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?

plus I know they do little to tackle persistent truancy - it's a joke designed to turn our children into mini worker clones

in our school in a poverty striken area the head still allows holidays - just because it doesn't affect me that doesn't stop me from understanding the issues for those who are affected

It is absolutely NOT necessary for children to even leave their own home, let alone the country, to have fun family experiences.

It is necessary if important members of their family live in other countries and are too skint/frail/busy at work to travel themselves.
Sigh.

oh my god this makes me so angry

no it is not NECESSARY - so many things in life are not NECESSARY but they are good, they are nice, they are fun.

You can live on water and bread and dripping but as the saying goes - variety is the spice of life.

It drives me insane this view that people a shuld just roll over and accept their government allotted place in life.

There are so many beautiful things to do and see - but they all need money - even if it's petrol or transport money.

Why the hell shouldn't people want to do nice things.

There are more important things in life than learning your abcs and 123s.

Children in Nordic countries are not all stupid ignoramus - and they start at 7, same for Russia - are they all desitined for a life lacking in education

it's a nanny state - who teaches our children to walk, to talk, to eat, to dress, this government wants us to believe we aren't capable of raising our own children and undermine our confidence in our own abilities

When you send your children to school, you know there are rules;

You can't stroll through the gate at 10.15 am
You can't turn up in your favourite pink fluffy jumper if there's a uniform.

Why are holidays any different?

Hate the 'nanny state'? AKA the Daily Mail's favourite term then home school! Seems like some of you just want to pick and choose what you want.

this government has moved the goal posts - flexi schooling was until about12 months ago a perfectly legitimate option now it's not chances are I will end up home schooling

My grandmother will be 90 next year. I was the only grandchild not present for her 80th birthday party & looks like a repeat performance next year. How inconsiderate of her to have a birthday in the middle of English school term time and of me to move to another continent where my children are almost literally yoked to their school desks.

although we actually have a head master who thinks this is a pile of rubbish - im just not of the Im ok Jack brigade.

This is how you erode liberty and freedom one small step at a time. Exactly when did disagreeing with government policy potentially mean a criminal record at the expense of persistent truanting being tackled because this does not address that

and lets note how many people with children with SN/SEN end up home schooling because schools and LEAsdo not uphold ttheir end or fulfill their statutory responsibilities - where are the instant fines there?

People sould be fined, children are not at school that many days a year.
Teachers have to play catch up with them...wrong.

However schools should teach to the end none of this film watching, free play crap they pull for the last week of an embarrassingly short term.

"This is how you erode liberty and freedom one small step at a time."

Oh FFS! How over dramatic. You have the freedom to make several choices; home school, private school, take your child out and just pay the fine.

actually as ive stated - i have the choice to take mine out our head approves requests - but i used to have the option to flexi school and now i dont

lmao at private school being an option - as it stands for me home schooling is an option but with benefit changes it isnt for a lot of other people because they are made to work through other rules - removing their ability to home school - these have no choice - do as we tell you or else - that's what I don't like about this

the erosion of freedom and choice and punishment for non conformance - which when combined with cut backs, removal of support, closure of schemes such as sure start, decimiation of front line services, all these things will leave struggling families more so

I know people who hate the endless drudgery of their day to day employment which is getting harder as cut backs bite and employment laws are more flouted - they spend a year looking forward to a 2 week break - which is now removed

again this doesn't apply to me - but I have so much sympathy for those who are affected - how about those on zero hours contracts who are dictated to when they work but can't claim - people are so short sighted - at 5 we are talking about babies - why should their lives be so controlled?

It's a holiday! You are not having your right to clean, fresh water taken away. Some people really do make mountains out of molehills. It's probably cheaper to take your kids out of school and pay the fine.

mrbob - you must realise that most people can no way afford either to home educate (they need to go out to work) or to send their children to private school. And many can't afford these fines. So no, we don't actually have any options.
The Government will whittle away our rights and freedoms until there is nothing left - in fact whittle is too weak a description for what they are doing.

It diesn't matter what you earn or were you are going on holiday - that is irrelevant. What matters is that families should be able to spend time together without being fined.

I do realise that; I was being somewhat tongue in cheek. While I don't necessarily agree with the fines, (a week out of school when you're 6 isn't going to affect their GCSE results) I do think this hand wringing is outrageous and over the top.

The government are disempowering a large amount of people but holidays are not top of the list. IMO, it's pathetic that people are acting this way over a fucking holiday. Forcing disabled people out of their homes due to the new 'bedroom tax', removal of funding for adults in HE/FE, everything that comes out of Gove's mouth - all things that are genuinely eroding people's rights.

"What matters is that families should be able to spend time together without being fined."

Yes - in the quarter of the year (significantly more if you count weekends) that is allocated precisely for this reason. By splitting the year into a quarter fo holidays, and three quarters for school, the right of families to spend time together is, in the vast majority of cases, protected.

Yes, there are a tiny minority of families where taking holiday within school holidays is totally impossible - e.g armed forces - and the exceptional circumstances clause allows for that.

However to imply that by tightening up legislation slightly and thus confining holidays a little more strictly to a 'mere' quarter of the year there is some huge conspiracy / assault on human rights is terribly over the top!

mrbob I consider this in context of all the things you mentioned - it's not this as a stand alone policy I object to so much - it's the cumulative effect of everything that is happening

I'm not saying one way or the other here but I just wanted to pick up on the person who said 'at 5 they are babies'.
I would just like to point out that at 5, in reception, children are taught a letter sound a day. So missing two weeks of school at 5 means that they will miss 10 letter sounds. Yes it's not going to ruin their GCSE results but it WILL make a difference.

and a parent can't teach a child a letter sound?

I actually known NO one who has taken 2 weeks of in term time. I can see that's a massive chunk of learning lost and there needs to be an "exceptional" reason.
However I know plenty of families that take an extra day off around a INSET after thought and planning or have a genuine reason for a holiday in term time rather than a holiday - key birthdays, weddings etc (see the examples up thread).
Is it fair to treat the two types of absence as the same?

If a time off school is not a right then why are forces families and religious reasons automatic exemptions?

Don't most people have to take the opportunities when they arise? Sometimes these will be in term time. The 7% in private education get a choice, the rest of us get branded as not valuing education.It's simply not true and it definitely not fair.

(Tbh, I don't get the impression from friends with children in private schools that term-time holidays are allowed there, either. Very occasional, extraordinary, adventurous activities maybe, but normal holidays, no. And it seems to be well enforced in the selective schools by the fairly simple expedient of 'well, if you don't want to follow our rules, there are plenty of others who would like your place'.

Of course, private school holidays are longer anyway, so getting cheaper deals etc is much less of an issue as so much of their holiday is in 'off peak' time compared with state schools.)