To think education is a privilege and removing a child from that without damn good reason is shocking?

[MBT1987]

So, in the latest episode of "Why am I being fined for breaking the law?" AKA "Yet Another Unauthorised Absence", we've had:

"I'm going to tell my kids to lie"
"I'd vote Labour if they abolished compulsory education" (Fun fact - the Education Act 2006 was passed under Labour)
"My children with both parents are disadvantaged as opposed to single-parent families!"
"What are they really going to do if I break the law and don't accept the fine?" (Hint - prosecute)
"My school are lovely, so they won't mind" (Then ask in advance?)

I could go on.

There are some absolute howlers coming from this place, and it's sickening. Parents are encouraging kids to play truant and lie about it.

I don't care if I become Social Pariah of the Week as a result of this. I'll just have to be lonely on my little patch of moral high ground. Anyone is welcome to join me.

[LEMmingaround]

Uri - its not the schools - its the governments, the schools have their hands tied.

As i understood it - i could be wrong (i'd quite like someone to correct me if i am, beause im banking on this) I always assumed that the fine came into play if there were absences over two weeks (in total for hte year) so I am planning on possibly taking DD out for a week towards the end of the summer term. I did this in year two - i wrote to the governers to ask permission - its not my fault if the school secretary never passed the letter over and her end of year report listed those days as ill . Can someone confirm to me that i am right or wrong about the fines?

[MsLT]

I am going to deregister my chilkd for 2 weeks then reregister them when we come back.Simples!
Yes, that would work.
Fill in the forms to 'move' schools. where to I wonder? Home school? Lots of forms and interview for that.
When you try to re-join the original school,a whole two weeks later imagine your surprise when you discover that your child's place has been taken by another/ magically no longer exists.
Yes, so simple, would work a treat and is well worth the trouble.

[DCexpat]

SaucyJack didn't school teach you how to read and write? The very fact that you could write anything on an A4 sheet of paper proves that school was effective.

[HoratiaDrelincourt]

It's actually irrelevant whether the law makes sense. You are obliged to obey it whether you agree with it or not, and the authorities are obliged to enforce it whether they agree with it or not.

Everyone dislikes some laws. In society we campaign to amend/repeal bad laws, but in the meantime we have to obey them. Because otherwise it would be anarchy.

[Retropear]

How is it a privilege if we're paying for it?

[PiperRose]

Really LEMingaround? You have reported the op for starting a thread about a story which has been in the news as well as the subject of numerous threads on here? I thought this was the forum for free discussion. Hang on while I read yet another thread about how awful someone's PIL are.

[MBT1987]

There are people on here actively planning to break the law, and others telling them it's fine to do so. I think it's abhorrent.

If your kids are sick, then get a medical note and pass it to the school. If your (or your partner's) situation is such that you need to take a holiday in term-time, write to the school and ask. But for goodness' sake, don't tell me that these suntan excursions are "educational". If your child couldn't pass a test in the subject at the same standard as subjects they study at school, then no, they're not educational. Listening to Mummy and Daddy repeat "Dos cervezas, por favor" over and over again isn't a lesson in Spanish.

[Retropear]

Soooooo everybody who can't afford school holiday prices are booking up Costa del Sol holidays?

[Bowlersarm]

Yep, agree OP.

I think each case should be taken on it's own merit, but the posters saying they are taking their children out of school for a holiday and teaching their kids to lie to their teacher about illness, is shocking.

[Retropear]

A child in my dd's class has been ski-ing all week,wish I had the balls to do it.

[starballbunny]

I have no wish to abolish 'compulsory' education.

I want schools to be allowed to return to the old system of 'common sense' when parents apply for absence.

The present state of affairs is insane, people are worrying themselves stupid over fines for odd days for gunner also and weddings. Tearing their hair out for 1/2 days for flights and ferries.

Sending infants into school asleep because of trying to squash a family holiday into 1/2 term.

I had chickens asking for DD2 to be able to hear her DSaiS sing in a once in a life time concert. (School were actually lovely, but I put off asking for weeks).

Yes, education is important, but school don't bat an eyelid about loosing lesson time for pointless special assemblies, fire bells because the system is still too jumpy, burst pipes because they can't work their own heating timer etc.

[LEMmingaround]

you are being obsessive OP! My DD was off school last week for two days - she was too poorly to go to school, but not poorly enough to go to the doctors - are you suggesting i should have taken up an appointment with the doctor, as my privalige on the NHS, in order to waste even more of my doctors time getting her to write a medical note for a sore throat and a temperature??

It boils my bloody piss when people try and dictate the way i parent, i am not some feckless idiot, i am a perfectly responsible parent who is quite capable of making a judgement over whether or not to take my DD out of school for a few days. I don't make any claim that a few days at a caravan park is going to be educational - it wont, but shes 8 and those days break will not have any affect on her GCSE results!, im pretty confident of that.

