Supreme Court sides with government on term-time holidays

[Mulledwine1]

www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2016-0155-judgment.pdf

www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2016-0155-press-summary.pdf

AIBU to get the popcorn out for the discussion of why this is/is not a great judgment?

"to me, this issue is about giving back the power and responsibility to the head teacher to make the decision and for parents to then respect that H/T decision. "

But heads prefer not to have to make the decision, because parents don't respect the decision. For example, like the man who brought this case, his children had already missed 5 days for a holiday and he took them out again!

Decisions like this took up far too much time from heads.

Schools don't make this decision now. You are not allowed to go on holiday in term time but are allowed 10 days for exceptional circumstances, and there are strict guidelines to what this means. That is what is asked for.

Schools don't do the fining or the chasing, so its not down to them but the LEA.

Mrscog will you be happy to pay £1,200 per week per child to do this then?

Yes - as I can afford the school holiday prices. for me this is not about money - wanting to go in term time would be to avoid crowds and go on holiday when the weather in Europe was not as hot as it is in August. I might not even take them out for a week - it might be half an friday and a monday. I realise this is a privileged position to be in - I am very unhappy about the poor being penalised in all of this - it's just all got SO out of hand at a time when technology should be making education more flexible than ever.

That said mummymeister where is your source for the £1200 per week per child fines? I can't find anything about it anywhere.

Dannythe sorry but lots of things lots of us do in our day jobs take up too much time but its our jobs, its meant to take up time.

It takes up no more time than meaningless filling in of paperwork that the govt requires. that's why, if you had read my threads fully, you would see that I advocate giving all the power back to the heads and freeing up their time on meaningless government paper pushing.

tell me your head - you are a governor right - hasn't complained about the sheer weight of forms they have to complete and the inordinate amount of time it takes to collate these stats. why else would schools now have such a huge number of support staff relative to what there was when I was in school.

good well organised, well respected heads don't say this. Heads that hide in their offices and have no idea how to deal with conflict and saying the difficult decisions do.

Honestly, cant you see how retrograde this step is? it stops giving schools the flexibility to reflect individual and area circumstances. and you really think taking power away from this profession is a good thing? see beyond holidays for a minute and see that all this is leading to the situation where heads don't need to be teachers any more, they need to be stats collectors and "business leaders". they can sit in front a computer and do "the computer says no" shit.

doesn't that matter to you? cant you see this is the start of a downgrading of this profession? Running a school isn't widget making or photocopier sales, its about the people, the area and their special circumstances. I just have my head in my hands over peoples inability to see the big picture in all of this, I really do.

sorry, all you teachers out there, sorry that your profession isn't allowed to think for itself but has to follow rules only.

mrscog have already given the references to this in answer to a previous question.

do like me. click on the full judgement. use mr google to find some respected legal opinions, go around the LEA websites, have a look on individual school websites in your own area and beyond.

Its all there.

The wording is £60 per unathorised absence. Before now LA's have treated one block of abcence as one absence so only £60 per parent per child per holiday. Some LAs only bothered fining if absence was over x days. Case has clarified that an absence is 1/2 A day so miss 5 days = 10 absences. Each absence can be fined £60. So 1 child off a week both parents fined £1200. Oh they won't do they, why won't a cash strapped council if it's legal. They keep the money not the school. Again will take a few months whilst the legal depts finalise policies and recruit admin staff. If they don't they will be doing a disservice to council tax payers by not fining in accordance with the law.

" but lots of things lots of us do in our day jobs take up too much time but its our jobs, its meant to take up time. "

Yes, and when an inordinate amount of time for someone whose time is extremely valuable ( because we pay them a lot) is taken up with what is a small part of their job, you find a way to change that. After all you run a business no? Where is your ROCE on getting a head to deal with this? What is the opportunity cost?

In a big school like ours you can have hundreds of requests across the year, all of which have "exceptional" circumstances and valid reasons for going according to the parents. At the same time you have to deal with the real exceptional circumstances requests.

"good well organised, well respected heads don't say this. Heads that hide in their offices and have no idea how to deal with conflict and saying the difficult decisions do. "

Good heads have better things to do than dealing with entitled parents who want to argue about whether their situation was exceptional or not, which they all did when permission wasn't provided.

"sorry, all you teachers out there, sorry that your profession isn't allowed to think for itself but has to follow rules only."

How patronising. The profession is allowed to think for its self, but of course has always had to follow the rules.

BTW much of the data needed to be provided can be gathered using things like SIMS these days.

"it stops giving schools the flexibility to reflect individual and area circumstances"

It doesn't, exceptional circumstances are still allowed, however taking kids out for holidays in term time is not. This includes religious festivals, having to travel for family events and many others.

As I've said before, the problem with the old system is that the 2006 ruling meant that some parents thought they were entitled to take 10 days every years, and did. They weren't, the problem is as much as you bleat on about it is that everyone thinks that their individual circumstances are exceptional and won't take no for an answer.

