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).

Are you on glue?

I wish more parents would do this - malicious compliance so that they scrap the fine system.

As someone who works in the office of a school ………… why on earth would you take your child off roll and apply to enrol rather than just take your child out for a couple of weeks on an unauthorised holiday?????????? I have literally never heard anything so ridiculous!!!!!!! Plus to home-educate you have to go through many hoops! Seriously bonkers!!

until so many parents do it that they’re start fining to pay for the extra costs that they’ll cost

Do you realise that if you tell the education authority that you plan to home educate, they usually send a social worker round

Rood

No they don't.

They absolutely do not.

So the school would announce in assembly that your children were leaving.

they’d come home with their records of their work and have had their classmates say goodbye.

the administrative staff would have to do a lot of work. And then you rock up after 2 weeks and explain that you just went on holiday. The kids are confused, their classmates are confused, and the school staff will view you as the lowest form of CFs.

pay the fine.

Nope

It's more likely the school will realise exactly what you are doing and why and will refuse to take him back

Lots of misinformation about Elective Home Ed.

Googling, this is one LA’s comprehensive information ( including links to DfE documentation) for parents and professionals working with children.

https://cyps.northyorks.gov.uk/elective-home-education

Wow some people really don’t know a lot about how home education works in this country and are making some very bold statements that are complete crap…

No, you don’t have to register your child as home educated.

No, you don’t have to jump through any hoops or fill out any paperwork to home educate.

No, they won’t send a social worker round.

Yes, you can educate your child wherever you like including from abroad. You can travel round the world if you like. Or go on holiday every other week.

School is an OPT IN system, home education is the default. Which makes fining people for term time holidays ridiculous.

also

No, a state school with places spare can’t refuse to take your child back because they don’t like you.

This… the idea was never to try and fool the school… I would have been very up front about what I was doing

Your child is unlikely to be unenrolled within two weeks! Usually there is contact from a new school or a formal declaration to home school and we got interviewed when we did that with what we intended to teach etc.

Your child will be classed as missing in education if they do get off-rolled but the school are likely to be asked to keep them on-roll and absent or MIE. They are also under no obligation to take your child back as far as I'm aware. We've had students who've been off-rolled and who were declined when they tried to re-register.

I see lots of people telling you to just pay the fine, totally ignoring the fact that many authorities now are bypassing the penalty notice stage and moving straight to prosecution. If that happened, you would have no defence and would most certainly end up with a criminal record and a much bigger fine.

In your shoes, I'd deregister

@NameChange547

A little disingenuous. You don't have to formally register or fill out complicated paperwork to EHE. You do, however, after accepting a school place, have to inform the headteacher that you are taking your child off roll otherwise you are subject to attendance laws. I suppose you could then go on holiday every two weeks but a LA may contest that you are providing a suitable education. They probably wouldn't but every child has to be receiving some form of sufficient education regardless of where the parents say they are getting it. Councils don't get money from central government for work with EHE families despite having statutory responsibilities so are probably too understaffed and lacking in funds to contest all but the most egregious cases of poor provision.

That process couldn't be acting against legislation more if it tried!!

Notice of home education is an instruction to remove from roll and school has to comply same day. They're not CME, they're EHE. Two different things.

And if a school has a school place, you are legally entitled to it, they absolutely are obliged to take you back.

There's zero hoops when it comes to de-registering your child to home educate, and any school or local authority that puts hoops in place is acting outside of government legislation

That's completely wrong, the school has to remove the child on the day the parents instruct them to. An authority cannot deny parents the right to home educate unless the child attends a special school.

Its easy enough to find out how it works by reading the government legislations! There's too many schools & authorities that don't read it and work outside of it. Heaven help them when ofsted come calling!!

That's completely false. Parents whose children had 100% attendance can and do get fined. What 'may' happen is the school doesn't refer the parents if a child has good attendance, but there is no guarantee they won't refer. Every child that is referred to the LA is almost guaranteed to be fined or prosecuted.

The head would get in trouble for authorising a holiday as LAs come down hard on heads who do -term -time holidays cannot be authorised. What they can do however, is not refer to the LA, so there would be no fine.

Yes both parents can be fined, even if one didn't know or agree. Anyone with parental responsibility or who the school have details for (step-parents for example), can be fined.

You only need to instruct the school to remove the child from the school roll. The parent doesn't need to contact the Local Authority at all....that's the job of the school.

The Local Authority have no authority to check the standard of home education. Initially, they just contact the parents to confirm that the child is being home educated and to ask if they would like a visit.