School Abscense Fine - huge amount

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If I am correct, if you take your child/ren out of school without prior agreement, there is an automatic fine of £60/day/child/parent?

So for us, a family with 3 children, a 2 week holiday in (say) June, would cost us £3600 - or double that if we don't pay within a certain amount of time!

Is it me to think that is totally unreasonable?!

That is a huge amount. The people who take their children out normally can't afford the hike in holiday prices, so how on earth would they afford the fine?

i don't think it's a word in your sense original (ironic name) but i think it communicates meaning perfectly well amongst adults having a conversation. i also like to throw a few crumbs to the desperate. hth.

i tend to think i'm in the business of communicating on here and expressing my views rather than being marked for punctuation or spelling. and if i were to follow your PA approach i'd now be saying i found it shocking that a teacher would mock someone for spelling or using the wrong word when for all they knew they could have SEN or disabilities that explained it.

Provide me the links? You honestly think two weeks out of a year or every two years will effect the child? How come it was very common for most parents to do this and none of us are "suffering" As I said, most of my friends from school, me, my brother, people I know still taking their kids out for one or two weeks a year, why are we all NOT behind if it's soo bad.

Again a holiday not being essential - YOUR opinion. Some parents work weekends so barely see their kids so they don't have a choice. My dad did security work so I'd get home from school, he'd be off, weekends he'd work, holidays were a great time for us to get to see one another.

Continual truancy damages education yes to this.

Education is compulsory. Going on holiday instead should be strongly discouraged. There's always a thin end of the wedge, but the principle is sound. I don't buy the whining about expense during holidays. It is a fact that families with less money can afford less stuff than rich ones - get used to it. And yes - I know very well what it's like to be in the poor group, but that's life. It's perhaps regrettable that increased control is needed these days, but it shouldn't be beyond any average person's wit to understand that there's a very significant minority of parents out there who actually can't be trusted to do the right thing, be it with attendance, nutrition or whatever. There have to be rules when education is compulsory. And please, stop comparing teachers having to take industrial action at their own expense in defence of teaching standards for your children, with the selfish, disruptive choice of depriving children of whole weeks of education just to go on holiday. As already pointed out, that's not something that just affects the individual. People can argue that holidays during term time are some kind of right, but the fact is they're not - the law requires your children to attend school. Holidays are for holidays, so suck it up.

I strongly believe holidays away from the home are important. Being away stops everyone from having to do the usual chores. Look at the Thomas Cook advert - the dad is a monster until he goes on holiday where he can relax. People may not like the advert but most people IMO chill when they are away. Holidays away from home provide quality family time together. My family would certainly act differently if in a hotel for a weekend compared to being at home. Holidays are very very important, whether it be camping down the road, a give in France, villa in Florida or waterside beach hut in Maldives. I appreciate this time with my family and feel as the kids get older it actually becomes even more important.

Term time holidays are fine, though not at the beginning of term ideally.

Schools can take kids out for concerts, trips skiing etc so why can't we.

Schools and the government should spend more energies on the persistent truanters who are off school on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.

I don't understand how people can afford the time to take their kids out of school for two weeks. My annual leave + DH annual leave + GPs help only just covered all the school hols, in-service days, polling station closure, sick days, etc. How do people find another two weeks (each) for an extra holiday?

so deal with that minority uncle.

i don't punish whole classes because one child is naughty. it would be utterly lazy and unfair of me to do so.

Do we really want to discuss ironic names? No, not a word in 'my sense' or anyone else's, I'm afraid. It is worrying

retro - Well, I've never encountered my children spending a fortnight stripping classrooms, to be honest! Of course exams being over etc, there's less nose to the grindstone in the last week of the summer term, though of course we're not talking about whether, specifically, children should miss the last week of term, are we? Sports' days, parents' evenings, school performances and concerts are often also held in those last weeks, and I personally would generally not consider myself the best arbiter of what is worth missing and what isn't, at any time of the year.

