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?

Yes be happy with rain soaked England intead .Its insane the difference in costs though really insane. Its on my unfair list up with first and second class train fairs. The first always empty whilst the holipoli stand with our noses against the glass.

Well I'm self employed, teacherwith2kids If I want any day of the year off - including weekends and bank holidays - it costs me at least £60, depending on whether I can get away with one member of staff to cover or not. But if they call in sick, or resign, or whatever, I have to work (or it costs me more, I suppose) SO last weekend cost me £80 in wages for Saturday off, and then I didn't get Sunday off because someone rang in sick. Long holidays at any time are something of a dream at the moment.

I imagine it's the same for many self employed people - perhaps more so. If you're a builder who gets a job to build a big extension over summer - when people like to get building work done - you may have to take that job because you know that come October you'll be scratching around for work.

It doesn't matter how many people we are talking about though - if the law discriminates against them, it's a bad law.

Euthah,

Euthah, but I have to catch up the children who are 'ahead', as much as those who are 'not ahead', because I have to keep that child a) up weith their peers who are also ahread and b) up with their expected rate of progress.

Say child A is ahead. Yhey go on holiday, they miss work on advanced fractions. When Child A returns, they need to catch up this work, a) because the next lesson on fractions for their group will assume that knowledge and b) without that knwledge, they will not attain so well - and in this day and age it is progress from starting point for every child rthat matters, not some 'class average'. If child A does not meet their target, that is seen as a problem, even if child A is way above average, because child A needs to be making progress.

Your argument is based on the fact that Child A's dip in attainment, or gap in knowledge, doesn't matter because 'they are ahead of other children'. In modern schools, it matters because they have fallen behind - or at risk of falling behind - their own individual target, and that failure matters just as much as child B's failure to meet average expectations.

TheOriginalSteamingNit I'm playing devil's advocate. The only reasons ever given for the lack of flexibility is that if a child isn't in school they will fail all their exams and disrupt everyone else because the teacher will have to help them catch up.

I'm simply pointing out that for some children this would not be the case, so I am wondering what objection there is to those children having leave?

"It's not fair" doesn't really work, because nor is the current situation. So why can't the pupils who won't get behind have term-time leave?

Worried home edding ex MS school teachers are quite common. Two round here work from home as internet school teachers, one still teaches MS but job shares, another runs a Kumon franchise, one as a tutor, one teaches piano, one is a tutor, another teaches textiles at evening school, one is a professional chaperone, another teaches upholstery and art classes.

Teacher I actually believe if you use a provider you follow their rules. The problem is they’ve changed them on their existing clients. It should have been brought in the same way as the new leaving age rules.

I have a lot of sympathy for teachers dealing with delivering a linear syllabus and children not being there for whatever reason, and accept your light hearted answer in it's spirit, but reality is for many of the less well of and less educated I know it would be better if they got even a few more drops of education in the big scheme of things, but those ‘totally out of how life’s normally lived' things, which in those families are rarely annual, are some of the most important ties and memories made and the drop in educational attainment when you’re achieving little, likely to be negligible.

Euthah

I read that Gove said about the less time you spend in school etc.
The thousands H.educating seem to be doing fine and are no more likely to fail.

Euthah We've never had a family holiday together. In order to cover childcare, DH and I take off different days to minimise the number of days of paid childcare we need.

I will, as I have done for many years, take my children on a UK camping or cottage holiday and leave DH at home. We're a close-knit family - we don't need to all go on holiday together to stop our family falling apart. It isn't the end of the world.

In your 'builder' examople - there are 7 weeks of the school holidays that are not in the summer....

And for yourself - of course, not working has costs. But as it seems to me that your costs of not working are the same in term and out of term, it does not add up to a rerason to take term-0time holidaym, juyst an acknowkledgement that yes, time off to spend with the family costs money.

I understand what you are saying teacherwith2kids - and it's very different from when I was at school, but the evidence is that the most able pupils are let down by the education system and are consistently not stretched by it, even now. It's been like that since the very first studies, and nothing much has changed.

Those children would not be harmed in any way by missing a week or so, and nor would they impact on the rest of the class. I knew of pupils at my school that were put a whole year ahead, but they stopped doing it for some reason. I don't doubt there were pupils who were capable and ready to move on a whole year but were not, and who could have missed time at school with no issues at all.

Home edding perhaps not quite the same as a fortnight in Disneyland, morethan?

euthah I don't think anyone's saying 'they will fail all their exams', but I do think that not just going on holiday but the message your parents give you by taking you in holiday in term time are, ultimately, not good for the way a child thinks about and makes the most of school. I also think children can miss out socially and emotionally by missing school, and I also think its unfair to teachers and very often the rest of the class.

