School Abscense Fine - huge amount

[PMDD]

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?

Where in the name of God do you live, Numpty??

Dromedary
People who send their kids to private school may well be rich but you can be rich and spend all income on private school.
Someone just into a six figure salary could send two kids to private school only just. But they would have absolutely nothing left for a holiday at all.
That is my point.
All this generalising about kids at private school and the 'rich' not being affected by the extortionate holiday prices is not true.
The super rich maybe

I don't think that the idea is that parents should take hand children away from psychopaths in the school.
But that these children can be very disturbing to the learning enviro envy but as a parent you are told to live with it.
These children are disturbing the learning more than a few days hols. BUT a few days hols is unacceptable whereas we should all tolerate anti social behaviour in the classroom whatever the cost to learning.

no theorginal i've never implied children take their children on holiday to get away from pscyhopaths and if this is your ability to follow an argument i'm even more concerned for children in education

what i'm doing is saying that on a scale of disruption and priorities a few days on holiday is the least of our fucking worries and a red herring of epic proportions. i'm sorry you found that hard to follow.

Actually I have seen these behaviours happening in our secondary school. Good school from a very middle class area. The sort of place where you wouldn't think it would happen.
Teenagers filling their coke bottle with vodka before going to school.
Bullying that got very bad.
Shouting and swearing, obnoxious behaviour.
So not perhaps the extremes Numpty is referring to but this is all on anaice area you know..,.

exactly cucumber, naice, easily policed middle class parents should feel awfully guilty and un-PC for even considering complaining about the fact their children are being subjected to behaviour that would not be tolerated in any other sector of society but should like good sheeple cough up and pay a fine if they dare to take their children out of school for a couple of days.

for whoever asked i live in england - the same place that has had riots, rapes, domestic abuse, serial killers, jeremy kyle etc etc etc. the conditions and personalities and origins of such features of our society do not spring up at 18 years of age.

Aw bless, are you trying to patronize me?

You sound very fed up with your job. Am nothing to do with children in education, by the way - (that's you) - except my own. Who go to school, every day. With the psychopaths. Shiiiit.

no original, i'm not fed up with my job. i do it with my eyes open though. i'm not in the close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears and pretend it's all grand brigade. i don't think that gets us far and leads to politicians getting away with tokenistic nonsense legislation that distracts from the real problems.

you can keep banging on about 'the psychopaths' but my point, i hope obviously to any reasonable reader and there will be plenty of lurkers, is that all of societies ills, challenges, deviances etc are to be found in a comprehensive school.

every rapist, murderer, politician and banker , was a child once and went to school.

and i don't get why teachers would want to pretend everything is wonderful in secondary schools

are you honestly saying you don't see swearing, disruption, bullying, aggression etc in your schools?

I think quite a lot of politicians and bankers didn't go to comprehensives, actually !
The focus remains on 'psychopaths' because you said it a few times and it is not something I'd expect anyone well-informed to say. But yes, I am sure all the lurkers agree with you.

Numptyname you have changed this thread. shouldn't you really start a new one rather than hijacking this one? this is about fines and school holidays. think you have somewhat gone off of the point which is valid but should be under its own thread.

numpty made some very salient points in response to the "full attendance above everything" brigade.

The idea that parents are now breaking the law if they take their children out in term time. As opposed to last year.
That there are more things that disrupt learning then having a pupil or two away.

apologies if you think i was derailing mummy. i'm a firm believer in context and to say actions are taken to avoid disruption to me begs for context and the realities of what is disruptive in education.

i also think it is important to have the relative context of what is considered acceptable parenting by the schooling system and what is now considered meriting of a fine.

my points about behaviour and disruption accrued by the nature of comprehensive education were meant to show the context in which otherwise compliant and helpful parents were being criminalised and to ask whether, in that context, it seemed like a priority focus and fair target or merely an easy target in terms of generating funds and creating scapegoats.

i will happily abandon that line though and again i apologise if you found it derailing.

I've not read the whole thread but just wanted to note that I strongly disagree with this policy of fining for taking children out of classes in term time. What the government forgets is that not everyone can take their holidays in school holiday
time. I work in the NHS. Hospitals still need to be staffed in August, most people have children. So me and my colleagues will have to decide who gets the right to have a holiday this year with their family and who doesn't.
This new law / policy is full of holes and discrimates against many whilst failing to address the real issue of attendance that PP have noted.

How hilarious to think that denying a child a term time holiday is inferring with the 'right to family life'! I'd LOVE to see this challenged in court.

candycoatedwaterdrops isn't that the reason you ARE allowed term time holidays on religious grounds?

Good grief! Last time I looked, the right to a holiday away from your family home wasn't actually on the list of basic human rights. Yet the way some people are carrying on, you'd think it was up there with clean drinking water and shelter.

DC have many weeks off school every year. You don't have to take your annual family holiday in July/August. October and April are great times for holidays too.

bonsoir, read the thread. I cannot take time off in school holidays because that is when I have to work in my business. I am self employed and I don't let my team have time off either. its not a case of wanting a particular week in the summer or whenever its how my work is. candycoated - the right to a family life is already there in law. the issue is the right for me as a parent to decide whats best for my kids without being made a criminal. wait until you need to take your kids out for a day because of a funeral or to visit family abroad and you cant then perhaps you would feel differently. cannot believe the number of people who don't understand that we don't all work 9 - 5 5 days a week with an hour for lunch weekends off and a choice of when to take our 4 weeks holiday a year.

I think sun is an issue

If you're spending shed loads regardless you want to go at a time and place you'll get some of it.

We are constantly living with persistent rain and grey,a bit of sun benefits hugely.Easter in Cornwall in a caravan will be cold and very likely sunless- expensive to boot.

Also many sectors don't want their entire office piling off at the same time.Do works in IT and it's an issue there for a start.

Bonsoir
Maybe you would want to read the thread and see that some people NEVER have any hols during the school hols. Some parents are in the army and will be deployed away for 4~6 months.
And a lot of other cases

And having some hols at Easter or on November is one thing. Not quite the same in rainy England.

Having said that no one has said you should always be able to take your hols out of the school hols. Most people don't take their hols at that time anyway.
What peo

Sorry...
What people on this thread have said is that:
1- there is a need of more flexibility
2- the system isn't fair as different schools can take a different decision
3- there is no transparency ie what is ok or not isn't clearly defined
4- the reason for using such a sledge hammer approach is weak. ie there are plenty of other times when children DO loose time at school and this isn't addressed. The parents who really don't send their dcs to school regularly aren't actually being targeted by the system etc etc.

Btw what us the rule in France now? No fine I know that but do they stop child benefit to parents of repetiting offenders as they clearly fail to send their dcs to school? (Not for hols though. If I remember well it was for children who repeat duly didn't turn up and this was still after several warnings)