Fines for holidays

[BigFatLiar]

Don't know if this has been mentioned....
Parents to be fined for school time holidays

Not just holidays..

"Pupils absent for 15 days or more for health reasons should also be reported to the local council to make sure they and their family get more support, the Government said"

Is that a total of 15 days over a year or a single period of 15 days?

My opinion on the absence for holidays is that there should not be fines. Repeat offenders should be taken to court and if there is not a reason such as visiting relatives who cannot travel, or special one off events, then passports should be withdrawn for a period of time.

Absence for health reasons is wholly different.

From the way I read it it would be fifteen days over the year. A bit like taking too many sick days at work.

Ugh I’m so glad I’m in Ireland where this doesn’t happen. Bloody ridiculous!

Oh great, so we're back on the merry-go-round of pushing sick kids - who are too distracted by being poorly to learn in any case - into school to make the other kids sick. Joy.

I have children with chronic long term health conditions. They can fuck off, it's discriminatory.

Oh fuck off
Living in this country is becoming an absolute misery

Yeah, vulnerable kids who are made all the more so by ridiculous policies that would see more lurgy-carrying classmates dumped in school by financially hamstrung parents.

This.

DD has had so many absences this year from Covid to colds to stomach upsets. Many more than she would normally have. It doesn't help that kids' immune systems have been compromised with lockdown.

Being referred to the council is a joke anyway. I've had to fight the council to get DD the SEN support she needed. I can't see what they are going to do to help.

This sounds like another of Boris's shit ideas. Do any of these people actually live in the real world?

Gonna just lie now aren't we.

Remember private schools have longer holidays so can access cheaper holidays as well. Are they excluded from this rules anyway?

DD has gone from 100% attendance to 70% and we are working hard to fix it. Sometimes they need time to work things out.

I can't find that in the article?

Parents whose children have five days of unauthorised absence or lateness within one term, take holidays during term-time, or are out in public during the first five days of an exclusion, will face a fixed penalty notice, the plans suggest.

My child has had many more than 15 days out of school. But I always call so it's always marked down as authorised.

Won't stop us doing term time holidays, will just add the £120 to the cost of the holiday in our heads and will proba ly just take them out or 3 days early instead of the 5 days

You need to press 'continue reading'

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/all-parents-who-take-children-on-holiday-in-term-time-to-face-120-fine/ar-AAYBHyk?ocid=winp0dash&pc=NTPWWU&cvid=cc9f1d8eb85743bba0ecf4acaba5f4e9

Sick days are unauthorised, regardless of calling in here?

^Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner, has called for attendance to rise to 100% by the 2022 autumn term in September, and has urged academy trusts to do ‘whatever it takes’ to achieve this^

Well that's never going to be possible when guidelines are to stay off 48 hours after sickness.

Really? They're counted as authorised absence for us.

It's a joke! With covid and things like chicken pox around. Will still be cheaper to go on holiday in term time!

Oh FFS. This is bullshit. Not content with all the other shit this government has subjected us to because of their incompetence they want to load even more shit.

Maybe I'm wrong? I'm doubting myself now.

I have a school app so my child's absences are noted on there. There are a lot - he's nearly missed 10% this year - but not marked as unauthorised. Those are the ones you need to get deleted off the record.

And fuck 100% attendance

I suspect it may vary from according to authority but DS has only had 59% attendance since January. He has had a succession of random stuff. There's been no issue at all with school as we've kept them posted and they know it's for genuine reasons.

It does affect children's learning if they're out of school, so I get why it's a focus. Given the number of children who couldn't go back to school when they wanted to in summer 2020, I can appreciate why people might not listen. Can't see
Fines working; but if they are going to go that route, they should at least pass them to the school.

And if this government gives a shit about children, it would be pouring money into mental health support for all the children whose development was stunted by the pandemic.

They don't.

Sickness absences count as authorised.

These proposals aren't changing the underlying policy - just ending the postcode lottery of the discrepancies between different councils about when fines are levied.

I'm less sure what the intentions are about monitoring high levels of sickness absence. If a child is missing a lot of school, then finding out why and seeing if the family needs extra support would seem sensible, but i can quite see why people would be mistrustful on that.

I expect it's a response to parents who lie about sickness as the reason for absence. This has already led to some schools asking for evidence of the medical need. That's another hoop for parents of DC with chronic health conditions to jump through. But don't kid yourself that it's not already happening in some places

£120 isnt going to stop them for holidays. Maybe things like lateness.

My sil looked at a holiday with her 3 dcs in summer £4k. Same holiday in mid sept £1700. Add 3 x £120 fines still a HUGE saving.