Surely they should just get her to pay the fine?

It turns out councils do not give a shit about your child missing school if they have special needs and it’s going to cost the council money. All the hysterical rhetoric about missing one day of school has been quietly forgotten about for Sen kids up and down the country. Otherwise it would cost money.

Fair enough. I suppose the child might go on to do a four year degree in Recreational Studies.

6 days of the holiday were sanctioned, presumably for the wedding.

Did you miss the bit in the article where the mother is claiming that messing in the pool and a visit to the zoo provides an amazing educational opportunity? She obviously believes it will significantly impact educational outcomes...

Got it in one 😂

Council: Do not take your children out of school, even for a family wedding abroad, because missing even a single day of school is DETRIMENTAL.

Also council: Didn’t get our unrecorded letter through the post? Tough. Too late. We’re now going to take you to court, take thousands of pounds of your family money and endeavour to put a parent in prison, because that’s NOT DETRIMENTAL to the child, that’s correct.

A holiday abroad aged 6 is not going to significantly impact educational outcomes.

I totally agree, but MN has a line in militantly law-abiding school prefect types who wholeheartedly disagree, because the (quick, doff yer caps) Council has told them so.

People should know without being told because I'd know without being told is a terrible way to look at this. A system that assumes a letter sent unregistered through a postal system that can't be remotely relied on is a very unfair one. Pure self interest alone should mean people understand that, even if they happen to approve of the fining system.

Parents should know the fine is per parent it's been that way for years. And she should have followed it up not just assume it was dealt with.
I also wonder why they bothered to ask permission from the school if they were going to ignore what they said.
Waste of money? Yes absolutely. Feel sorry for her? No

I don't know any parent who isn't aware of the 'fine per parent' rule. She knew the school had not approved the absence. She booked the holiday before even consulting them.

Suppose every parent in the class takes their child out in different weeks, how are the teachers supposed to cope? People grumble about the quality of education, but then treat it like an optional extra.

I have no sympathy at all.

if missing school is detrimental to the child then surely a parent in court / prison is also detrimental to the child. Not to mention a waste of money / resources and time that could be better spent dealing with actual problems.

Ridiculous that she is taken to court over this non issue. She is also ridiculous to say that taking her kids to the zoo in Cyprus holds some amazing educational value. It's just a holiday, own it up.

Nothing, You sign the absence note and tick a box like illness/holiday etc and that is it. Your child, your rules.

I was thinking this, why not just say we couldn’t afford to go in school holidays and as he has good attendance we decided the pros outweighed the cons!

The trouble is, like parking tickets, you usually can't pay a fine without the correct reference number. I had a hell of a time when I moved to the UK trying to chase down a toll fine I knew I had incurred in Ireland but the UK company who administered it flatly refused to give me the fine's reference number to pay and kept increasing the fine in the meantime. The notice went to my old address so while I knew I needed to pay it as I'd driven on the toll road around Dublin, I didn't have any way of paying it as they wouldn't give me the info I needed to actually pay it.

Being from Donegal, I had seen the signs but had no fecking clue how to sort it out as I wasn't a regular around that road, and I wasn't driving back to bloody Donegal from London to pick up a fine notice! It ended up costing £140 which was less than the ferry if I'd gone back to get the letter they refused to reissue to my new address.

And I only got it sorted because they finally made a mistake by using the reference number I needed (that they were refusing to give me due to "data protection") in an email subject line so I tried putting it into their system and finally managed to pay the bloody thing.

I think places that put unreasonable barriers in the way of people paying fines should automatically be barred from collecting those fines.

The council are being twats and should just sort it out so she can pay it.

All people need to do is factor the cost of the fines into the cost of the holiday. It still works out much cheaper than going in the school holidays.

That's an excellent point.

So many children are unwell or break limbs during their school career and have a few weeks off. I'm sure they must statistically fair better than children from abusive homes, looked after children and children of parents incarcerated.

I'd actually be interested if anyone has any statistics on this .

Agree. She could just have said it's because the costs in school holidays are ridiculous. No need to make up other BS!

@Itslegitimatesalvage it really was the case, I have had to contact royal mail for proof of the issues in and around the area, which I did get, but obviously they don't hold records for first and second class mail. the proof the school have for sending, is also self certified, The lengths I have had to go to prove my innocence is huge. My local Cllr and MP have also been involved with trying to help me get the fine reissued, HCC are not giving me an opportunity to have the fine reinstated, unfortunately I was under the impression that because we lived together they just sent it as one, Which we paid, I thought that was it. We never received anything to tell us otherwise, until a couple of months after when I received a letter in September saying I hadn't paid it, which I queried at the time and tried to pay it, once I found out that there were suppose to be 2. Heard nothing more until December, All I want to do is pay it. People seem to think there is 'enough opportunities to pay it' but there really isn't. This really was not the case of thinking I had got away with paying a fine, like some people like to assume. They should either be recorded delivery or the school should get you to sign the document to say you received it, it could save some people a lot time and money.

@Psychoticbreak

England isn’t the UK. The fine. Other parts of the UK don’t. We are all English with English law.

Ah now come on. They also went to the zoo and played in the pool.

Well, they probably got a grand from the Daily Fail so I don't think it will bankrupt them. I don't approve of people taking their kids out of school for weeks at a time, they will find it really hard to catch up. If you want to go travelling as a family then you will be needing to homeschool them rather than missing big chunks of schooling. The fine is not really the point.

I think it's just England, not the UK. Fines are certainty not a thing in Scotland!

It's a stupid law, it needs to go and our courts are already creaking under the strain without imbecile shit like this being thrown into the mix.

Given the state of Royal Mail and the amount of undelivered post, or post they have destroyed or that’s been dumped, it is entirely possible that she really didn’t get the fine. If she is happy to pay it then just let her pay if! They’re being way too punitive. It isn’t in the public interest to prosecute here.