To not pay school attendance fine?

[NameChanged456716]

And what happens if I don’t. There is no statutory right to appeal.

i submitted an ‘exceptional leave request’ first week of September, requesting 5 days leave for my 6YO and 8YO daughters. We are in India this week participating in Diwali and the religious functions that lead up to it. It’s not the same in our area the U.K. and we wanted the kids to fully experience their cultural traditions at an age where they wouldn’t miss too much at school, with family and friends that live in India.

the head was meant to respond to let us know whether or not the absence would be authorised and give reasons. We didn’t hear anything and then chased up a few weeks before half term, but no response.

today we got the standard ‘why have your kids not in school email’, which I responded to and finally got confirmation that the absence has not been agreed and so will be unauthorised. No reason given other than they see it as a family holiday.

in our area it’s an automatic fine by the LA if we take kids out for 5 days. I’m a bit annoyed at the lack of communication from the school. We can’t control that Diwali is in term time, it’s only 5 days and this is really important to us as a family.

what would happen if I don’t pay the fines (it’s more the principle that I don’t think we should have to).

in terms of missing education - kids attendance is 100% otherwise and both are greater depth so I do think this week in India is a better experience for them than any impact of missing 5 days of primary school.

I didnt read all the thread but...

Pay the bloody fine!

You are 100% NOT being unreasonable. Here’s the way it works. The government hand responsibility to school governing bodies on the issue of school absence. The guidance they give is as follows:
“You can only be granted school absence if:

• you make an application to the head teacher in advance (as a parent the child normally lives with)
• there are exceptional circumstances

It’s up to the head teacher how many days your child can be away from school if leave is granted.” So - you did the former and didn’t get a response. You can challenge the school on their quality assurance processes on this alone. Second bullet - sounds like this was the basis of your request, which has been ignored. I’d write to the chair of governors now if I were you. They haven’t got a leg to stand on. You kept your side of the bargain - an application to the headteacher. They haven’t kept theirs - to take you seriously and respond in a reasonable timeframe and manner.

Of course you don't HAVE to pay it, but morals won't stop the fine doubling and you getting taken to court eventually if you don't pay it then. The fine can then be increased to £1000 and you'll get legal fees too

No.

Parents are entitled to complain as much as they want about the rules in schools. We don't have to blindly accept everything. We are not automatically agreeing to the rules if we send our kids to a state school. We can challenge decisions made by school, we can challenge national or local policy. They are our schools!

The rules on fines were changed, they could be changed back.
The current rules are wrong.

This is very expensive advice! The fine will double in 28 days. It's NOT the school she needs to deal with, it's the COUNCIL as they're the ones that send the fine.

Look for the LA complaints procedure on their website. If it's not there, ask for it, along with sending in your complaint as time is against you. I used to do a lot of this support but I'm out of date. You can use the local ombusman against a council but not a school. The LA has some power over their schools, but no longer much.
You can complain 1. of unreasonable behaviour in failing to reply to your reasonable request for an absence for educational, religious and cultural reasons.
You can complain 2. of their disrespect in dismissing this to 'a holiday'.
I would ask the LA to 'withdraw the penalty before it doubles, or I will seek legal advice'. If I did not hear, I would write to the local ombudsman. I might end up worse off, but in years of being stroppy neither I nor the families I supported did. I sometimes ended up in court as an expert witness for them. It can get stressful and you might lose. I don't know whether you have the money to pay. You may decide to do so because it's easier - that's what these PCNs rely on.

This.

I don’t agree with the principle of your fine here. Challenge it coherently

Children are allowed 2 days per year for religious observance. Could use use that and then have 3 days as holiday therefore no fine?

There is not an automatic fine. You will get a letter from court about the absence. You can plead guilty and thus pay the fine or you can plead not guilty and a date will be set for a trial. You then need to think what your defence is. If you are found guilty after trial you will pay a greater fine plus legal costs.

