AIBU to tell you it is not illegal to take your child out of school to go on holiday

[Pseudonym99]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-34543101

Our headteacher is great, I've spoken to him (and overheard him several times)!before when I wanted to take Dc out of school for a couple of days when we went to DLP. He said that he is supposed to discourage us but he'd wouldn't take it any further with regard to the LEA and as long as attendance is OK otherwise go and enjoy your holiday.

No I am not 100% certain that a student that someone on the internet heard of didn't get asked to leave because they took a weeks holiday Boney. How could I be?

My point is that the law should be applied equally to state and private sectors and it is not at the moment.

What factors independents schools use to justify removing students is something else entirely and is down to individual contracts and not about the law on students attending school regularly which is what I thought this thread was about.

jelly the OFSTED inspection framework for fee paying schools has recently changed and is now in line with that of state schools.

Attendance is a factor during inspection so fee paying schools may begin to enforce this more rigorously in the future.

I think they have South - for example at a local independent school if you are in sixth form and have no afternoon lessons, you're allowed to go home. In the past they'd leave at the beginning of lunch (after your morning lessons). Now they have to stay until the end of lunch and be registered as in, and then they can leave

I didn't know that South. I think that points to the issue I have with all this though, it's not about the children, it's all about the data (as Polkas example demonstrates).

Sixth form is not an ideal example, because attendance is not compulsory or measured in the same way. It's an interesting development, though - possibly motivated by the need to evidence that pupils attend for a certain number of hours in order for the school to secure post-16 funding.

However, OFSTED will look at attendance data at independent schools, when they may not have done previously.

The inspection framework reflects Government policy - which is that pupils progress best when they attend as often as they can. Schools are expected to maximise attendance; and Leadership may be judged as failing if attendance is low, falling or not increasing.

We can argue until we are old and grey whether that is right or wrong, but the bottom line is that education is a strong political tool.

Interestingly, one of the consequences of Academisation is that it removes local politics from the equation. Local councils have no control over academy schools, and so Councillors cannot canvass parental votes by promising not to close a school, for instance, or commit to raising standards.

The recent pledge by the Conservatives to academise all schools removes education from the local political arena. Local communities will be represented on academy boards, but they will sit outside the Local Authoirty system.

Polka as I said before, this is also what they do at my Primary. As long as you were there for the register, they are happy....

Education is too important to be kicked around like a political football. Perhaps there should be some kind of independent body making evidence based decisions on education, similar to the way the Bank of England makes independent decisions.

At least Local Authorities are somewhat electable and not for profit. Academy chains are purely profit making. more importantly the governments own data shows they don't improve results.

See tables 22 & 24 among much other data: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/467603/SFR37_2015.pdf

I really don't understand how academies are a good thing.

And I still don't think a weeks holiday harms anyone's long term education.

Academy chains are purely profit making

Some Academy Trusts are charities and make no profit, and stand alone academies are run by Trusts made up of individuals with a commitment to the school rather than a corporation.
I realise that the media has focused on the corporate fat-cats but there are a great deal more variations in Academisation than the way they are portrayed.

I'm not sure the primary purpose of Academisation is to improve results, I actually think it's a strategy to eliminate the involvement of local authorities. As others on this thread have said, some LAs interfere in schools far more than statute requires - dictating policy and procedures in order to simplify their own accountability, while at the same time, often failing in their statutory duty to support schools to deliver high quality education. Individual school issues often become vote winners or losers during local elections, and parent-power overrrules the advice of education professionals when Councillors block recommendations that are unpopular with the electorate.

Why mess with the current system if it is not going to improve results?

Seems like LAs are doing a better job than academies (even with some local politicians listening to and acting on what the parents want at election time - is that such a bad thing? Obviously not, in terms of results anyway. )

Sorry completely off the topic of school holidays fines here.

It is, indirectly, linked to fines.

The main reason for cutting the LA out of the education loop is cost.

Each LA gets allocated an amount of money to pay for the central administration of local authority schools. The more schools that are academise in the area, the less the LA gets.
The budget allocated to schools is based on a complex formula per pupil, and is given directly to Academies. LA schools receive their grant via the LA. Before they give it to schools, the LA cream off an an amount of money (called de-delegation) to cover the cost of certain services to LA schools - things like insurance, H&S services, payroll etc may be included, it varies from LA to LA. It may also include the provision of non-statutory Education Welfare Services, which includes things like late sweeps outside schools etc.

