MP's to debate school holiday rules/fines on 24th February

[mummymeister]

Please can I ask anyone who feels as strongly as I do to write to their MP and ask for the changes in the rules regarding school holidays to be reversed. there is a back bench debate at 4.30pm on the 24th February and it is really important to bring this issue to the fore. There have been so many stories on MN of people wanting a day for funeral, to attend a family event, to visit family abroad that I know if all of us affected or who feel strongly write in at least we will have tried.

thanks also tiggytape. hope givemeaclue sees this.

So, we are now fining (criminalising ?) parents for deciding that it is in their child's best interest to do something other than go to school on a given day

This is not new. We have been fining (and jailing, and criminalising) parents for this since at least 1944.

Why on earth would schools assume parents were faking illness any more than your employer can assume you are faking illness

As I've tried to indicate, some schools are being unreasonable. One parent on Mumsnet has reported her child being sent home from school one day due to illness and the school demanding a doctor's note when the child did not return to school the next day. That is ridiculous. Equally I've come across some unreasonable employers (which doesn't justify schools being unreasonable in any way). I agree that schools should not be asking for doctors notes all the time but they should be taking reasonable steps to deal with fake illness.

Emmeline - The overall absence rate is part of the dashboard Ofsted look at for any school. If the rate is high questions will be asked. If the school does not have satisfactory answers it will form part of Ofsted's judgement. Ofsted should take into account factors that may adversely affect attendance at the school, particularly at small schools where a few pupils with poor attendance can have a big effect on the overall figures. Of course, many schools will take the view that, rather than be questioned by Ofsted, it is easier to make sure the attendance figures are good.

Why on earth would schools assume parents were faking illness any more than your employer can assume you are faking illness

Possibly because of the numbers of comments on sites like MN, urging parents to "just say they're ill" ??

and parents are saying this puzzled because the school head teacher is not being reasonable and letting them have a day off for a funeral for example. faked illness is definitely going to rise as the number of authorised absences fall so overall absence might stay broadly the same I guess.

Givemeaclue - Mummymeister is right. She is not scaremongering. It is a criminal offence and has been since at least 1944. You won't get a criminal record just for being fined but you will get one if you don't pay the fine or if your child's attendance continues to be poor.

faked illness is definitely going to rise as the number of authorised absences fall so overall absence might stay broadly the same I guess

You may be right. Personally I think overall absence will fall a little but I'm guessing. The statistics take so long to come out that we won't know for sure until May 2015.

The one thing we do know is that since fixed penalty notices were introduced (meaning parents could be fined without taking them to court) overall absence has fallen from around 10% to around 5%. There is clearly a minimum level we can't get below but I'm not sure what that is.

prh47bridge - you will get a criminal record if your childs attendance continues to be poor. and who decides that? the h/t who decides whether or not to authorise your absence. and what if they aren't doing a good job/ or aren't competant

Sorry, that should be you may get a criminal record, not will.

The LA decides whether or not to prosecute if you don't pay the fine or if attendance continues to be poor. They (the LA) also have the option of using a school attendance order if they don't want to prosecute.

the LA may decide but it is the H/t who sets it all in train by refusing to authorise the absence in the first place. bit like its the judge that gives the sentence but the policeman who reports it in the first place.

mummymeister - To do a direct comparison between the two...

If someone claims you have assaulted them the police will investigate. They will then pass the file to the CPS who will decide whether to prosecute. If you are prosecuted you can put up a defence - you can claim you didn't do it or that you were provoked, for example. The court (probably the magistrates) decides whether or not you are guilty and imposes a sentence.

If your child misses school the head teacher decides whether or not the absences are authorised. If the head thinks there is a problem they will pass the details to the LA who will decide whether to prosecute. If you are prosecuted you can put up a defence - the head has acted unreasonably in refusing to authorise the absences, for example. The court decides whether or not you are guilty and imposes a sentence.

In both scenarios the decision as to whether or not to prosecute is taken by an independent body. In both scenarios you have the opportunity to defend yourself once it gets to court.

I understand this prh47bridge. but it is the heads decision not to authorise that sets this in train.

parents are saying this puzzled because the school head teacher is not being reasonable and letting them have a day off for a funeral for example

Let's not use funerals as a convenient smokescreen, mummymeister - I quite agree there may be a few unreasonable HTs, but it's still no kind of an answer to lie; in rare cases like this, the school should simply be told "we will be going" in the knowledge that no reasonable person would take that further

The parents I was referring to (as I suspect you know) are all those who simply fancy a cheaper sunshine holiday and are prepared to lie to get it, with all the implications for the example it will set to the children

puzzled do a quick trawl of MN threads. see how many people have an issue over a one day absence for a funeral, a family wedding, christening, degree award ceremony. there are loads of them. I will say it again. term time absence due to holidays is (depending on which expert you ask) 0.1/0.3% of all absences. the 2 weeks cheaper sunshine holiday is not the norm when it comes to reasons why kids are not in school.

No, that is not the right figure. Lorely Burt's figure was allegedly the total percentage of sessions missed due to authorised term time holidays, not term time holidays as a percentage of all absences. So, given that there are 390 sessions in a school year, if one pupil missed 4 sessions due to a term time holiday but that was their only absence, that would be just over 1% of sessions missed (i.e. 4 out of 390 - the figure Lorely Burt was attempting to give) but 100% of total absences.

Term time absence due to authorised holidays is 0.3% of sessions but 6.6% of total absences. If you include unauthorised term time holidays the figures are 0.5% of sessions and 9.9% of total absences. These figures come from the official statistics and do not depend on which expert you ask. I provided the link earlier.

If you look specifically at primary schools term time holidays account for 15% of total absences with 0.7% of sessions being missed due to term time holidays.

I don't agree that all the examples you give are valid reasons for taking a child out of school. But in every case, if it is not granted, the parents can take the child for an unauthorised absence. Provided attendance is otherwise good they will not get fined. I am not saying they should take unauthorised absence but they have that option.

Can we get any figures from private/pulic schools, do we know where our MPS have taken their dc in the last few years?

Where has Mike Gove been? A caraven in skeg?

Forgot to add,

has anyone thought about the longer school holidays private schools have? they have x amount of teaching weeks compared to state. Does their education suffer?

*We have some Italian friends which just cannot understand that this is the case now in the uk. They keep saying come to Italy in May we keep saying we can't take the dcs out of school even for a long weekend, they just can't believe it. They take their dcs out 4 or 5 times a year.

But those are the rules and I'm not sure it's such a bad thing.*

My DB lives in another Continental country with a similar attitude. They randomly take their children out of school for random lengths of time at random times of year. Not surprisingly, my DNs think school is optional, one of them has had huge problems settling to the school work and both of them struggle to make and keep friends.

They have much longer school days too so I think it evens out. Around here private schools finish over an hour later than state schools - so have at least 5 hours extra a week.

No around here, they don't. Several children in my road go to private schools and leave the house/return at exactly the same time we do for our lowly state school. Parents can, of course, pay to send them to before/after school clubs there, but so could I at state school.

What bothers me is the talk of making state school days longer and holidays shorter to help working parents. If there were only 6/8 weeks a year you/your children could holiday or else you would face a huge fine/criminal repercussions, that would be awful :(

Just need to mark this thread so I can have a good read later.

Around here school days are the same for both independent and state schools. But they don't get longer holidays. The holidays are at slightly different times but overall the number of days in school is the same.