[PiperRose]

I cannot believe the amount of people on here who are saying they would tell the school their children are ill, then warning children not to say a word when they get back to school. Encouraging children to lie to cover up your wrong-doing is terrible parenting. In the the worst case scenario this just teaches kids that if they're told to lie by an adult it's OK, which then means that other adults could ask your kids to lie to you and they would be fine with that.

When you enroll a child in a school you are entering into a contract for them to educate your child. You may think your trip is more educational than what they were doing in school but if you want to home educate them you have to do it on a full-time basis. This is not a pick n' mix situation.

AND I cannot believe we are still bashing teachers for striking. Do we really believe that changes to their pay and conditions should be allowed with no form of redress? Because they have the privilege of educating your children?

[cory]

MBT1987 Fri 07-Feb-14 18:11:35

"If your kids are sick, then get a medical note and pass it to the school."

I have never actually taken my own children out for anything other than medical reasons and wouldn't do that.

But if I had had to provide a medical note every time (at 20 a shot), with two children with chronic condition, that would have cost about as much as our mortgage repayments.

Not to mention the fact that most hard-worked GP's refuse to see children for ordinary virus infections or relapses of known chronic conditions. You can't force the doctor to see your fluey or chicken-pox ridden child just because you need a doctor's note.

[PiperRose]

I copied and pasted the above post from another thread I'd posted on, but it seemed pertinent. Apologies if people have already read it.

[starballbunny]

Funerals and weddings

(DDs got a day off because my DF is Jewish and got married on a Sunday, so the rabbi could do a blessing, we then returned by Joderell bank telescope so it was a very educational trip, RE and science)

[lljkk]

I just want to go see my family for a change. Rather than my 71-yo dad who's had a stroke schlepping 5000 miles to see me every yr. I wouldn't expect 89yo granny to travel, of course. Or my 18 aunts/uncles & the 30+ first cousins & all their offspring. Officially our trip is called a holiday but it's a family visit very far away so while we're going so far for such great expense we may as well do some fun stuff, too; I wouldn't go do any of it if family weren't there. It's grossly inconvenient to try to go during school hols.

This will go down as at least partly unauthorised. Oh joy. Nothing to do with desiring suntans or dos-equis (in fact, it's a notoriously sunny place that us natives know will be solidly cloudy that month, and if we're lucky I will see lots of mixed-race friends, and by the way, since we live in one of the most monocultural white places in all of UK, that really IS a super-culturally diverse experience). Spanglish at the ready.

@Pixie, I'm very curious how you'll get on de-reg to re-reg! We could have said same "Gosh we gave HE a few weeks try but didn't like it, never mind."

[Floggingmolly]

God love you, pixie... You can't have been serious??

[LEMmingaround]

starbali - i totally agree, schools quite happy to disrupt education for their own ends. i was a cover supervisor once - i often had to "teach" kids preparing for their GCSEs - in subjects i knew little about. Alot ofthe lessons i covered with no lesson plans, no work set and we ended up playing hangman or watching a video. Now this was a particualrly bad shcool but I was busy, it wasn't just me, there were two other CS in the school - a lot of time those children were not being taught at all - yet we take our kids out for a few days and we are breaking the law

[MrsBungle]

I think a common-sense approach should prevail. I think the old system was much better. I've taken dd out for 2 days since she started school. She is 4. I don't think I've doomed her.

[Retropear]

Sorry but have you seen school enrichment week activities?

And re this contract- no to work sheet/DVD fortnight,weeks of Xmas production rehearsals,dubious but expensive school trips etc

None of the above are educational and if we're going by a strict every minute at desks stance is crucial then it goes both ways.

[LEMmingaround]

I would not encourage my child to lie though - that is wrong.

[echt]

What if the law is a bad law? Why should it be obeyed? This law has nothing to do with education and everything to do with regulating the conduct of the individual.

[FudgefaceMcZ]

I think you'll find education is actually a basic human right, as outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Therefore YABU.

I don't get what the thing about being disadvantaged compared to single parents is, though. I'm a single parent and I can't afford to go abroad even when it's term time, also I don't think there are different fines for single parents and married ones surely? I would be fined if I kept kids off school for stupid reasons, wouldn't I?

[crustyclown]

I agree that education is very important. However, for those that are up in arms about parents taking their children out for a few days, what about when schools illegally exclude children?
Some schools deliberately keep children out of school and 'hide' the absences so no-one notices. Don't those children have a right to an education too? How come parents get hit with a fine but if a school chooses to do this and harm a child's education there's no penalty at all?