To invoke the ‘otherwise’ option for school absence?

No it won't keep the place.
You will to reapply for a place if /when you stop home educating him. Your place won't be guaranteed

No. You will lose their place. Then you will do an extended period of home ed until you can get them into another school !

The status quo may not be perfect, however it allows the education of children to be equitable and manageable.

How do you propose, in your imagined reality, that a school would manage delivery of a curriculum with ad hoc attendance and the constant need for children to catch up, parents demanding needing to be liaised with in relation to what their child has missed, and examinations? How would it provide tailored curricula for each individual child without additional resources?

OP you are embarrassing yourself 🤣

Send the letter and cause the school a complete waste of time whilst they unpick your AI rant. They’ve literally got nothing better to do.
I get the feeling that you are a pain in the arse.

That’s the most long winded way of saying you want to go skiing in term time I’ve ever seen. 😂

To be fair, they are ONLY allowed to take their children out of school when they are travelling for work purposes.

If your child is at an undersubscribed school, you can take them off role for home education then re-subscribe them to the school upon your return.

If your school is over-subscribed however, then once you register them for home schooling and they go off role, the place will be offered to someone else on the waiting list.

If only they'd let teachers take a term time holiday!! 13 weeks of holiday and it's so expensive to go anywhere. Not sure the parents would be overly impressed if we got a week off, particularly GCSE and A Level classes!

"Seasonal and climate factors also affect some travel. For example reliable snow in the northern hemisphere now tends to fall later and less predictably than in previous decades. This means some families cannot fit certain activities into the narrow half term week without overlapping with term time. This is not about extravagance. It is about how travel timing and seasons have shifted."

In other words.... you want to take your kids skiing in term time when its cheaper, like every other entitled middle class mother ever

How on earth do you imagine the school could just hold open a free school place that likely someone else will want for you whilst you exercise your “otherwise” option?

Thats a place a child could be using and that’s being paid for by the taxpayer.

Withdrawing your child from school is rightly a permanent option - you could be lucky and get the place back, but you can’t just hold it open.

I only read the only post and thought how knobish it sounded to quote the law but not really have much concept of a school place could probably not be kept.
If I was the head it would be a case of 'that parent' and a 🙄

How would you feel, OP, if on one of the days you did fancy sending your kids to school, there was no teacher because they had gone on holiday in term-time when it's cheaper?

If the system can support alternative ways of life such as this

It can’t- or at least not without serious effects on outcomes. Have you ever seen the stats for travelling children? Some of the worst you will see in many cases. But many have family businesses they can go into instead.

If you want that for your child, de-register and do a shit job of home educating- job done and you can go on holiday whenever you like.

No, you do not have fewer options.
The traveling communities options are in line with the fact that a secondary school may consider a traveler child who has reached a level 5 at any age, to have a completed secondary education, fitting to their lifestyle, regardless of their educational potential or parents desires in the matter.

Who says it's progress to have children randomly out of school in ones and twos in term time?

You're not that special. You're not making the clever points you think you are.

The Headteacher would read the email, roll her eyes and bin it.

the current system already doesn't have enough funding. It's not realistic to expect individual plans and arrangements to suit YOU.

Go private, you have so many options, but expecting freedom to waltz on holiday when you feel like it is ridiculous and you know it. But who cares, it's all about YOU?

the evidence the current system does not work is huge!

How, and for whom, does the current system not work? Please do bring us in on the stats. Obviously things can always be improved but it does work for the vast majority of people.

And what are you suggesting as an alternative? Ad hoc de-registering and forcing schools to hold places? How would this be better? Have you seen it work in another country, for example?

Bloody iphone changing words

you get the gist of what I meant

what some parents do to try and not a pay a fine

Just because something about the way society is organised doesn't suit how you personally would like to live does not mean the whole system and legal structures around it needs burning down OP.
Most people are grateful for a good local school place, most people with children stay in one place, most people want their children to attend school regularly, most people see the benefits of consistency, routine, and being in the same place for children and prioritise that over whether they personally would like drop everything and to jet around the world doing x, y and z whenever they fancy.
Many people travel for their jobs and for other reasons but realise it doesn't particularly benefit kids to always be dragged along, and so arrange their lives accordingly.
Withdraw your kids from school and home educate them if you want, do so while travelling the world if you want - all of that is your right. But you don't want that, you want it both ways, and unfortunately no headteacher will reserve a valuable school place for a kid who isn't there, when it could be used to help another child who wants and needs it and intends to actually be present in school. And rightly so.

You are coming across as annoying, entitled and obtuse. There are many things in life that we feel could be changed to accommodate our particular whims and preferences. Most people are mature enough to realise that individual wishes shouldn't and cannot override institutional rules and policies that provide the framwork to govern things like school education that affect multitudes of people. Just grow up.

why should we WANT to change?

It's my own kids interest to have as little disruptions as possible in already busy schools, the last thing they need is for teacher to play catch-up for those whose parents fancy themselves as special or "free".

Homeschool if you like, employ private tutors according to your own schedule, by all means.

The system is not great now, but what you suggest and letting people leave and come back as they feel like it is going to make things even worst.

I would campaign for a fine, but also forcing parents to pay for private tutors at school to catch up with all the schooling they've lost without affecting the other kids.

Homeschool, use private school, private teachers, you have endless options.
Bringing chaos to the current school system is not acceptable.

Because you're not a Traveller & the options aren't remotely "favourable", Traveller & Roma kids have some of the worst educational outcomes in the UK. That is the purpose of school remember - the advancement of your children's education.

What would I do?
Well firstly I’d be pretty offended that you had quoted the law /sections of the law at me like I wasn't familiar with them, when it was literally my job to know what they were.
Then I would probably write back reminding you that sadly we cannot ignore or abuse laws just because we don’t agree with them, society doesn’t work like that!
I would also say that you are perfectly within your rights to withdraw your child at any time but that obviously I cannot guarantee that there will be places available for them when you decide you’d like to grace my school with your presence again (in a slightly more polite tone) !! Sorry, but you did ask….