Why can sporty kids go to fixtures - well playing for your school is part of being at your school, I would have thought. Also, it usually entails, as far as I've experienced it, missing the last bit of the last lesson - or perhaps the whole of the last lesson, sometimes. If Mr S knows that Jake, Sam and Josh will be leaving Maths at 3.10, and it's been in the staff bulletin, he can probably give them a plenary a bit earlier and I can't see it causes too many problems - I don't know of any sporty kids missing lessons frequently or for a whole week at a time.

Expensive school trips I think are a different issue with lots of other associated concerns, and I am not sure what I think about them.

But the fact remains that nobody has to pay this fine.

The business of human beings should be to make life fairer though UncleT not to just shrug our shoulders and say "Life is unfair, suck it up."

Otherwise you may just as well have survival of the fittest, dog eat dog, no-one helps anyone, I'm alright Jack. If anyone has any problems they have to "suck it up".

Oh here we go, that's life, suck it up blah blah blah. Are these the same sort of people who want benefit claimaints to use vouchers for their benefits to? Boring. I'll still take my son out thanks, my son, my choice. Fine will still be less than a two week break in peak time anyway.

but hey keep clapping and cheering about 'them' whilst all of your liberties and rights and whittled away to the tune of divide and rule and how we all have to give up everything because of those scallies over there.

All this nanny state talk is ridiculous. School's need to operate with rules for the good of the entire school.
Just as in the work place there are rules and procedures for holidays.
Society only works with written and unwritten rules and norms.

People can argue all they like that it makes no difference if their kids go out if school at term time but it does impact upon the smooth running of the school. Especially if everyone does it at random times.

Except mandatory attendance is not punishment. It applies to all for the purpose of ensuring educational standards for all. The lunch box thing I would agree with that principle on though.

Look at the Thomas Cook advert as proof that holidays are a Good Thing?? Yeah, because there's very unlikely to be much at stake for Thomas Cook is presenting holidays as something you need for the sake of your family harmony!

in presenting!

but hey keep clapping and cheering about 'them' whilst all of your liberties and rights and whittled away to the tune of divide and rule and how we all have to give up everything because of those scallies over there

Er, what now?

Sooooooo because of a minority the majority should miss out.That makes sense,not!Said minority will still truant and feed their kids crap,they still are.

It is harder to go on holiday now financially.When I was at school the cost of living was lower and parents could take their kids out on top of that.This wasn't abused as like now parents are adults and fully capable of deciding what is best for their kids.

Katnip - No, but one has to be realistic. We were poor, we had some help, it got us through - but you still have to accept that you canâ??t necessarily afford what some others can.

Numpty you may as well be talking to yourself I think think i've stumbled off mumsnet in the dm comments section haven't i?!

No-one has yet addressed the question of what the problem was with the old, more flexible, non-fining system that existed when we were at school.

It seems like change for change's sake. Political interference in schools. Not tackling the main problem, pretending there is a more easy to solve problem elsewhere and dealing with that.

No we are poor retro we don't deserve holidays. We should just trundle off to southend once a year in the six weeks and be happy with that because we are poor and we don't deserve anything else, dur.

The thomas cook advert shows how people change when they are away, and they use the dad who spends all his time at work as an example. I didn't say the advert was proof that holidays are good, I said it demonstrates how people change on holiday.

Well fir many workers, Xmas day with your family isn't a holiday it's a luxury

Everyone's circumstances are different. The problem is that these absence guidelines work when school is allowed to exercise some discretion. But absence becomes tied to school ratings and HT job, that discretion is no longer exercised.

It would be a pretty bleak year fir my family without that holiday, especially as i am aldo working sll over easter bank holiday too. We save £700 by going three days before end of term.

And if you thi k I am a rare case, think again. This is true for so many in frontline services/hospitality/manufacturing.

katnip - it wasn't a profitable way of dealing with things and it didn't advance the notion that none but the super rich should have any control over their lives. ergo it was ineffective.