Academies don't have money creamed off their grant by the LA,, but they do have to pay for those services separately. What is becoming apparent is that it is cheaper for schools to buy those services independently than the amount the LA takes from LA schools for them.

And, There are several companies that offer Attendance Services such as late sweeps to schools - and will also administer the issuing of Fixed Penalty Notices etc, which in most LA schools is done by in-house staff given extra hours or overtime.

So Academisation saves the in two ways; it reduces the amount given by the Govenrment to LA for administration, and it creates a competitive market for support services to schools so more money is available in the school budget for education.

So even if Academisation doesn't improve results, as long as it's not detrimental to results, while at the same time being cheaper, it's a good thing, I think?

Academy chains are purely profit making

All academy chains are charities. By law any academy must be run by a charity.

So, to summarise, not cheaper than LAs as the government still pays the same amount per child, and yes detrimental to results as results are not as good as under the LAs.

Sorry, still not seeing how academies are a good thing.

I hear stories of local private schools that promise to expel any students taken out for term time hols. Very emphatic on this.

I have 4 DC in 3 LA-maintained schools, so all exactly same term & inset days. We get academies the dates may change all over the place. :(

So, to summarise, not cheaper than LAs as the government still pays the same amount per child

Yup, same so unit per child to the LA and academies - But the govenrment also pays an additional amount to LAs as well to support LA schools. It doesn't pay this to academies.

And the LA creams off some of the amount per child paid to LA schools for services delivered at an inflated price, leaving a lower net amount available to the school to educate the DCs academies.
But you know that.

All private schools are charities too, it means big tax savings.

ragged LA schools were given discretion to set their own term dates a year ago, just like academies.
If all the schools in your local area still have identical term and inset u are incredibly lucky.

I see, so worse results but that's ok because it's 'cheaper'.

What do you mean "If"? Yes they seem to all have same dates and fairly similar start/end times. It's quite handy. What a shame it's not standard within LAs. How other parents manage juggling childcare for mismatched dates defeats me.

I see, so worse results but that's ok because it's 'cheaper'.

its far too soon to make a judgement - it's not yet possible to compare an 'exclusively academy educated DC' with an 'exclusively LA educated DC'.
Results so far are patchy - there's no evidence that academies are significantly worse or better so far.

When we DO have the results though, there will be so many academies anyway that it will VERY hard to backtrack anyway....

The irony is my yr1 dd is about to miss 2 days of school became I booked a long weekend away thinking it was half term this week (as it usually is) and we'll get into trouble for it. But my yr6 dd, about to do SATs, is about to miss 5 days of 'school' as it's her school residential trip this week but that's ok because they'll be doing outdoor excursions.

But my yr6 dd, about to do SATs, is about to miss 5 days of 'school' as it's her school residential trip this week but that's ok because they'll be doing outdoor excursions.

The reason that a lot of schools do a residential in the early part of year 6 is to identify which skills each pupil needs support to develop before moving up to Secondary Education - some may need support in developing self confidence, others in risk assessment, others in problem solving. It maximises the time available to support the DCs to develop the skills needed to successfully transition to the next stage in education. It's difficult to assess this in a familiar, primary school environment.

I'm sure many parents will equip their DCs with those skills and not need the school to do it for them - but not all will, and IMO, it's part of a schools resoonsibility to ensure that they know, and address, weaknesses that could prevent yr6 leavers from accessing KS3 education.

When we DO have the results though, there will be so many academies anyway that it will VERY hard to backtrack anyway....

That argument applies to a lot of changes in the education system though - 3-tier to 2-tier, selective to comprehensive, O-level to GCSE.....they've all been implemented widely without a foolproof "test" of whether it beneficial or not.

Given that a DCs school career spans 14 years it's not practical to run pilots to check whether something that is theoretically beneficial actually works in practice. If it does work, the DCs who weren't include in any pilot would be understandably resentful that they were robbed of the opportunity of a "better" education due to beaurocratic caution.

this is a want, not a need.

I don't expect the government to get in the way of my wants for no good reason. This isn't helping me, or my family, or many families out there. in fact, it's not helping the children it's supposed to help, because of course they are wasting resources on my family.

So we don't go. It is not a right. We had a wonderful time camping in Wales this year and intend to do similar next year.

yeah, actually, it is a right. If you can afford to go somewhere, you should be able to go.

Clearly there are circumstances where people genuinely can't get time off in the holidays (eg servicemen and women) but these are few and far between.

so, just forget about them? Tough luck?