Has anyone gone to court over attendance fine?

A code for "parents decided to take their child out of school as they were both working away from home at the same time?"

Er no - because most people would organise for their child to stay with a friend for a week or, if an older child, let them stay at home on their own (which is presumably what they had to do while both their parents were working anyway) with someone keeping an eye on them. Or, if really no alternative, would turn down the work.

Parents having to work away isn't a reason for your child to miss school.

Think l am getting it muddled with the traveller thing as a pp stated

No. There's no code for 'we have to take our kid to work abroad with us'. It would never be authorised, especially now when schools are under immense pressure to increase their attendance post COVID. LAs that never used to fine are starting to.

I thought there was a code for this in registers and it shouldn't generate a fine.

What are you talking about? Of course you were contemplating it! That is literally what your thread is about.

In any case, I don’t know why you think your situation is unique. I don’t think I know any parent who hasn’t at some point struggled to find childcare to cover their work obligations. At least being self-employed means you have the choice to turn down the work without the risk of losing your job. And there are two of you! If your situation is unique in any way it is that you have more options than a lot of others.

I get it, fines for non-attendance are absurd and unfair (I had ~60% attendance for several years in secondary school, I dread to think what effect this would have had if my mum had had to pay fines). It's that feeling of unfairness that drives a desire for some kind of justice here, but obviously the courts aren't the way to do it.

The way to do it is to throw an egg at the education secretary.

Now if your child was registered as a traveller child then you wouldn't have to pay a fine in these circumstances.

@Anyfeckinusername Which is absolutely fine and completely understandable, especially when it's a single parent household. However, creating a thread asking for advice, than saying you were never planning on appealing it is dishonest.

(I'm not "having a go" at you at all when I say this)

I am occasionally in a similar situation although not self employed but I am the sole source of income to our family.

My comment is, I don't have cash problem - I can pay for the childcare, but trying to access childcare that will take over for a few days is nigh on impossible where I live. It took an eternity to find a nanny a few years back and I went through agencies and childcare.co.uk (resulted in nothing). It's not at all as simple as it sounds.

OP I feel your pain. I'm travelling for work in a couple of weeks and I begged for the offsite dates to be adjusted - thankfully work accommodated me and we travel the day after school breaks up - kids are coming with me. I've got family at the offsite location who will help. I've no family in the U.K. (I'm not British) and their British dad is now absent.

I just wanted to say, it's sometimes not the money that's the problem, it's finding someone suitable that's can be a much bigger challenge!

Because OP didn't hear what they wanted to hear 😂 if you can afford to take off for work and take thon child KNOWING you will be fined, you can afford to pay a £60 fine and stop wasting everybody's time.

It's bizarre.

I’ve sentenced loads. Were they at school or not. If not. Fine.

If you aren’t contemplating going to court, @Stclements115, why are you even asking this question?

Your local authority should have a published code of conduct outlining how it operates fixed penalty notices relating to attendance.

Exactly. Make a thread about going to court to appeal a fine, and than say you were never contemplating on doing said appeal. Aside from not making sense, it's a waste of people's time. Why ask for advice you're not planning on using? Bizarre.

I’ve dealt with hundreds of cases of non school attendance; I work in a magistrates court.

There’s a very small chance of a conditional discharge if you get an unusually sympathetic bench.
Likely outcome would be a band A fine (50% of your weekly income) with a third reduction for a guilty plea, plus 40% victim surcharge.
Local Authority will ask for costs which are £145 in my area.

I’m not aware of a case where a parent has challenged the interpretation of “exceptional circumstances” OP, which I think is what you’re asking. I’m not sure whether this would be a judicial review question rather than allowing the penalty notice to escalate to court proceedings.

The most famous case in respect of attendance legislation is the Isle of Wight case which was about the definition of regular attendance so not strictly relevant to your situation

https://www.farrarsbuilding.co.uk/platt-v-isle-wight-council-2017-uksc-28/

Nah the only passive aggressive or outright aggressive person on this thread is you OP. Yes asking for people’s experience of a very specific thing to do does rather suggest you are contemplating doing it. I can only think you are tetchy because you haven’t got the answer you want, which is a way to get out of the fine.

Yes. By contemplating doing this. No court case is a guarantee, so by default even with a good argument you are risking huge legal fees.

Ummm, yes you did OP, by discussing the possibility of taking this to court??

Lots of people have, with far better arguments than you. I don't know anyone that's won. There was a very public case a couple of years ago of a dad that went pretty high up in court with it. You're not going to win and given your reasons for the absence, it's quite ironic that you're willing to risk such huge legal fees in a cost of living crisis.

Maybe ask mumsnet to move to legal section and see if you have any chance at all. Would doubt it.