School Holidays Help

cte1111

It depends what you want the outcome to be. If your priority is keeping your child in this school, then you need to try to come to terms with how this school treats parents, i.e. like naughty children. I fear that trying to follow the school's complaints procedure in order to resolve this is unlikely to succeed, as up to now you have been completely reasonable and sensible but been pretty much ignored. It seems likely that this pattern will be repeated.

We had an issue with our daughter's similarly over-subscribed school. We did our best to go through the right channels to resolve it sensibly but the school could not care less. We ultimately moved our daughter to another school (which was also a hideously stressful and difficult process but eventually successful).

So my very reluctant advice is to do your best to ignore the ridiculous EWO letter and hope that that is the end of it. Is your daughter happy at the school? If yes, then you might have to let this go.

ps124

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Ok, so the Parents Want A Say seems a good option for general advice and will drop them a note.

What about more official channels? I will ask the school for details about what the appeals process is...I don't want to go down the route of making a complaint yet.

There must be an independant body/role that can look at this impartially? I'm tempted to contact the team head for the EWO and ask them to clarify why the circumstances around this case have not been investigated before a final warning was issued.

CTE - Good advice, appreciated. Yes my priority is to keep my Daughter's place in the school. According to the school, the matter is closed, however, my concern is if they decide this as an unauthorised absence despite me providing info, there is a good chance they would do it again and then I'll have more then a warning coming my way. Can I ask, what were the channels you went through in your case?

Spendless

ps124 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Ok, so the Parents Want A Say seems a good option for general advice and will drop them a note.

What about more official channels? I will ask the school for details about what the appeals process is...I don't want to go down the route of making a complaint yet.

There must be an independant body/role that can look at this impartially? I'm tempted to contact the team head for the EWO and ask them to clarify why the circumstances around this case have not been investigated before a final warning was issued.

CTE - Good advice, appreciated. Yes my priority is to keep my Daughter's place in the school. According to the school, the matter is closed, however, my concern is if they decide this as an unauthorised absence despite me providing info, there is a good chance they would do it again and then I'll have more then a warning coming my way. Can I ask, what were the channels you went through in your case?

No, I don't think there is. :cool: I might be wrong. I really think your starting point is PWAS.

susancs

A colleague of mine who had a child with elder danlos syndrome had days unauthorised and got good free advice from the ACE helpline. She did get the days authorised after a formal complaint to the school. Having said that she did feel the realtionship with the school was not good or supportive and decided to home school not long after.
http://www.ace-ed.org.uk/1107

cte1111

ps124 wrote: »

There must be an independant body/role that can look at this impartially? I'm tempted to contact the team head for the EWO and ask them to clarify why the circumstances around this case have not been investigated before a final warning was issued.

CTE - Good advice, appreciated. Yes my priority is to keep my Daughter's place in the school. According to the school, the matter is closed, however, my concern is if they decide this as an unauthorised absence despite me providing info, there is a good chance they would do it again and then I'll have more then a warning coming my way. Can I ask, what were the channels you went through in your case?

Channels we tried to go through

Talking to the head of governors, she said she was too busy and ignored any subsequent attempts to contact her.

Putting in a formal complaint with the school governors - they had a meeting without telling us, decided the school was right and didn't tell us their conclusion. When we eventually discovered this, we then put in another complaint, saying they hadn't followed their own complaints procedure, similar conclusion, i.e. the school is always right although admitting they hadn't followed their own procedure, no excuse or apology given.

Ofsted - said it was nothing to do with them.

Council - said it was nothing to do with them.

Local councillor - told me it was the school's policy (chair of governors was also councillor for same party) and nothing to do with her.

MP - he was horrified and agreed to take it up with the school. The school ignored his assistant's attempts to contact them and failed to return multiple phone calls or respond to requests for a meeting. Eventually the headmaster responded saying it was nothing to do with MP. No resolution.

Also put in a complaint about the negligence of the governor's clerk (who didn't tell us about the meeting or conclusion), who said it wasn't her fault, she was too busy and anyhow she was leaving. We asked who was replacing her, she said nobody. We pointed out the school legally had to have a governor's clerk. They ignored this.

All really horrible, stressful and energy sapping. We then spent months trying to switch schools, after 8 months eventually succeeded. If you can avoid getting into a similar downward spiral, I would urge you to do so.

NB the issue we had was not related to attendance.

Supahan

If possible could you give me some advice or lead me in the right direction...
We have been fined for taking kids to australia (we r deciding whether to emigrate). They were out for 6 days in total...
Now i imagined we would be fined but my argument is that other families in the same school havent been fined. (Same duration and longer!)
I have spoken to the head and she sends all absences to the lea.. so it seems more like a lottery as to whether you are fined or not...
My kids attendance is 95% with this absence... is there anything i can do to fight the fine?
Teachers are striking on tuesday yet that is acceptable?
If you can help or advise me then that would be great.
Thank you

Guest101

Supahan wrote: »

If possible could you give me some advice or lead me in the right direction...
We have been fined for taking kids to australia (we r deciding whether to emigrate). They were out for 6 days in total...
Now i imagined we would be fined but my argument is that other families in the same school havent been fined. (Same duration and longer!)
I have spoken to the head and she sends all absences to the lea.. so it seems more like a lottery as to whether you are fined or not...
My kids attendance is 95% with this absence... is there anything i can do to fight the fine?
Teachers are striking on tuesday yet that is acceptable?
If you can help or advise me then that would be great.
Thank you

1: t's irrelevant what happens to others.
2: the teachers striking is a good thing for parents.
3: try your luck in court, after the recent precedent, you could easily win.

FBaby

Are you sure the others were gone for the same number of days? Our LEA allows for 5 school days missed without fining, so you might have got it wrong by just one day.

I will be fine over the Christmas holidays. I booked a year ago and stupidly assumed that the hols would start at the same time that it has for the past 3 or so years. As it is, they break a few days later and that will mean they are off school for more than 5 days. Nevermind, it's a stupid rule (considering DS and DD have never had less than 98% attendance, this year was 100% and both are A*s pupils), but no point arguing against the rules and better to accept the fine from the start and move on.

Spendless

FBaby wrote: »

Are you sure the others were gone for the same number of days? Our LEA allows for 5 school days missed without fining, so you might have got it wrong by just one day.

I will be fine over the Christmas holidays. I booked a year ago and stupidly assumed that the hols would start at the same time that it has for the past 3 or so years. As it is, they break a few days later and that will mean they are off school for more than 5 days. Nevermind, it's a stupid rule (considering DS and DD have never had less than 98% attendance, this year was 100% and both are A*s pupils), but no point arguing against the rules and better to accept the fine from the start and move on.

Some areas have stopped issuing them following Jon Platts recent case. Yours might be one of them.

ps124

Hi Guys, I just wanted to update you now that I have reached a conclusion to this issue.

I was in direct contact wit hthe EWO team manager who dealt with my case. It was agreed to withdraw all of the days apart from two. Couldn't be bothered to keep going and I thought it was a good compromise so accepted it.