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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to be angry about attendance charge from school

562 replies

HidingInTheBathroom · 07/02/2014 15:36

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.

OP posts:
HollyMiamiFLA · 09/02/2014 17:52

Apart from the DC telling you Grin

TamerB · 09/02/2014 17:54

I think a few phone calls to the house with no one in, followed by a visit and a chat to the neighbours would prove they were away! Children coming back with a suntan when it has done nothing but rain might be a dead give away too!

TamerB · 09/02/2014 17:55

I know someone said they didn't get a reply from home so rang the parent's work to be told she was in Tenerife.

Honeysweet · 09/02/2014 18:10

But with Home Ed, if you only choose to educate your child for say 30 weeks a year instead of 38, and takes 2 weeks holiday during say June to Norway, no one in the Goverment, or LEA or the law starts complaining that they have missed 8 weeks of learning. Yet that child is still a citizen of this country, same as a child at school is. What is the difference? Is one child deemed less important than another? Is one child under so called important attendance laws of this country but another isnt?

So it seems to me that it is not actually a matter of worrying about whether a child is getting 38 weeks of education at all.
Because other uk children are not necessarily getting it and the Government dont mind or care.

Seff · 09/02/2014 18:48

How do you define the 38 weeks of education? Time spent in school? Percentage of those weeks spend having one on one time with a teacher? If a home ed family is only taking a 2 week holiday, are they not being educated the other 50 weeks of the year?

You cannot compare time spent "learning" in a home ed situation and time spent "learning" in a school. The two situations are totally different.

ChocolateWombat · 09/02/2014 18:54

The whole point about Home Ed is it is flexible. Parents can cover the curriculum faster as they are doing it 121. They can do it at 10 in the morning or 10 at night, or in August or November. They are not inconveniencing anyone else. They don't need to fit in with anyone else, because there isn't anyone else.

Honey, you are not being given a rougher deal than a home educator. I can see you don't like being told you couldn't have the family event as an authorised day off. The simple fact is that your request was not deemed exceptional. It did not qualify to be authorised. It doesn't matter that you want to be free to decide or that you help your children at home. Your request didn't qualify as exceptional under the law as it stands.

Honeysweet · 09/02/2014 19:00

Chocolate. I am not the op. And we were deemed exceptional a few years back,so we had time off some years in school week when at primary.

Seff and Chocolate I see you point to a certain extent. All depends how many hours and weeks of education they are getting I suppose. No one knows that.

teacherwith2kids · 09/02/2014 19:07

The point is that, if you choose to have your child's education provided in a state school, you have to 'sign up' fully to all that entails. Equally, if you choose to opt out completely and Home ed, you sign up fully to all that entails - total responsibility for all of your child's education.

Having done both, the education provided in each way is simply different. You can't compare it using a 'time spent' model.

From my current 'teacher' perspective, the point is that education in state school is a collective process. Certain rules are made for the 'whole group', because to do otherwise, even though it prejudices some individuals only a very tiny amount, prejudices the education of the whole group a lot.

If a HE child goes abroad in June, for one thing that is likely to be with one of their primary educators, and so there need be no break in the education, and even if it is simply a fortnight in the sun, no-one else's education is in the least affected. the child and family can simply pick up where they left off on their return [HE people, I do know it's not really like that, especially for more autonomous HE. But I'm trying to keep iot as 'school like' as possible a model of HE, for simplicity].

In a school situation, in that scenario, the remainder of the group has moved on. The education of the remainder of the group is affected, because either the teacher has to repeat teaching that the rest of the class doesn't need, or devote individual time to the pupil who has been away, to the disbenefit of the remainder of the class, either immediately after the holiday or each time a topic that has been missed is touched upon. Of course the same happens when a child spends 2 weeks away ill, but that is unavoidable. If every child takes 2 weeks' holiday per year - much more than is ever taken on average by illness - then there is virtually no point at which the teacher is genuinely moving all children on without the 'brakes being put on' by children who have been away for key teaching.

Honeysweet · 09/02/2014 19:12

Good point teacher. School is somewhat a group effort.

teacherwith2kids · 09/02/2014 19:12

Honey, as an ex HEer, in would say that 1.5 hours per day, maximum, of something that looked like 'teaching' was more than needed to keep DS in line with schooled peers (we were structured HEers as it was planned as a short term measure).

It is simply different and cannot be measured using the same 'input' metrics as school education.

morethanpotatoprints · 09/02/2014 20:00

Honey

The difference is with H.ed you are nothing to do with the LEA, so they can't tell you what to do. This is half the attraction, if we wanted to follow policies, procedures and the Law for state education, we would register.
teacher is quite correct, dd does aprox 2 hours structured work per day, and we are going on an educational holiday in June. Not that it needs to be educational, but no doubt it will be Grin

HopeClearwater · 09/02/2014 20:14

Was it an educational holiday then? Museums, libraries, art galleries? I'd love to know!

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