Would you pay this school fine or risk it at court

Sounds like a shame he’s sick the week of the trip. Honestly the teachers on your side here just call the office and say he’s got a virus.

Well done on being a great Mum and providing an alternative to the School residential.

However the fine - it’s not the school, it’s the County, just pay it and stop giving it headspace.

Schools do not now have any ‘discretion’ to authorise holidays - they are on an extremely difficult position on this as they are being held accountable for absence figures very firmly.
Schools do, however, need to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for school trips otherwise it is classed as discrimination and your child’s needs should have been considered from the start of planning this trip. It is not legal for them to go on a trip without including all students. I would be seeking advice on this or at least looking up the relevant legislation yourself. There will be local Send groups who will help you with this. So you may well have the fine but you definitely need to challenge them about not including your child x

Your child should be in school. Pay the fine.
You won’t win and if you try to go to court think of the STRESS of it, it will take months and months. Pay the fine. Your child is going on holiday when they should be in school.

Personally I would take it to court. Your child clearly has a disability that the school aren't accommodating for a school trip away. You have created an alternative experience for him, matching what the other children would be doing, so he doesn't miss out totally, which the school should authorise.
Sounds like life is tough enough for him anyway and his wellbeing will be compromised by being forced into school instead of having a fun school trip away.
He's unlikely to be taught whilst in school - just put at the back of another classroom with worksheets.... offer to take those with you........

@Coastingtohell25 there was no real attempt to make it possible for them to attend.

In which case, OP, you may have a case for direct discrimination under the Equality Act if they've failed to make anticipatory or reasonable adjustments for your DC's disability/health problem, and indirect discrimination (as you are being fined) as you are the carer.

Any lawyers on here to comment/confirm this?

The school could easily mark him down as unwell. They absolutely have the choice.

Have you listened to the school? They've said they don't want the council to issue you a fine but they have no choice but to mark as an unauthorised absence.
Have you not heard of reading between the lines or subtle hints?
So ring in the first day and say sickness. They can't tell you to do that but I bet that's what they're thinking.
It'll be a pita for them to organise cover in school.

You are conflating two sept issues. Factor the fine into the price of the holiday. You will need to pay it. On the other hand complain that he wasn't accommodated on the school trip and they made no allowances.

I would 100% call in sick. If the school have any sense of morals they would likely know what is going on but not pursue it. What about your DC's mental health, how awful him missing out on the trip due to his medical issues? That is on the school, so I wouldn't give a damn about what they think when you call in. Or if there's any way he can get a mark so it's less than the 10 sessions?
Enjoy your holiday, hope you all have a great time.

I think if you can afford not to win you should go to court - but only if you have evidence in writing they couldn’t/wouldn't make reasonable adjustments for your child’s medical conditions so he could attend.

If alternatives for him to attend weren’t made I’d argue it under the equality act.

This.

I think most courts are prepared to hear you out. If OP can provide the medical evidence then fair enough. But they'd likely just say that could have been arranged for the school trip too. Regardless of funding issues etc as they'd see it as discriminatory not to I'd assume.

We knew someone who has repeatedly called all DCs in sick for up to two weeks at a time when they are on holiday abroad. I don't blame people who do this but like with the person we know of it's only a matter of time until the LA or an Attendance Officer with a nose for these things spots they only ever get flu/covid/chicken pox/ other long illnesses are available at the same time every year (both parent's birthdays). I most definitely was not impressed to hear they used an illness that hospitalised me last year as their latest excuse considering I was practically at death's door. 🙄

It's your choice OP but be prepared to pay the fine anyway.

Has the option of you taking your holiday near the residential venue, dropping DS off every day and looking after him in your accommodation overnight, been explored? That is the only reasonable solution you don’t mention as having been considered.

Get a copy of the school complaints procedure and start the complaints process, following the steps in the procedure in order. The issue is the venue the school has chosen. No residential trip venue for primary-age children is so unique that the same activities are not available closer to home. Once on the residential site, it makes little difference to the educational experience where in the country the venue is, so choosing one so far away is just a waste of the time and money spent on the travel there and back, and is the barrier to DS attending. It could easily have been changed without negatively impacting the other children.

Start collating a time-line of dates when the trip was discussed, who with and what was requested and agreed - include anything you have in writing. When the complaint is investigated, this can be compared with the date that the school made the booking, so it is clear the decision was made after discussing DS's needs or early enough to make changes if his night-time needs only came to light to staff afterwards.

