AIBU to be angry about attendance charge from school

[HidingInTheBathroom]

I am very upset at the minute. Received my fine today for taking my children out of school four days before they break up for Christmas.

Me and my husband have received a £60 fine for each child for each parent.

We are being charged more for being a couple. Which I think is wrong. The last week of school they only watch films and went to a pantomime. Oh and had a school disco. The holiday was far more educational than watching films and family time is hard to come by with work.

When I have requested a meeting with the head teacher I have just got a mouthful of abusive from the receptionist.

What would you do if you wanted to take your child off school because you were attending a family event and the only way to attend was to take your DC out of school for a day? And the school said. No. We won't authorise it. Is a fine fair?

Yes of course it's fair, if only because it teaches that sometimes, we have to miss something we might have enjoyed because we have prior commitments - tough, admittedly, but that's life and we can't always have what we want when we want it

But being able to keep prior commitments is only one important life skill Puzzled ....

Being able to make the best choice from a range of options (to optimize everyone's well-being and happiness?) is very important too ?

Of course making the best choices from several options is important, Juggling - it's just that I wouldn't personally consider breaking the law to be a good choice ...

I think one of the longer term consequences of this legislation, is that wider family members will eventually realise that if they book things in term time, those with school age children will be unlikely to be able to attend. As well as parents getting the message over time, that unauthorised absence is illegal, wider families will too. Perhaps they will then book them at times those with children can attend, or perhaps not. But they will realise that term times in the week don't work for school age children. It is then their choice to choose a day that can work for them or not.
All of us have to miss things sometimes, because we have to work or meet other commitments. We have all had to miss a family party due to prior commitments. It is just one of those things.
Don't forget that there are exceptional circumstances and these can be granted. Things like the orchestral event mentioned above, going to a funeral, visiting a dying relative and similar would be considered exceptional, as long as not frequently occurring. As someone else said, there is no defined list, because human life is such that you couldn't dream up every exceptional circumstance if you tried.
Some people though take 'exceptional' to mean whatever suits them. Having a holiday because it is cheaper then, is not exceptional. Nor is attending most family events, because it would have been possible to have those at weekends or in the holidays.

You knew the rules. If you still chose to take your children out of school without authorisation, you have to take the consequences.

But I think having a family holiday - with important time together and adding to the richness of life experience for the children - rather than not having one ...

is exceptional enough, or at least important enough, to be granted.

We seem to have lost the ability to put the child and family's well-being at the centre of these decisions.

If we follow your logic Juggling every request is exceptional circumstances. Want a holiday = exceptional. Want day off to go on the Jeremy Kyle show = exceptional (Yes we've had that). Want to see grandma when the traffic is easier = exceptional.

Juggling, there are numerous weeks in the school holiday, all weekends, and evenings - school finishes at 3.00, to have family time. Family time abroad is great, but do it in holiday time, and if you won't then accept that you will pay an additional cost in the form of a fine.

With the fines being imposed, does that mean that all local authorities will be organising for all schools nationwide to have holidays at the same time, because if you have children in two different schools abd their half terms don't match up, what are you meant to do as a family?

Tiggy's definition of EXCEPTIONAL is nice and clear. The idea that the event cannot happen at any other time, than that precise moment in term time, is key.
People will need to tell their families, that if they schedule family events for terme time, they will not be able to come, or if they do, may face a fine. This information needs to get a wider audience than just the immediate family. Previously, wider family and friends have thought they could organise term time events and people could 'just' take the kids out of school. This shift in thinking will take some time to embed and while it is happening, people are bound to feel annoyed.

I think this is why the Gov is taking no notice whatever about complaints and petitions.....they know from past experience, that laws take a while to be accepted and for society to adjust. People who think they can persuade gov the policy is wrong, could try again in 5 years, because by then, there will have been a chance for the policy to have an effect. Government will not be interested in even considering changing it until then, because it hasn't had time to work or not work or be properly assessed.

Actually wanting to see grandma when the traffic is easier is an an exceptional reason for us as we have a child that hits and bites himself when the car stops.

"With the fines being imposed, does that mean that all local authorities will be organising for all schools nationwide to have holidays at the same time"

No, because LEAs have never had the power to set holidays for all schools. VA schools have always set own dates and now so do academies (including free schools). The DofEd is talking about removing the difference by letting all schools set all dates, rather than imposing control where it has not existed before.

And of course there are parents who support the idea of varying holiday dates deliberately, to spread peak UK season thereby reducing costs for some types/destinations of holiday. I can only assume these parents do not live near council boundaries.

Well then tiggy I guess I think leave should be granted for important reasons as well as exceptional ones.

I just think the system was better before, when HT's could use some discretion and there was more respect about a real home-school partnership, more compassion, and more room for some imagination and creativity about what was in a child's best interests.

And I think it should have been left well alone.

At the end of the day it's just another wheeze to extort money for local authorities now their government funding has been cut.

HT's can still use discretion.

The point seems to be that people do not like it when that discretion is not used in their favour. As prh47bridge pointed out, the people who wanted else changes were schools and HTs.

Juggling, I suppose the point is that, if you feel it is fair for every child to have a week or fortnight's term-time holiday every year, then you are also agreeing that it is absolutely fair for the teacher NOT to be able to help your child in many lessons because they have to catch up the child who missed the critical ground work for this piece of work that happened last week...and if everyone takes a week of holiday, then the teacher will ALWAYS have at least 1 child to catch up, every week.

OR you have to agree that it is absolutely fine for your child to be stuck and learn nothing in several lessons for the weeks following your holiday, because you agree that since she/ he missed the original lesson through your choice, there is no obligation whatever on the teacher to help him / her to catch up.

I have mixed feelings about this. I think parents should have some leeway.

I now work in education and the only time I ever did it was when my dd was in nursery or just starting in 1997.

what about parents whose families live abroad and they themselves are not uk born.

what if the people cannot or chose not to afford the fine.

will the law be evenly applied or will it only be the seemingly well off penalised.

how is the fine money used.

Grandparent's 70th birthday. Just had 2 funerals so nice to have a get together that's not a funeral. Impossible to arrange at a more suitable time as a particular weekend near birthday was only time everyone could make it.

Can I take his only grandchild down to celebrate the birthday of the oldest family member after his sister and mother died last month?

We need to travel on a Friday as it's a long way to go. We have good attendance, DS doing very well at school and we put a lot into his education at home.

No. Sorry. Unauthorised.

We went anyway. And had a good time.

It really does seem that for a few, "fair" equates to "what I personally want" and no other outcome is acceptable

The irony is that it's exactly these folk who, in abusing the system so thoroughly in the past, have made the recent crackdown necessary; trouble is, they can't or won't see the connection

Nobody pretends any system is perfect and no doubt some are now being inconvenienced because of the past selfishness of others. We have the absolute right to campaign for change, but for now the system/law is what it is and we surely need to accept that and work within it