So therefore either everyone does get to take 10 days providing their attendance is over 95% or no one does. The government have opted for the latter.

the ruling is case law. they have to change them

No they do not. The ruling makes it clear when fines can be imposed. It does not (and cannot) insist that LAs and schools impose the maximum possible fines. Your posts display a fundamental misunderstanding of this judgement and, indeed, of how the law works.

Everyones criteria will now have to be revised to EXACTLY what the law says that is: No unauthorised absence - not one day, one week or one session, none

No they do not. The law gives schools and LAs the power to fine parents. It does not say they have to do so. This judgement does not change that. The fact that a parent can be fined for an unauthorised absence of a single session does not mean that they have to be fined.

if you take unauthorised absence then you will be referred to your LEA again not leeway, no discretion, no different rules from one area to another

Also untrue. The law is clear that heads have discretion over whether or not to refer the matter to the LA for a fine. The law is also clear that each LA must produce its own Code of Conduct that will define under what circumstances a parent will be fined. This judgement has confirmed that LA's can fine parents who do not comply with the rules. It does not remove the ability of each LA to set its own rules or the discretion of the head in deciding whether or not a fine should be imposed. It cannot. Case law cannot override statute law.

Oh they won't do they, why won't a cash strapped council if it's legal

Most LAs have known for years that they can, in theory, fine parents £60 per child per parent per half day unauthorised absence. This is not news to them. They have not fined at the maximum level for a lot of reasons, not least of which is that the fixed penalty is supposed to be an alternative to going to court, so there is no point imposing a fixed penalty that is higher than the fine the parents would likely get if it did go to court. I therefore very much doubt that we will see councils fine at this level. Even those who fine per day for a single period of unauthorised absence tend to cap it at 2 or 3 days.

Truth is we won't know until the first fines are issued once policies have been revised by LAs in light of the decision. Most parents will still pay fine whatever level rather than risk prosecution and criminal conviction.

But mummymeister that's only one way of looking at it.

The head teacher's primary responsibility is surely to ensure that all the children attending their school have access to the best education that is able to be provided, not to have daily debates with parents over if it's better for wee Jimmy to miss the first two weeks of the Autumn term because his parents have managed to get a cheap holiday away.

Many head teachers may in fact be relieved that they don't have to make decisions around this which are guaranteed to leave at least one side unhappy - parents if they don't agree to term time holidays, teachers - who need to ensure that the pupil catches up when they get back - if they do.

In ye olden days it was less of an issue as less people went routinely on holiday and also less people thought that a foreign holiday was a divine right.

I would imagine that head teachers must have more important things to worry about than term time holidays, like focusing on consistent quality, education for their pupils and supporting their staff in demanding circumstances.

Rooki.

Heads are relieved because they can clearly state that unless your request meets the criteria for exceptional, then you can't have the time.

Heads have much larger issues to worry about, and to take up their time, the looming funding crisis for example.

Interesting to see the usual stropping on here along the lines of "those who agree with fines don't understand / lack empathy". Interesting, too, that this is exactly the sort of thing thrown at schools when parents don't get their own way - hardly a surprise that HT's wanted out of it

FWIW I get the point about parents feeling alienated, but perhaps it could be said that, if they've gone as far as telling DC's to lie to the school in order to get a holiday, they're not the ones most likely to be supporting their education anyway?

I just don't get how fines are helping anyone? Those parents who don't give a shit about education aren't suddenly going to start caring because of being fined.

Absences haven't even reduced significantly since they were introduced.

Puzzledandpissedoff that is a sweeping statement and not true. I get my children to pretend they were ill for a holiday but we still support their education when they are in school. Its just school days are far too many years (24 years in our case) and I wanted to do things with my children before I and they were too old. We could not have afforded all the lovely places they have been if we went in term time and they would not be as educated about the world. We have reached the end of our term time holidays now as my son is in year 10 next year but their education has not suffered and they have gained a great deal.

debfro - I agree. My sister and I were taken on term time holidays - mainly for the reason that we couldn't go in normal holidays (farmers). My parents were hugely supportive and interested in education. The classic 'you send a message to your children that education is not important/you don't value your child's education' is sheer bollocks in many cases and is a blunt argument which only applies to some offenders, in infuriates me when people apply it to everyone who takes some time out during term time.

In fact back in the 90s when we were at school none of the work was challenging for either of us and my Mum spent loads of time teaching us extras. The holiday made not one jot of difference.

Then we'll just have to agree to disagree about that, debfro

Can I ask, though, what lessons you feel your DCs will have learned from this, as they hopefully move on to employment? Do you perhaps feel they might feel entitled to lie to the boss about being ill, if it results in something they consider to be a greater good?

Debfro, but its exactly that exceptionalism that causes this problem, your child might have been fine, but others will think their case equally exceptional and their child won't.

