Would you pay this school fine or risk it at court

Just pay the fine. The school don't decide to apply a fine, the local authority do. They won't care if you're standing your ground or not.

Yes it is up to the school whether parents receive a fine or not. I have personal experience of this recently.

One school fined (despite extenuating circumstances) and the other school didn’t. When I spoke to the fine department as the absence had been recorded incorrectly, they advised me that they were instructed by the school to fine me and I would need to speak to the school to amend the incorrect absence.

The mum was adamant he couldn't go because of a medical issue but as a school we were happy to take him.

I am not saying op shouldn't take her child away but she will probably get a fine.

am just answering her question about whether she should pay the fine. Don't need explaining how shit it is for disabled kids. Thank you.

If he could've gone, that isn't just a bit different, that's very different.

Disabled children have to suck it up every single day of their lives, they know about sucking it up more than anyone.

Disabled children miss out on enough and shouldn't be stuck in school for a week whilst their class is off having fun, it isn't fair and it's discriminatory.

Not all disabled children will be capable of helping out in the lower years and again, even if they were, why should they when their class is off having fun?

This is irritating. It’s surely not too hard to figure it out. For example, a child with a condition like type 1 diabetes needs care but can do any activities. OP already said a nurse would be required for the trip. Parents of disabled children do the work of nurses for their own kids. It is hard.

My DD (type 1 diabetes) couldn’t go on a school trip if school couldn’t or wouldn’t provide a trained and willing pupil support assistant to do her daytime and overnight care. 24 hour care is quite different from keeping an eye on her during school hours. Unbelievably, staff don’t get paid for these extra hours or extra responsibility so we were very lucky (and pretty surprised) that someone volunteered to do it. We weren’t allowed to accompany her instead.

OP is entirely justified in her plans and I’d be tempted to use it an opportunity to highlight discrimination against disabled children at school. School/LA could provide a nurse and make the trip possible if they funded it. Leaving out a disabled child is unacceptable.

The ignorance and stupidity of some posters here makes the whole thing even worse.

We had a mother who said her child couldn't go on residential due to medical needs and booked a holiday but still got fined. Bit different because he could have gone but the bottom line was, school was open so he could go in - they would get him helping out in lower years. I would suck it up.

Wow, you really don’t give a fuck about the disadvantages that many children with disabilities encounter on a daily basis in and out of school, do you?

“Pipe down at the back ‘cos I’m alright Jack”, seems to be your mantra.

Schools and LEA’s need to be made accountable when they fail to meet the educational needs of their disabled pupils, and taking cases like this to court is one way to expose that failure and hopefully, eventually bring about positive changes.

Have you read ops updates? Makes things so much easier to understand.

Why can’t the school meet the medical needs, and what do they need to do to meet those needs?

Well done - everyone seems to not be reading the OP properly.

I see your point OP it’s completely unfair, but I don’t think you will win.
i would send him to school Monday morning, collect at lunchtime and take him on your own holiday, then he only misses 9 sessions & you don’t get a fine…

@NeverDropYourMooncup

I too, posted the guidance, above and the points related to saying this is an educational activity. PP’s see determined to ignore the DfE documents that schools and LA’s have to abide by.

Too easy to talk of ‘jobs worth’ and blame individual staff, whilst suggesting unworkable answers to addressing this.

It's not an Approved Educational Activity and therefore cannot be recorded under the B code.

Code B: Attending any other approved educational activity

309. The pupil is attending a place for an approved educational activity that is not a sporting activity or work experience. The educational activity must take place during the session for which it is recorded.

310. A pupil can only be recorded as attending a place for an approved educational activity if:

the place is somewhere other than the school, another school where the pupil is registered, or a place where educational provision has been arranged for the pupil by a local authority under section 19(1) of the Education Act 1996 or sections 42(2) or 61(1) of the Children and Families Act 2014;

• the activity is of an educational nature;
• the school has approved the pupil’s attendance at the place for the activity; and • the activity is supervised by a person considered by the school to have the appropriate skills, training, experience and knowledge to ensure that the activity takes place safely and fulfils the educational purpose for which the pupil’s attendance has been approved. Supervision means the pupil is physically supervised by someone who meets this definition.

