To think raising school absenteeism fines won’t help much.

[Boomer55]

Fines for parents taking children out of school without permission will rise across England from September.
The minimum fine will increase from £60 to £80 per parent as part of a government drive to return attendance to pre-pandemic levels.
One school told BBC News one out of every three of its pupils absent without permission had been on a family holiday during term time.
A head teachers' union said fines were needed to avoid "chaos" in schools.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-68420275

And of course for some of us, having a DC with SN is why we're going on holiday during term time when it's quieter!

Otherwise well intentioned parents who pull their kids out for two - five days for a cheaper holiday (still not cheap!) are not IMHO, the cause of longer term drops in attendance levels.

I fully agree about unfairness, but people people right to point out that its not a substantial increase. The current fine for a 2 parent 2 child family is £240, which is what people are getting at when we say it's not going to change the financial fundamentals. It's still an appalling policy though yes.

@Vod that's a valid point. I knew of someone who was offered a holiday via a charity - but the dates were term time. It was a holiday specifically for children with SEN and their families.

I think those cases though, permission would be granted. I know someone who's secondary age child has never been fined because they go on holiday during term times for that reason (younger brother is severely autistic and struggles with crowds etc).

Our school now do home visits for any absence right before or after half term/holidays

Unfortunately this is not universally true. There are instances where people with SN DC have been fined. It's probably another postcode lottery type thing, which isn't good enough. The system stinks.

It really doesn't work as an incentive to prevent children having unauthorised time off. So much time and money spent chasing parents for the fines.
What happens to the money collected. Does it just disappear into government coffers?

The government have the focus all wrong. Raising the fines for parents rather than capping the increase on holidays in school half term/holidays

The parents who just don't send their children to school because they don't value education and/or are lazy (I've known many), aren't going to be fined because they are seen as vulnerable. Most of these families have family support in place, who do nothing but make excuses because they can't do anything else through a lack of funding and policies.

I wouldn’t mind the fines if they actually went to the school

but the councils genuinely use the money collected to fund their admin/legal fees for fining and prosecuting parents

honestly I’d rather just say to the HT - would you like a £160 donation in exchange for authorising this holiday.

I don't think anyone electing to pay a fine is going to be deterred by paying an extra £20.

If someone is paying it for unavoidable reasons, it's not fair in the first place.

Completely agree!

We are taking DS out for the first time to go on holiday. If we went in the school holidays it would cost a lot more than £160 (mine and DH's fine)

Yet, parents sending their children to private school don’t have any fines if they take their kids out of school on holiday (and have longer holidays in which to do so slightly out of season anyway).

It’s another case of the government making rules that, for the most part, they and their friends don’t have anything to do with.

Wow @namechangedasashamd have they not got anything better to do?!

My dd is year 9 and has done 8 weeks of school since the start of year 8.

She has ASD and I am sure she also has ADHD. She can’t cope in a mainstream school. Since she started school refusing she has:

• been turned down for CAMHS as she doesn’t meet the threshold, despite significant behavioral problems.

• been refused an EHCP assessment, despite lots of evidence.

• been refused an ADHD assessment, despite being a text book case with lots of evidence.

• been waiting since October for a meeting with the children’s autism outreach team.

• been waiting since October for support from the children with disabilities social worker.

I have tried and tried every avenue to get help and support. I get met with a brick wall at every turn. Everything has been cut to the bone and nothing is available. My local council has just gone bankrupt so this is only going to get worse. I don’t see how fining ME, a single parent, is going to change anything. I’m not the problem here, Tory Britain is.

They are definitely barking up the wrong tree! It’s the holiday companies who are to blame. They need proper restrictions on how much they can increase their prices. It’s getting ridiculous now. I’m a teacher so don’t have the choice of going away during term time. The costs of any holidays over May half term are criminal. It’s just not fair. I can totally understand why parents do it tbh.

I'm not necessarily against fines for going on holiday although I think there should be some exceptions. But they really need to stop fining parents of children struggling to attend school for MH reasons or SEND.

I know !!! Any child off in the 2 days before or after any holiday they do a home visit to see the child and verify illness 😵‍💫

The time we took DDs out for a holiday, it was the only week DH could off work for 8 months. Fortunately, it was an Army school who understood military life. (Not even deployment... it was just how busy the regiment was. They allocated everyone a week for leave from Jan-August... and his was the first week in January!)

Won't make mine any less disabled.

These fines are a last clutching at straws attempt that won't work.
They need to address why so many young people are having enormous MH issues with regards to getting into school, not just here in the UK but USA, Australia and Japan. They also need to admit their so called coping strategies such as this one, using fear as a tool, don't work either. Soon the schools will be almost empty because no-one has the guts to address the real problem.
Also interested to know do the teaching staff get penalised for non attendance, or do they believe MH issues affect adults only ?

Holiday companies are businesses which need to make money. They charge more over the summer to make up for the leaner months. The government will never cap them.

Read the government response here to see what their response to such requests to intervene is

https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/110902#:~:text=In%20a%20competitive%20market%20it,to%20trade%20all%20year%20round.

Also interested to know do the teaching staff get penalised for non attendance, or do they believe MH issues affect adults only?

What do you mean here?

I don't think it will make a difference!

Anyone know what the money actually gets used for? Probably something stupid like running the department that hands out the fines.