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?

Oh yes I can't go because the school dictates what I do with the child i pushed out my vagina. Good luck with them getting any money off me if they try to fine me.

Dahlen there's many ways of doing things. You’re looking at it as a school model in your home, and that’s not what most do as it’s generally not a good thing.

Most home edders don't 'teach,' ie pour their expert knowledge into an empty jug, they 'facilitate learning', and there really is a huge difference, because done right the children are actively learning for themselves because they want to, and enjoying it. Which means the parent doesn't necessarily have to be present for all of it. When you are, you're directing, steering, seeding, linking, listening, and expanding, generally. A much smaller part of the time is spent actively teaching, and autonomous home edders spend no time teaching.

Hence it’s a bit hard to answer how long’s a learning day, plus age and stage come in.

But yes you can do massively more in smaller amounts of time, because without knocking them, schools are actually a very inefficient use of children’s time.

Home edders are very good at reciprocal arrangements, (and sharing stuff!) others use registered home edding childminders, or ones sympathetic to HE. (some get help with childcare costs just as working parents with children using schools do) Others choose to change their work patterns or work, or become self-employed.
Go check out the home ed boards about what it can look like because there's lots of solutions.

I'm not saying poor people shouldn't go on holiday but bleating on about how poor you are while discussing holidays does not make my heart bleed for you.

to be fair I've looked in home education and partly because of location - my view is it is an expensive way to educate - it can be done cheaply but you do need to buy in a lot the school provides as they get older

I feel like people have recently decided that holidays are some sort of human right.

We go away to see family not on holiday, as I said, I'd rather not holiday with my husband's family as it is not a holiday but that's what happens when you have international families or UK people disperse around the world. The right to family life is a right upheld by the European Court of Human Rights, I can't be bothered to take them to court to uphold it, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before somebody does.

And, please don't say, there are 13 weeks to take them. If I could afford to visit in those 13 weeks I would not be so pissed off with the new legal interpretation and fines. You will notice most countries around the globe don't place these restrictions on travel even though, like the US, they are full of immigrants from all around the world who want to see their families.

Well my holiday when I was a kid apart from some 2's to put in the machines at southend, petrol money to get away (which was only 20 miles from home anyway) pretty much cost my Dad nothing. I can tell you, we were struggling all the time. Infact, even most of the food my Grandad left us in the van for the week we stayed. Some people will even just go camping for a holiday but again, they might need to take it in term time as job doesn't allow them to do it in term time. Not all of us are blessed with these amazing jobs I keep hearing about on here that let you book off whatever time you like either.

thetallest no sorry

you can't go even if it's to see family
you can't go if you have a job that doesn't allow you to take term time off (just get another job people, there are tons about you lazy arses)
You can't go if your a low income family either as just accept your poor you lazy feckers, poor people aren't entitled to holidays, don't you know?
A holiday isn't a right, let's make sure we get that in one more time in this thread.

Euthah - "which is only given in exceptional circumstances and this would not normally include holidays except for the armed services and religious exemption"

"not normally", mummymeister.

euthah. please have a look at the new law as it is written. I am sorry I shouldnt have paraphrased. Here is the Dept for Educations advice copied from their website

"...Headteachers have the discretion to grant leave, but they should only do so in exceptional circumstances. If a headteacher grants a leave request, it will be for them to determine the length of time that the child can be away from school. This leave is unlikely, however, to be granted for the purposes of a family holiday..."

Head teachers have been told very very clearly by LEA's not to give time off for holidays. there have been threads on MN and unless they are lying these threads are saying people cant get time off for funerals of family members or to take a day off to remember a parent on the anniversary of their death. try it. go into your kids school tomorrow and ask for a couple of days off. If there was some common sense about it there wouldn't be a thread like this but there isn't.

We can't all afford to take them abroad in the school hols; I think the fine is totally unfair and biased against poorer people. Yes it's nice to go camping some years but I really want to take my DC's on a long haul holiday tropical somewhere. The fine is totally ridiculous and typical of this shit government.

Sofuckedup I'm not on here trying to convert people to home ed, but because it keeps being thrown up as accept whatever the state system says or home ed, I was initially rebutting a misunderstanding about a home being a classroom, and a later 'it's impossible because.'
But I have to say as one dc here is at A level taking six of them and two other qualifications, while it means making sacrifices it's certainly not impossible to do on a low budget. We do. The better your location, connections, and finances, the easier it can be, the same as everything in life, but few things are impossible.