311. Schools must also record the nature of the approved educational activity (regulation 10(5)), examples are:
     • attending transition days at other schools;
     • attending courses at college;
     • attending unregistered alternative provision arranged by the school.

312. Schools have responsibilities for the safeguarding and welfare of pupils attending an approved educational activity. The school will need to be satisfied that appropriate measures have been taken to safeguard the pupil. Schools should ensure that they have in place arrangements whereby the provider of the educational activity notifies the school of any absences by the pupil. The school must record the pupil’s absence using the relevant absence code.

It's not an AEA. It's a holiday. Which the school must record accurately.

I posted the DfE guidance around the alternative education, above, including the he responsibility on the school.

@Coastingtohell25 What is your ‘alternative educational activity’ OP? A booked family trip to an outdoor education centre is very different to a holiday camp, for instance.

Single mums with disabled children tend to be pretty stretched financially and have a lot on their plate - you seriously think it is the mother's duty to FIGHT the school/LA to provide what they should, and potentially to fund it with £££ of the child's money?

@Coastingtohell25 when you have time I have added links to actual information.

How would that fit in with the DC being taken on a holiday offering similar activities?
The issue is, why should the OP get fined in the first place seeing as the school have failed in their duty to support ALL pupils?

Fair enough. I must make it clear though that I believe this child should have been supported by the school and support services to attend this trip - and if that wasn’t possible, then a different type of residential should have been booked by the school.

I advise you to contact the SEN team at your LA for support on this. The trip should have been raised at his last annual review as it would have needed to be carefully planned to ensure he cold have attended at no additional cost to yourself.
We had a child with severe disabilities and when it was her year’s time to go on the residential, the whole trip was amended so she could be included. We booked somewhere much closer to school (an hour away), and had highly trained staff employed there as it was a place that focused on children (and adults) with a range of disabilities. It meant the children could go home each evening if the parents wanted that, we arranged for transport for the disabled child and her 1:1 travelled in the transport to and from the place daily. We did have a couple of parents whos older children had done the usual PGL before moaning, but after the trip, every single child had nothing but praise for the trip.
I’m very surprised that with a child who has such a severe disability this wasn’t raised by the professionals who support him.

1 million percent this. The roolz is the tail wagging the dog. Rules brought in to try and do something about shit parents who allow their DC to skive off school end up punishing good parents who are trying their best for their disadvantaged DC. Like those Coles family CFers who are always taking their DC out of school for paid for trips and then bragging about it on TikTok - how they don’t care/can afford the fine /stuff the school etc - makes me so angry 😡

I really feel for you are your DC @Coastingtohell25 . I think I’d take the holiday and pay the fine and take the path of least resistance this time round but absolutely would be taking the school to task about the discriminatory element.

I hope you all have a fantastic time and the weather holds for you!

This assumes OP has nothing else to spend the money on for an extended period. Just 8 hours a night is £840 and she may have meant more hours. High rate DLA care is £110.40 a week in 2025.

Could his DLA have not paid for this? This is precisely what DLA is intended for.

I would normally say pay the fine, but given the school could not meet your child's needs to allow them to go on the trip then the school should not be fining you for taking him away for a week to also enjoy a similar trip.

I'd be making it clear to the school that unless they authorised the holiday as educational (they can do that) then you will be going down the disability discrimination route.

There is no way they can expect your child to be on their own in school due to no fault of their own whilst their peers have fun.

I took a Y7 activity trip and had a pupil with many physical needs. The school paid for the child's 20 year old sibling to also come on the trip as a carer to deal with all night time medical needs as this meant the child could participate and stay. They had a fantastic time!

The school is required by Law to accurately record the reasons for absence.

The school is required by Law to not authorise any holiday during term time.

The school is required by Law to follow the process for referral for a fine.

The LA is required by Law to follow the process.

The alternative is expecting somebody at the school to knowingly falsify the entries in a legal document that is linked constantly to the DfE to report in real time, to ignore multiple legal requirements and duties relating to the register.

The support (or lack of) to be able to facilitate attendance on a school trip is an entirely separate matter. Blackmailing the school/head to either falsify the register entries/instruct somebody far less important to falsify the entries and ignore the law on attendance or be faced with being sued/a Daily Mail article is not going to cause a Head to comply.