Appeal through the LA on grounds of discrimination and cultural differences, they’ll back down.

I was an attendance officer at a school. It may vary LA to LA but I know that unless I specifically sent either an email or letter to parents prior to the holiday stating the reason why leave had not been authorised and that they could be fined if the trip went ahead, the LA couldn’t issue the fine. You could argue this if you find either the school or LA policy state that you have to be informed. You weren’t.

We dont have fines in Scotland and personally i dont agree with them (you can be damn sure the money generated wont go into education in a meaningful way) but if you are in an authority that fines you for missed days then if you take kids out of school you pay the fine 🤷🏼‍♀️

You could try getting at least 1 of the days authorised under religious reasons. Government guidance says that a pupil can be absent ‘on a day exclusively set aside for religious observance by the religious body to which the parent belongs’
That would leave just 4 days unauthorised, and therefore avoid a fine.

You know the rules, you need to accept the consequences.
Imagine if everyone took children out when their personal situation suited them to do so?? That’s what an unruly world looks like. Have some respect for the system. Simple. This sort of attitude is exactly what is wrong these days.

If you had gone purely for a couple of days to celebrate Divali then I would think they would have allowed it. You didn’t. You went for half-term and then decided to tag on an extra week since it was close to divali and you could join in some of the celebrations. Its no different than me deciding that I’ll take my children out of school a week earlier for the Christmas holidays so that they could get an extended break visiting family abroad and so that we could join in with Carol services and fun activities leading up to Christmas Day. I would rightly get a fine if I did that.

🙄 you broke the rules, which are laid out clear enough for everyone to understand. Just pay the fine…..

You can definitely appeal it as there was that Jon Platt case about appealing school fines that went to the high court.

Appeal and say that it is religious discrimination to fine you. That might help.

That said, most hindus in Britain don’t go to India every year, it isn’t a religious obligation I think. So unless you can show that in your religion you need that amount of days off for that festival then I don’t expect an appeal would succeed.

These 'stupid' teachers that you make reference to teach classes of up to thirty kids at a time. Add in all the poor behaviour from kids who have learned a lack of respect for them from parents like you, along with absenteeism due to general poor attendance, these teachers have an impossible job. Parents like you are the first ones to kick off when their kids get shit results, but think you are entitled to take them off to Benidorm at the first whiff of cheap holiday during term time, you can't have it all ways!

I thought dialing moves every year? I.e will it be during a near future school holiday?

What should the state do if you're abusive of your children? Just say "they're your kids you can do what you want with them"?

Of course the state has a role to play in ensuring that children are well treated. There is, of course, a very valid argument to be had about what that role should be, but everyone complains, when a child is abused, that social services didn't intervene.

Fines don’t normally come from the school, but from the local authority. School just reports absences and reason given and they’re usually automatically issued. Since the pandemic, the enforcement for attendance has been tightened by the government. So a lot of the leeway has gone.

@HennyPenny23

In my authority, It used to be the case that you had to inform a parent if an absence was unauthorised and they had to be informed 2 weeks before the absence so they could ( presumably) make alternative arrangements when refused. However, so many parents then didn't give 2 weeks notice of absence to avoid a fine, that the rules were changed so that, as long as every parent received a generic letter every three years to say that absences would be unauthorised unless parents were told differently, then fines could be implemented without any further correspondence. So we send out such a letter every year just to ensure everyone is aware that absences will automatically be unauthorised and fines applied for unless you hear differently!

The school should have communicated better with you, but at the end of the day you know the rules. Just pay the fine and see it as a necessary holiday expense, like taking unpaid leave.

I'm going to be sympathetic to the OP because we're the same religion and also: I too would love to go to India and celebrate Diwali.

That said, I would just pay the fine. Unless you can afford court/lawyer fees and wish to appeal. I am not an expert so I don't know if the arguments of religious discrimination will hold.

I would at least consult a lawyer before deciding on what to do so you can see what your chances will look like in court.