I would have a bit of sympathy if you were going to visit an elderly relative a distance away who was unable to travel to you, but not otherwise. What we should be campaigning for is some staggering of school holidays, so that perhaps Yorkshire had one week for half term and Derbyshire the next, and not all the same weeks in the summer.

Charley, according to some dickheads people on this thread, if you can't afford to go on holiday with your children in term time, you don't deserve to go.

yes sorry I meant my location makes it expensive I have to factor in £15 petrol to get to a group, although there are local groups springing up everywhere and it is tempting me more and more as I grow more disillusioned with the governments attempts to turn our children into clones at a younger and younger age.

Yeah, because "a long haul holiday tropical somewhere" is an inalienable human right.

Justgettingonwithit,
It's still an expensive option though, is it not? I mean if it means you can't work yourself.
Can I ask (genuine question not a dig) If what you do is facilitate learning rather than formally teach, do the children learn formal stuff that requires learning by rote such as times tables? I'm fascinated by home ed but couldn't do it myself. Plus my older 2 fight constantly and would probably kill each other if they had to spend all day together too. 1 to1 I could probably have done esp with ds1 as he was an inquisitive little sponge but no way with ds2 who is both super bright and super wild. doing it with 4 would do me in though!

flogginmolly - i am a secondary teacher and the last i knew parents were still able to withdraw their children from sats. i cannot actually believe that it would be legal now for a school expressly ignore the instructions of parents and force them to sit them against the parents expressed written wishes.

Parents have never, ever had the legal right to withdraw their children from SATs.

Omg if I hear this human right shit one more time I'll blow my top.

When I had my child, I had him to bring him up with my choices and what I want to do with him. I will not fucking let some idiots tell me my child wil suffer if he has a holiday because quite frankly, it is bullshit and you know what, if some people feel it's their right, then that's their opinion and quite frankly, it's no one's business. People just make it theirs.

Also basically, I could potentially never have a holiday with my son because the school tells me no? Don't think so. I'll probably never earn a good wage, even in my chosen field, the job I love, it's bad pay and I'd have to wait till he was what, 16 when he left school or he was old enough to pay for himself, by this point, he probably won't give a shit about going on holiday with his Mum (just like I didn't by that age) If your so rich you can afford holidays in the term time, good for you. Your life must be so amazing. not all of us have that luxury. Stop banging on about human rights it's fricking boring.

Sofuckedup more and more people are feeling the same way. This isn't about holidays etc, it's about who should decide what's in who's children's best interests, and why.

Surely don't take them out of school? I dont understand all this term time holidaying.

It's a shame that some families can't get time off together in august, but there are also people in some professions who will never get a Christmas Day at home for example, and lots of other things which aren't necessarily "fair". It really isn't a right.

Far too much entitlement on this thread for me. I am off :)

Fine for everyone to say tough, get over it but, it really is utter nonsense to say that one week out of primary school in early/mid July, say, is seriously detrimental to a child's overall education and a serious hindrance to achievement.

The reason behind this policy is political. Agree/disagree at your leisure but nobody should be fooled into thinking the government have done this to protect the education of the these children.

The reason behind this policy is political. Agree/disagree at your leisure but nobody should be fooled into thinking the government have done this to protect the education of the these children.

Its a way of local councils getting money. That is all.

"Yes it's nice to go camping some years but I really want to take my DC's on a long haul holiday tropical somewhere."

If you were saying 'I need to take my children in term time because I genuinely cannot afford to go ANYWHERE in the school holidays', I would have some sympathy. I have taught families in that situation, and have not begrudged the hours taken over the following weeks doing extra work with those children so that they can catch up.

I am never likely to be able to take my DCs on a long haul tropical holiday, ever. For obvious reasons, I am absolutely unable to take holidays in term time, and we cannot afford it in holiday time. That is 'normal'. That, IME, is what everyone does - they don't go on long haul holidays, ever, because they can't afford it. End of story - and I am terribly MC and live in an achingly MC area.

So I am not quite sure why the huge ranting that not being able to take long haul holidays in term time somehow infringes some right that everyone else is exercising but the government is intent ion depriving you of??

(IME, I can pick out the children who have taken term-time holidays in any term, just by looking at their attainment tracking. If a child takes a term-time holiday every year, then again IME that drop in attainment is cumulative. The only exception is, again IME, if a holiday is taken in the final 5 days of the summer term, as very little of educational value is done - though much of social value, which for some children is more important)