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

pollypenny

Spendless wrote: »

'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.

Your latter reason was why holidays could be authorised in term time. It never was for cheaper holidays.

kathrynha

We had an authorised term time holiday in November, and I did lots of research beforehand about what was considered exceptional circumstances, and it is a very varied and vague.

My research told me that in my area exceptional wasn't defined, but in some areas we would definitely get it authorised, so I was prepared to fight, but thankfully it came back authorised

SingleSue

elisamoose wrote: »

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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.

Think that would be my youngest son beggered in your area! His general attendance is not brilliant (never has been) because of his disabilities/illnesses. Not much the school/college can do about it as he is never off school for minor things but things that can become or already are, life threatening.

Youngest didn't go full time at school until halfway through year 6, has an average attendance of around 70% but is achieving triple A* at A level and is in the top three in his year....he does so love to buck the trend :rotfl:

He's a determined little begger!

pigpen

SingleSue wrote: »

Think that would be my youngest son beggered in your area! His general attendance is not brilliant (never has been) because of his disabilities/illnesses. Not much the school/college can do about it as he is never off school for minor things but things that can become or already are, life threatening.

Youngest didn't go full time at school until halfway through year 6, has an average attendance of around 70% but is achieving triple A* at A level and is in the top three in his year....he does so love to buck the trend :rotfl:

He's a determined little begger!

My sister was the same.. she didn't go to school at all for 4 years.. went back for the last 6-8 months of year 11 and got 13 GCSE's with 1 B, 1 A and 11 A* .. she is now a barrister.. Just goes to show they can do it if they want to!

silvercar

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.

I would think the data protection act would prevent you using the data in this way, even if you wanted to. You have to use the data only for the purpose that it was collected. In this case ethnicity may be used to check how the ethnicity of the school reflects the ethnicity of the area or some link with results achieved. You can't use it to determine a policy on authorising absences!

Free school meal data is used as part of the basis of allocating funds from central government or the LA to the school. Again it can't be used to make a judgement call on whether someone can afford air fares in term time!

silvercar

pigpen wrote:

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!

Who is the "them"? Anyone with relatives who live abroad who want to see their grandchildren? The schools aren't using ethnicity data, they are responding to an application and considering on its merits. You may disagree with their judgement, but it would be wrong to say they are using ethnicity data.

silvercar

In my opinion if they can afford a holiday or expensive air fares to visit family , then they can afford a fine.

Disagree. Family could be paying for the holiday or fare and this is more likely in families with less money.

We generally use Avios for flights. Carefully collected to maximise rewards and careful planning means we have only had to pay out for taxes.

pigpen

silvercar wrote: »

Who is the "them"? Anyone with relatives who live abroad who want to see their grandchildren? The schools aren't using ethnicity data, they are responding to an application and considering on its merits. You may disagree with their judgement, but it would be wrong to say they are using ethnicity data.

them would be the uk born people as oppose to non-uk born people.. we have family living overseas but we aren't allowed to take time off school to go visit them so why should anyone else be? One of them was so the dad could visit his ex-wife!


And I know they are using ethnicity data.. not that they need to if they actually know the families. If ethnicity data is not used to discriminate why does anyone need it?? by recording it they are making judgements and building prejudices.


and dont even get me started on the GP surgery!!!! *RAGE!!!*

anna_1977

I was an attendance officer in a secondary school for years and I sat on the panel for our area to decide whether or not to pursue legal action. In our area a child had to be absent from school 10 sessions out of 100 (5 days absence out of a 10 week period), these absences had to be unauthorised, anything less and it wouldn't stay up against any action.

On the ethnicity comments when my youngest was in Reception year we got a severe telling off for disrupting her education and taking her out of school for 10 days, she is one if the eldest in the year and it was 2 weeks before Christmas holidays. We discovered on our return that a young boy in her class had 6 weeks off to return to India for a religious festival and that was fine.... I recall being a bit miffed at the time... when we applied for a few days off the following academic year we stated religious reasons on the form and it was granted with no questions asked!

silvercar

them would be the uk born people as oppose to non-uk born people.. we have family living overseas but we aren't allowed to take time off school to go visit them so why should anyone else be? One of them was so the dad could visit his ex-wife!

DS1's secondary school had number of high Asian pupils. I wouldn't have been able to tell who was born in the UK and who wasn't. How would you tell?