To unenrol my child to take them on holiday?

[NameChange547]

DC attends an undersubscribed, small village school. There are 17 children in the class, and they can take up to 30, so I’m not concerned about us losing our place. Is there anything legally to stop me unenroling my child from school, ‘home educating’ them for two weeks on holiday, and then re-enrolling them back in school, to avoid being fined?

DC is high achieving and I’m not concerned about the academic impact. They appear to spend a fair amount of the school day relearning things they already know like phonics (DC can read fluently).

Not all schools fine. Just be decent and chat to the head teacher about the holiday.

The LA has a statutory obligation to do just that. If they didn't, believe me they wouldn't as there is zero funding for it. The parent does not have a clear reciprocal obligation to communicate with the LA as the law currently stands. It's bizarre. This creates division which isn't helped by the default animosity towards any authority, safeguarding measures or quality assessment displayed by SOME of the EHE community. Cue responses from those who can't understand the word 'some' even when written in capitals.

Indeed.

In fact, the EHE team won’t visit if they can get out of it, even though they are obligated. It seems to vary from worker to worker.

We were initially assigned one who I had to chase up to come and visit (she said she had forgotten!). Then for some reason we got a different one who’s method is to put a note through the door saying he will turn up at x time and date unless we ring him and tell him not to (this drives most EHE families round here bonkers).

Both pleasant people, neither do any actual checks about anything. They ask what we do, I say xyz, they write it down and that’s that. I could tell them anything! It’s extremely slipshod.

@AStrangeStateofMatter

The regular EHE officers are very poorly paid and are primarily in a safeguarding role. Legally, only a qualified teacher can assess the education offered - I was occasionally involved in this to help out although my role was primarily teaching children who were genuinely missing out on education. Lack of funding, combined with the explosion in EHE since the pandemic has really screwed LAs over in this regard and that, combined with the utterly ridiculous and precious animosity on display from folk being offered help probably is very discouraging to these officers (I was being paid enough to ignore most of the abuse.) I realise this doesn't describe you. The majority of the population would be astonished that there is no regulation or oversight from the DfE and that parents can disdainfully refuse simple safeguarding checks when their own children are effectively subjected to those checks every day they're in school.

Yes. It isn’t anything like a real safeguarding roll though- the latest one was at great pains to explain that it didn’t matter if my son wasn’t in when he came round (he wanted to visit on the day my son goes to forest school all day)- I had to explain that my (autistic and literal minded) son would be very annoyed to have someone check on him without actually checking on him…

@AStrangeStateofMatter

I believe you, pay peanuts etc

It may or may not surprise you to hear that the full time EHE team for a city of about a million people is 2.5 people on salaries of around £24k. Not an excuse in my book for sloppy practice but, combined with the other points, perhaps a bit more understandable. Caseloads were over 400 per worker pro rata and if there were any issues or other agencies needing contact, one case could take days or weeks. Just doing due diligence on trying to contact those who didn't want to be contacted is very time consuming. As I say, I was tangentially involved and earning a teaching salary but it seemed like a thankless task with high turnover of staff.

Like anything in LA work, especially since 2010. I’m not blaming the workers (generally), it’s the system that’s at fault. Also, since we do engage obviously we will be at the bottom of the list as we present the least risk as far as they are concerned.

It just always makes me laugh when people think you have to register, have visits from a SWer, provide evidence of education etc… especially when you consider that if you home ed from the beginning literally no one has to be informed- it’s only if you unenrolled from school that there is any oversight at all.

Theres nothing in legislation that says it has to be a teacher.

If you think there is, please link to it

@Angrywife

Apologies, the guidance says this is decided locally. In my LA, it has to be a qualified education professional.

No schools fine, they just refer absentees to the local authority, who are the ones who issue the penalty notices. It is up to the head whether to refer for a fine or not (although they are leaned on heavily to do so. DD's primary was rated inadequate when she was there, was made an academy and has just had it's first Ofsted inspection since, it is now rated as 'requires improvement', still pretty bad, one of the reasons was the high number of children taking long absences to go abroad, when DD was there we were fined for a week's holiday, not sure they fine those who go abroad for months, but it looks bad for the head)

You can inform the school with a quick email. Why would the LA contest you are providing an education because you travel abroad frequently? There’s no law that says education must take place in the UK. One reason why a family may choose EHE is because they travel frequently and would prefer their child not to miss their education

@NameChange547

I said they probably wouldn't. Having worked with children missing out on education, frequent visits to other countries may be flagged as a potential safeguarding issue and the information could be shared with other LAs. How do I know? I did it, regardless of educational status.

As you've no plans to actually home school, and won't be registering with the council, your child will be listed as "missing in education".

Speaking as someone with a long history in the education sector, that's not a label you want. It can easily bring social services to your door.
Just pay the fine.

You don’t need to register with anyone to home educate. You inform the school, it’s their job to inform the LA that you’re home educating, not yours. And there’s no register currently.

MIE refers to children who just disappear without contacting the school to explain why. Not parents who contact a school to let them know they’re home educating.

@NameChange547 why don’t you actually home educate as you are so passionate about it.

how old is your child

my dds school advised me as a frequent in term time traveller as long as i put in a request that they’d then deny it wouldn’t go to the LA for attendance officers who then warrant a fine.
one year I literally forgot, it was a spur of the moment trip; the school said when i get back to put in the request & i won’t be fined….i actually forgot and low & behold a fine dropped through my door. My point is just tell the school they’ll reject it and you won’t get a fine especially if you kid has good attendance anyway.

We moved into a new area on the 30th July and applied for schools in the are the following Monday on the 1st August.

Even with chasing things up, we had so many delays! They even claimed to have lost the online form and so had to start everything over again! We finally got a place at the beginning of the holidays and so my kid’s first day was November 1st. I would urge you to reconsider.

Absolutely bonkers!