School fines help!

giraffe69

In amongst the comments there are a couple of sarcastic ones about teachers and holidays. I think the situation regarding number of days attendance is 190 for children and 195 for teachers and has been since Kenneth Baker was Education Secretary in the early 1980s.

vacheron

flaneurs_lobster said:

vacheron said:

Even being fined offers absolutely zero deterrent in comparison with the financial consequences of "doing the right thing".

Easy solution, increase the fine until it does have a deterrent effect - little point levying them otherwise.

Completely agree, but in the meantime, people can, and will use the existing situation as they see fit. 

It's similar to drivers in central London who park illegally because it is cheaper and/or more convenient to just pay the fine than to pay for 2-3 hours of private parking. And if you return and have managed to get away with it you're actually in profit. 

vacheron

giraffe69 said:

In amongst the comments there are a couple of sarcastic ones about teachers and holidays. I think the situation regarding number of days attendance is 190 for children and 195 for teachers and has been since Kenneth Baker was Education Secretary in the early 1980s.

I don't think it's the "amount" of time teachers have off work which is the issue. It is the patronising tone of their letters these days stating how catastrophic even one day of missed school will be to your child's long term development.

If this really is the case, then lets have the kids in school for 230 days per year. I'm happy to pay the relatively small tax increase required to fund the proportional increase in the teachers salaries, plus we'll apparently have the smartest kids on the planet to boot.

I'm also sure the largest supporters of that would actually be the parents who don't have to find cover for school holiday after school holiday after school holiday! 

Also, while we're at it, why not stagger school holidays to eliminate this huge (and predictable) rush to the airports for travel companies to exploit?

Pollycat

ButterCheese said:

Funny how lots of people are judging the OP when a) OP asked specifically for help without judgement and b) none of the posters here know the child, or the family.  

a) Maybe Mumsnet would be a more sympathetic place to ask. More than likely the OP will have something in common with the posters on there.

b) The OP knew that none of the posters on here know the child or the family when they posted.
So what does that have to do with it?

strawb_shortcake

When I was at school, my Mum would never lie about me being ill, so I was that child who had a note to say "strawberry wasn't in school yesterday because she was at Alton Towers" not that it was a regular occurrence! But as a result, I'll never lie about my children being ill either.

But we took our youngest out for 3 days last year, tagged on to a half term, which was approved, but with what we saved I kind of wish we'd considered that approach years ago. Now he's in 6th form we may well take him out 2/3 days early next July with what we'll save and to be honest school isn't really that focused that close to the summer holidays so he's not losing much learning time

Troytempest

Funny - after Covid I though we were told that children needed all the schooling they could get.

sheramber

Troytempest said:

Funny - after Covid I thought we were told that children needed all the schooling they could get.

Recently GEC results showed a drop in attainment  compared to 2019 - before  covid. 

NoodleDoodleMan

Is the drop in attainment not linked to the difficulties schools had providing normal education in and after Covid ?

thegreenone

Please don't lie.  If the school phone to see how your daughter is and get the international dialing tone, your appointment to see the Head may be on the doormat when you get home.

And before anyone says "the school don't phone" the secondary school I worked in did as did all the feeder schools.

Write to the school and say you would like to take your daughter out of school on X days to visit family in Spain.  See what comes back.  

For those who see teachers on INSET days sitting around the staff room drinking tea and eating cake, please think again.  They are either on external training courses or the Training instructors come in house to run courses on ie next year's curriculum changes or safeguarding, to name a couple.  Even little old me in Admin had to attend certain courses, both in and spend the full day in school or 30 miles away for two courses. My time and petrol to get there and back.  It's similar to many who have to keep their CPD (Continued Professional Development) up to date.

jimi_man

Unauthorised absence from school is against the law. Lying to the school to facilitate that so as to get a cheaper holiday, seems morally dubious to me. I appreciate the OP asked for a non-judgemental response but that's rather hard with what is suggested/proposed.