School fines help!

ellie0708parent

I want to make sure I understand this.
I also understand this is controversial topic so please try keep to the question. 

I have close family who live in Spain and we are visiting soon. I did a holiday request form for my daughter last school year to which declined and we got and paid the fine.

Fine have now changed. 
She will miss a total of 3 full days of school. 
I am unsure whether to say she is unwell therefore be sickness or be honest and say holiday (half term is after so no risk of her dobbing us in!) I am unsure if I say its family holiday whether I would still get fined as it isnt 10 sessions.

She has had 1 day off sick for norovirus which half the school shut for deep clean!

We are in north Yorkshire. Ideally dont want to get fined again.

la531983

She could always inadvertently dob you in at a later date, of course.

tacpot12

I think you need to be careful about what you are teaching your child if you lie to their school.

Whether or not you would be fined for an unathorised absence seems to depend on the policy in your area. Have you been able to find the local policy? 

I had a quick look but there are multiple councils covering 'North Yorkshire', so can't say for certain if any of them apply a policy to implement fines for less than 10 sessions that are mandated nationally. I suspect that many authorities will take the opportunity not to issue fines for absences of less than 10 sessions.

ButterCheese

Phone in sick.  That is, if their sickness policy doesn't require a Dr's note to prove it.

I would be in the same boat for the following reasons:

We were late once due to the whole city being in gridlock (2 x major accidents on major roads).  School marked my son down as late, even though we got there before 1st lesson and just missed 10 minutes of registration.

On 3 occasions they have given him a detention, fine, but they said he wasn't allowed to use his phone just to let me know he was going to be late, so I sat there for 45 mins waiting, not knowing what was going on.

If they want to set rules that are not flexible then they also need to follow them themselves, which is why I think many parents are getting fed up 

Westin

If it is a 'religious holiday or celebration' then I doubt they would dare fine you.

TELLIT01

If a child has been 'off sick' and comes back in with a suntan it's bound to raise suspicions.  Teacher says "You have a lovely tan", child says "Yes, I've been to Spain on holiday".  Oops!

flaneurs_lobster

Good job that education for your kid is paid for by the State, no problems at all missing a few days.

If you were paying 9 grand a term to educate your precious one I bet you wouldn't be pulling them out of school for an overseas jolly.

born_again

tacpot12 said:

I think you need to be careful about what you are teaching your child if you lie to their school.

Whether or not you would be fined for an unathorised absence seems to depend on the policy in your area. Have you been able to find the local policy? 

I had a quick look but there are multiple councils covering 'North Yorkshire', so can't say for certain if any of them apply a policy to implement fines for less than 10 sessions that are mandated nationally. I suspect that many authorities will take the opportunity not to issue fines for absences of less than 10 sessions.

Never mind the child might post on social media & one of their mates does it for them.

Pollycat

ellie0708parent said:

Fine have now changed. 
She will miss a total of 3 full days of school. 
I am unsure whether to say she is unwell therefore be sickness or be honest and say holiday (half term is after so no risk of her dobbing us in!) I am unsure if I say its family holiday whether I would still get fined as it isnt 10 sessions.

No risk of her telling her friends?
No risk of anyone seeing her holiday snaps?
As above, no risk of anyone noticing her tan?

You are setting a bad example to your child if you lie to the school.

silvercar

If half term is immediately after, then a suntan won’t raise eyebrows, nor will her conversations with friends. 

Whether this is an example you want to set your child is your call.

vacheron

We regularly take our child out of school for a few days around the February half term.
By slightly overlapping each end of the 1 week break we can usually get an 11 or 12 night holiday (with far cheaper flights) by flying on the Thursday or Friday before they break up and returning on the Monday or Tuesday the week they were due back.

I always write to the school as a courtesy (as I know they will never authorise leave for holidays) but I am honest and tell them this is the reason. We have never once been fined. I think they are more receptive to missing 1 or 2 days at each end of the school holiday, than 4 days all together.

Of course, the inevitable "teacher training days" on the days they should have returned to school after the 6 weeks teachers summer holidays doesn't cause any ill effects to his education. Nor, apparently, does the 9 days of term time school that he would have missed last year had he elected to go on the hugely overpriced school organised skiing trip. So that is good to know.