Background ......
All four of our kids have attended or do attend the same secondary school - a total of 22 years at the school so far. All are top quartile performers with no issues of any sort. None have ever been taken out of school in term time and we've never had any issues with the school at any time.
This year, we had a very special family reunion/holiday in July, involving family from overseas. Finding a time when all could attend was a nightmare but we settled in the end for a week that concluded just four days before the end of term, knowing that this would have minimal impact on our two kids (still at the school) education.
We followed school procedures in filling out authorisation forms and one of our kids came back as unathorised because his attendance for the year (?) was 2% below minimum required - due to him having two weeks off earlier in the year with a doctor backed illness.
We took our holiday (a) because we had no option to cancel or leave him (14 year old) at home and (b) because we believed his attendance % would have been fine by then. We were tempted to ring in and claim he was "sick" but felt uncomfortable with doing that so didn't.
To our surprise, we received a letter from the school posted on the last day of term stating that they had applied for a penalty notice. It didn't say what a penalty notice was and we were certainly not aware what it meant - we figured it was some sort of "slap on the wrist". We tried to speak to the school but term was over and we got nowhere.
The local authorities then sent us a notice and we learned, to our horror, that we had to pay a lot of money for - "regular unauthorised absence".
We don't understand the "regular" element as this was a one off and we have never had any instance of unathorised absence before.
We have appealed to the local authority but they are just backing the school on a "rules are rules" basis and also state that one week of absence equates to ten seperate half day absences which is therefore "regular" !!!
Surely to god this is not what penalty notices are meant to be about ? We are not bad parents and our kids are not bad kids. We have no regular or even occasional record of unauthorised absences - this was clearly a one-off where we had no real choice for such a complex occasion.
Should we fight this ? Is there any point ?
Any advice appreciated.