Due to my husbands occupation my four children always had holidays in term time. Their attendance record was always good apart from their holiday time. Our holidays were always informing and interesting and they chose books for holiday reading. They all achieved good exam results and are now professional adults. As the parent I liked to work with the school system in order to get the best results but this dictatorial fining undermines the parents own decisions. Is it possible for parents to fine for the last week of term which involved watching videos and cleaning cupboards?

I can't remember what my point was about it costing me for each and every day off all year - it wasn't that I can't take time in summer though. I think I meant to say that I can plan to have time off as much as I like, but if when it comes to it the staff member(s) who are supposed to work are ill or resign or whatever, I cannot take the holiday. I'm quite tired though - I think there was a better point. I just can't remember it.

Euthah, anecdotally - and I must go now to prepare lessons - I missed a whole year of school, because I was one of those 'very bright' who was put up a year.

I have never underestimated what I missed. Yes, I could do the maths, and English. My total lack of French on entering the equivalent iof Year 8 was quickly overcvome. But would i have that year back if I could? yes, in a heartbeat.

i think it is almost impossibkle for someone not inside the education system today to understand the huge changes that have happened since we ourselves were in school.

I know I keep using the word 'holiday' toStemingNit but I object because the legislation can be used to stop pupils being taken out of school by their own parents for any reason - family occasions, education trips, duvet days (whatever they are - adults have them though, so why not children?) - there was even talk of making dentist appointments and so on be out of school time, as though dentists have loads of spare slots from 3 to 5 ...

Cleaning cupboards? Fortunately for me, I've never heard of that happening for five minutes, let alone a fortnight. But remember, it is not the schools doing the fining. It is Gove.

I don't know of any adults who would admit to having 'duvet days' and I don't think their colleagues would think much of them if they did!

TOSN

I was making the point that none attendance at school does not mean that children will fail.
It may be inconvenient and a pain for teachers and the system and I agree if your dc are registered with the LEA you have to follow the law.
However, his statement is wrong, otherwise H.ed children would fail in the thousands.

teacherwith2kids Annecdotally, I was in the year where they decided they couldn't put kids a year ahead anymore, so I was put ahead, and then they made me repeat a year. There were four of us that were put up, and we all had to do the same year twice to get back into the 'correct' year group. I did - literally - the same work for two years in a row. The same maths books, the same worksheets, the same projects - the same scheme of work, albeit with a different teacher in a different classroom. Would I have rather spent that year learning how to grow plants in the garden, or reading whatever I wanted, or teaching myself something new? What do you think?

Gove inherited the system of fines from New Labour and has chosen to leave them unchanged; he didn't create or alter that part of it one bit.

Loathe him if you will, but unfair to do so on the basis of Labour policy initiatives.

We found summer holidays prohibitively expensive so we took our holidays abroad in October half-term - much, much cheaper. No way would we have ever taken them out of school.

I used to work for a company with a semi-formal 'Duvet Day' policy, TOSteamingNit

From wikipedia: A Duvet day is a formal allowance of time off given by some employers, most commonly in the United Kingdom and United States.

It can be stipulated formally in a contract of employment and is considered part of the remunerations package along with holiday allowance. It differs from holiday allowance in that no prior notice is needed. Employees receive an allocation of days where if they do not want to go to work for any reason they can use a duvet day.

I have pupils out of school for 3 days on a German trip soon. This is with the school. No problem. I know it is coming and we will work with the other children on something that is developing existing skills, not teaching new material. However, I have pupils regularly off skiing, in Tenerife, New York at a concert. (Scotland, so no fines) and it is a pain as they miss work, rarely catch up properly and yet I am still responsible for their exam grades, their parents can still ring me up and give me a hard time about results.

Honestly, your child misses school, your child will learn a bit less. They may still do well but you will never know how much better they could have done if you had just kept them in school. They won't fall apart if they don't get an AI package to Malaga or learn to snowboard in France.

So when your child is a Doctor or gets to Oxbridge as all Mumsnet children will, just think how much better they might have done - maybe a Surgeon, or a Professor or, at the very least, a child who did not piss off their teacher and classmates by pissing off.

Well we certainly don't get them where I work! Lucky old some people!
Morethan, I am sure you wouldnt argue that your children aren't being educated any of the time, or that their not being in a classroom is like being on one long holiday? So I can't see how it's analogous.

Teacher the problem with defending the 'individual target must be met system' is many parents have seen the figures fiddled too much, and while I totally get that a teacher being performance judged on them has to take them very seriously, for parents it can be hard to.

Having had one of mine pushed out of exam syllabus and attainment targets bounced up and down all over the place according to who was asking, and which box needed ticking, I just can't buy into all anymore.

Additionally when oldest DGC (only one who ever went) had to have a series of operations that meant she'd basically miss nine months, the school refused to support her mum with work for her, insisting she'd catch up easily enough when she came back. In fairness perhaps our experiences are indicative of the sort of schools we had available.