Furthermore: "We could not have afforded all the lovely places they have been if we went in term time and they would not be as educated about the world"

Really? So you've been lots of places in term time? Take fewer term time holidays and maybe you'll be able to afford out of term time. Lots of families only get one "big" holiday every two years.

Just to add I don't agree with lying about being ill to get time off, I am agreeing you can still value education and take the occasional time out in term time.

Also, as mentioned before, term time in the UK takes 190 days out of a year

Personally I'd have though the other 175 offer plenty of scope for doing "wonderful things" with the DCs, even if that doesn't include the kind of fancy holidays we all enjoy but don't necessarily need

Slight derail but we are taking DS (yr 2) out of school for 2 days to celebrate DHs 40th by going away for a long weekend.

We definitely will get any request refused. DS has 100% attendance this year.

So, I could phone him in sick which would mean lying and sets a bad example to DS. Plus I don't want him to have to lie to teacher on return (even if he remembered to do so!)

WWYD? Just accept the possible fine? Or lie?

The irony is, school is closed the day before for polling

Just accept the fine - you probably won't get one Brian anyway. I took DS (reception) out for 1.5 days last year to go to France to visit GPs. I wrote the head a letter just saying when he would be out of school, that I realised he was unable to authorise it, that we would take his reading book with us and I was sorry if it put him in a difficult position.

I got a letter back saying 'no it's no authorised naughty Mrscog' (which I suspect is the Ofsted file version) but with a personal handwritten note on the bottom saying have a wonderful time and how nice for DS to go to another country for a few days. He came back fluent in how to order a pizza and an ice cream!

those who agree with fines are agreeing to injustice and erosion of freedom. think about it.

what was wrong with previous '10 days absence permitted'? that was reasonable.
even universities allow certain number of lectures missed without authorization for personal reasons, e.g. you were upset because you broke up with a boyfriend or your pet goldfish died.

re. workplace with many employers you can negotiate personal circumstances in advance. worst case scenario they may sack you. but nobody will take you to court with a prospect of sending you to jail.

Btw, it was Mr.Nodowntime who was writing earlier(he mentioned it), and we ourselves never took the kids out of school to go on holiday on term time, we haven't been able to justify the cost of any holidays in the last many years apart from UK camping which was affordable enough in normal school holiday times...

So talking about being enriched by foreign cultures etc is all hypothetical for us, we are still against taking the decision-making power away from the parents. Surely parents whose children regularly fail to attend school must have such chaotic lives that fines are not going to achieve anything and they are not likely to afford them, surely it's the wrong approach?

I'm personally bewildered not by the holiday issue, but by the fact that if I do have certain circumstances or emergency where I feel that the child has to miss school for whatever reason, I have to report to the school and it's the LA who'd decide whether it was exceptional/emergency enough.

I had my childhood in a dictatorial Communist state, where there was no such thing as travel for holidays anyway (or only very local travel), and you were not allowed to miss school for more than 3 days without a doctor's note (free, but time lost queuing at doctor's), but even there parents were trusted to not send the child to school (we are talking a couple of days normally) if it was necessary, without the parent having to justify themselves, all you needed to do is bring a note from the parents when you were back that you had to miss school due to 'family circumstances' - which covered all bases.

I find it morbidly fascinating that I live my adulthood supposedly in a democracy, but which seems to want to police their citizens far more than no-freedom of choice Communist state. (in the same opera is me getting a letter inviting me for a follow up appointment in hospital for my child - who is perfectly alright now, a year on - and saying that if I cancel the appointment more than two times my case might be referred to Social Services (and my child is 1) completely healthy 2) I currently have no means of reaching that hospital in a city where I don't live and no childcare for elder children while I'm at the appointment). When my child did have health problems, it took me MONTHS of going to various GPs trying to convince them we have a problem and need a specialist and not being taken seriously. Now she is well and truly over it I'm being vaguely threatened, the implication being I cannot decide for myself whether my child is ready to be discharged.

I can see where they might be coming from, and it's the same as with missing the school issue, but it still makes me angry that the implication is that the state knows better than I do how to ensure the well-being of MY children.

Puzzled I have been working for 35 years and I have never ever known an organisation where adults don't lie to get a day off. I defy you to find one. Civil service, police service, big private companies my boss at a large leisure company years ago frequently was unwell after getting a little merry the night before. And no we don't need fancy holiday but I work hard and as mentioned want to see these places with my children.

Danny a day off to make a long weekend here and there to go to Krakow, Budapest etc for a long weekend does not make up for the extra it would cost for the same breaks in the school holidays. And the breaks to Florida would have been impossible.

I admit I am really grateful we have had this attitude because my son died 3 years ago and if I had obeyed all the rules and waited until my children had finished education I would have less wonderful memories and many regrets of things he had not done. So no one will ever persuade me otherwise.

what was wrong with previous '10 days absence permitted'? that was reasonable.

There was no previous 10 days absence permitted. That has never been the law. It used to be the case that 10 days absence was permitted in "special circumstances". Many parents behaved as if this was their right. It wasn't.