finishes earlier than the schools and the other two are at university. It is going to be so nice to finally go back to our usual two weeks, the same two weeks I went as a child.

burlington6

Fair enough if everyone plays by the rules but I bet they're afraid to chase minorities and useless parents for payment.

They will just concentrate on the ones that work and don't have a race/religion to hide behind.

Example, do you really think the school will attempt to retrieve money from ''traveler'' children who attend. Not a chance!

HappyMJ

burlington6 wrote: »

Fair enough if everyone plays by the rules but I bet they're afraid to chase minorities and useless parents for payment.

They will just concentrate on the ones that work and don't have a race/religion to hide behind.

Example, do you really think the school will attempt to retrieve money from ''traveler'' children who attend. Not a chance!

I honestly do not believe the local authority staff think like that. They don't record the employment status of the parents and they don't record the race/ethnicity/religion of students. They might record the data for statistical purposes but I really don't think they would use that data to decide if a penalty should be issued or not.

pigpen

I dont know but I wouldnt take my child out of school for a holiday so I will probably never find out

Spendless

'Exceptional circumstances' and what counts as them varies from area and area and often HTs are reluctant to agree something is an exceptional circumstance if the situation doesn't come under the ones defined by that particular LA. My own area used to have an exceptional circs criteria of 'if a holiday was recommended by a health professional for rehabilitation due to either physical illness or emotional well-being' (I'm paraphrasing here) but that has been removed and now it's down to parents in armed forces returning to or from a tour of duty abroad and when a parents employer doesn't allow for a holiday outside of school . It is an area of law that I firmly believe needs taking a greater look at and a uniform decision being taken across the country.

Jagraf

elisamoose wrote: »

A post from 'the other side'.am a school attendance office,dealing with the admin of this with the final decision being that of the Principal.The law is clear that absence can only be authorised in exceptional circumstances but does not define this! iN practice this means that the Principal or heads opinion is what counts.So in some schools a family wedding abroad is exceptional but in others not. in a school which struggles with attendance due to many children being taken to their home country for family occasions,the Head may not authorise and then issue penalty notices so that Ofsed can see that they are trying to address poor attendance.In a school with good attendance and few holiday requests , the Head is quite likely to be more flexible.

local authorities ( who issue penalty notices on behalf of schools and academies) have varying policies . In my LA an absence of more than 6 sessions can result in a penalty notice. it is up to the school to decide whether to request a penalty notice.

I don't envy your job

elisamoose

burlington6 wrote: »

Fair enough if everyone plays by the rules but I bet they're afraid to chase minorities and useless parents for payment.

They will just concentrate on the ones that work and don't have a race/religion to hide behind.

Example, do you really think the school will attempt to retrieve money from ''traveler'' children who attend. Not a chance!

obviously we record ethnicity of families on school records and we know if families work or not ( from free school meal data) but this is not taken into account when deciding whether to issue a penalty notice. In my opinion if they can afford a holiday or expensive air fares to visit family , then they can afford a fine.

Penalty notices can also be issued for general poor attendance once other methods have not worked. In my authority that would be 8sessions of unauthorised absence in 10 weeks. We can only issue for unauthorized absence however only the school can authorize absence not the parents.

pigpen

elisamoose wrote: »

obviously we record ethnicity of families on school records and we know if families work or not ( from free school meal data) but this is not taken into account when deciding whether to issue a penalty notice. In my opinion if they can afford a holiday or expensive air fares to visit family , then they can afford a fine.
.

But how do you know whether the family have paid for the holiday or not?? Do you ask for receipts? Booking info?

My OH's mother has offered to pay for us a holiday .. I haven't taken the children on holiday since 2005 and then it was only 3 nights as that was all I could afford, my 3 little ones have never had a holiday.. without knowing such information you would dare cast judgement on a family who actually couldn't afford a holiday or a fine and surely the fines just go towards depriving the children?

I actually think it is a disgusting practice. I would find any reason to not issue a fine.


I also know of 2 families who have taken their children out of school for a month without being fined because they were visiting family in other countries so some schools do use ethnicity data when dishing out fines.. one rule for us, another for them! It is worth noting the school also held the childrens school places which they are not supposed to do either.. but they did.


I was pee'd off enough when I got a snotty letter from school just before the October half term one year complaining about my son having less than 85% attendance, threatening me with fines and 'legal action' if it didn't improve .. he had actually been in hospital, fighting for his life for a week.. the school were informed the reasons for his absence by phone the day he was blue lighted to hospital and by letter when he went back.. Schools have some despicable practices. Lets just say my response was far from polite!