If your DS has an EHCP, also contact the LA's parent support service (SENDIAS or equivalent) as the school is discriminating against DS (Equality Act 2010) and not meeting his needs as laid out by the LA in the EHCP they have issued, whilst it (the LA) is potentially fining the parent for trying to provide an equivalent experience (assuming you can evidence this by the type of holiday activities you have booked) rather than taking the school to task over this.

Edited for grammar

If you decide to take the simple route of paying the fine (which although would grate and you definitely shouldn’t have to do, I would completely understand with everything else you are managing), I would definitely contract your MP about this as a minimum. It’s disgusting that you are effectively being fined trying to accommodate your disabled child and give them a similar experience to their peers, when the school has said they are unable to accommodate them on a school trip. Either your child is punished by being made to attend school missing out on the fun trip his peers are having or you are punished by being fined for trying to mitigate the unfairness of the situation. Your poor boy is already dealing with what sounds like a challenging and life-limiting disability. His life is already very unfair. Why should anyone be trying to make things more unfair for him. It’s not right.

When you engage with a school you need to be proactive and suggest suitable options. If their options don’t work for you/your son say that, explain why (ideally including why it could cause issues for the school where you can) and suggest alternatives. Don’t wait for them to come up with things. IME you need to be unemotional and clear but firm in advocating for your DS. Prep before the meeting and come up with lots of suggestions (ask around or on social media for other reasonable adjustments children have had in similar circumstances so you know what to suggest).Remember it’s easier to ask for things before they’ve made a decision than after so get in there upfront. And throw about the D-word (discrimination) where needed! You can’t be passive or they’ll walk all over you and this type of unfair treatment will happen constantly.

The school should be making every effort to make this trip accessible to your child or there's an argument for disability discrimination. I also feel that making a child attend school for a week, alone, while their mates are on a holiday they were excluded from for no fault of their own isn't appropriate, to put it mildly.

This! And even if it wouldn't fall under disability discrimination, OP would certainly have grounds to claim for bullying or emotional distress.

Either way OP, do NOT just roll over and pay a fine. Show your DC that a good parent ALWAYS fights for what's right!

she said the other kid (kids?) are pre compulsory education age so can come on the trip but not on the residential as per the school.

the school has really backed her into a corner here :(

Respectively, the 'just pay the fine' brigade are the reason schools now issue fines with impunity. Should have been more push-back from parents from the start!

OP - take your child on holiday and if they insist on a fine, take legal action against them for discrimination re: illness/disability. Good luck!

If he'll be doing similar activities to the residential, can't he be recorded as being "educated offsite" or similar?

Are your other dc school age, and will they also be missing stuff?

Could you not just phone him in sick?

This is actually the strangest comment I’ve seen here. This child has no choice. Your family had loads of choices. Choices come with consequences, sure. But why should something that no one chose have this level of impact?

This child didn’t chose to be excluded, this mother didn’t chose to spend her life fighting for her child to have as much normalcy in his life as possible, the school didn’t choose to accommodate in either activities or location or by budgeting appropriately to support every child. The whole thing is a mess and I commend this mother for trying to find the least awful solution for her child.

I am in Scotland so there are no school fines so I don’t have any personal experience about how to fight this. But the more I think about this, the more infuriated I get so I really do encourage you to try to fight back. Am aware that’s asking you to do a lot of work to benefit the next child, but this is so inherently wrong I can’t wrap my head around it.

It’s extremely unfair for the school to give permission for all the kids to be out of school for a week, but to say to OP’s child ‘sorry, you have to stay back alone because getting care for you is too expensive’.
Laws are written by people who won’t have considered every situation. Fining a parent in this case is against the spirit of the law IMO as mum is just trying to give her kid the same opportunities as everyone else.
I don’t know what I would find worse, being in class alone, or with students in a different age group. No one could argue that staying in school that week is better for the child. I think OP should fight it and I really hope she wins (or doesn’t get a fine in the first place).

I’m all for holding schools accountable for making reasonable accommodations, but this isn’t the way to do it. A court case would be about parents decision to keep child out of school, not school’s decision about accommodation. In this situation the parent risks a significant loss while the school faces zero consequences either way.

Personally I think you should be challenging the school because they couldn't accommodate him. They shouldn't be going on a trip that can't include all the children. And as they have, it seems unfair to fine you.

I'm not sure you'd get away with it in court though. I'd resent needing to pay more so I'd probably just pay the fine.

You should complain about the trip though. Maybe they'll waive the fine if your complaint is upheld.