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).

That's a bit out of order with the admin the school have to deal with. I don't have anything against term time holidays once in a while but if you're making the schools life harder aswell then it's a bit shit. Take the holiday, pay the fine!

This is pathetic, just pay the fine!

Children get funded from the local authority to the school from the start of term with cut off dates (hence why when schools take kids mid term in transfers they lose money as they won’t get funding for that child until the next term start date). So they could choose to not re-enrol you back in until the following term.

@gluggle I would also be inclined to decide the school is now full 😂

If I was the school then I wouldn’t rush to re-enrol your child, regardless if there are space

As long as you get your two weeks in the sun, who cares about the work and disruption it causes others eh

Well you're going to seriously annoy the school and probably cause a childcare problem for yourself. Your application would certainly be bottom of the pile, as would anything else you ever asked for. Why would you destroy your relationship with the school?

What a faff for the sake of a fine.

The fine (I'm guessing) will still be a lot cheaper than saving to go in the school holidays, you can't win them all.

The best case scenario is that you make yourself extremely unpopular with the school. Worse case is you end up having to home school for a considerable length of time afterwards, and potentially have council and/or social services checking up on you. Social services would be extreme, but malicious reports do happen.

School is important. This would give your child totally the wrong message, and all because you fancy a holiday. Unbelievable.

I couldn't see the school taking the kid back on the day you say too and I guess you would need to be back at work by a certain date.

I wondered this.

If you were saying it was for a 3 month trip to Australia to see grandparents then I would agree with you, seems sensible, but for a 2 week trip, no , either go in the school holidays (a trip you can afford) or pay the fine. The only person who benefits from trips overseas are the parents - most kids will have a better time at sandy beach in England camping, no school needs to be missed.

Is it just me who doesn’t think it’s a bad idea

i think it would have to be a one-off though.

I don't think it's a bad idea as such, but a bit of a hassle and not worth the money saved.

Pay the fine.

Unenrolling then enrolling is going to be a bigger faff.

You'll probably look a bit silly when your kid says they went to Spain or wherever for 2 weeks. The school will know it wouldn't be 'home schooling'

Oh and it's £60 per parent.

@AStrangeStateofMatter

Your point only makes sense if there is a genuine intention to home educate the children, which there is not. It would be obvious why the children were taken off-roll, and that it was not for the purpose of providing an effective and appropriate education. The very fact that EHE processes would not have started (although many LAs are in contact with the school immediately) would make the school reluctant to let this slide. As I said, taking a child off-roll for no good reason is a criminal offence which the school would want to distance themselves from.

Oh and when we moved in term time to a village with an undersubscribed school it still took 2 weeks to process the paperwork from the day we applied to the day they started. As you can't do this until your return this would result in 2 more weeks off school - don't you have work?

These posts are always the same and that their child is high achieving with amazing attendance!

Haha you're expecting the LA to complete something in 2 weeks?!

Depending on your local authority you could well be contacted while away regarding home education and you will be expected to be providing an education immediately.

I mean, you’d look like a cocky bastard who thought they were being clever… but if you’re fine with that then go for it!

You can't just re-enrol and have your child start back the same day - it'll be weeks for the paperwork to go through.