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

So that’s exactly what I neither said nor suggested. Obviously, what we here in Brexit Britain can do not anything else.

I lived in Germany and Holland for a few years, and have friends who teach in Italy, Switzerland and France. Taking kids on holiday in term-time is just unheard of and would be totally not accepted. Different priorities?

This was how it was here when I was growing up. It’s actually still not something that’s supposed to happen. Authorised absences are not intended to used for holidays.

Yep, I think they are for sickness and essential medical/dental appointments.
Although our school will authorise 1 or 2 days for exceptional circumstances, like a funeral of a close family member. And there was a boy with leukaemia in my oldest year and they authorised a holiday to Disney for a week to make memories for all his siblings

I also can't recall children going out of school in termtime, apart from 1 and all my friends Mums talked about it for weeks, so it must have been a huge deal

I think that may be due to many fewer people going on holiday, I was one of only a few who had a summer holiday abroad every year from about 7 years old, most went to grandparents, camping, seaside for a few days and I was accused of being a 'posho' for going abroad in a caravan in late 80's.

It's interesting that other countries don't have same issue. I wonder if that's a cultural thing, or economic

During the pandemic much was made that everyday in school counts, missing out was ruining life chances etc.

Ironic most people on the thread are complaining that the government still applies this principle now that it is no longer convenient to them.

I can recall a couple of exceptional circumstances over the years our DC at school. The first was when someone went to see a parent get an OBE or something like that. The second, a Yr13 invited to a conference as a speaker. The last of those might not even be deemed an absence, more like a solo school trip.

'Still' applies? I rather think the point is that it wasn't actually being applied!

But yes of course, interfering with the established social contract about school attendance during the pandemic has had an impact on attitudes. Surely that's not exactly a surprise, though? I know I wasn't the only one who saw it coming miles away!

I suppose there are 2 issues here.
Some parents take children out of school to go on cheaper holidays. Increasing the fine will not deter them. If you are going to save money then those parents will still do it. What is wrong is when these parents expect the teacher to provide homework or do extra work so that their child can catch up. No they have missed it so tough shit.
Secondly those parents who are not forcing their child to go to school. This is a complex issues. Maybe there is a justified reason. Maybe the parents are out at work and not physically in to prevent their child just staying home. Or maybe they actively encourage their child not to go to school.
I’m always puzzled by this as technically, children don’t have to attend school they can be home schooled.
The real issue is how teachers and schooled staff are assessed.
Change that and I can guarantee that school will no longer give a whether your child is there or not.
It all comes down to targets. That is what it’s all about.

No its not going to make any huge difference it does nothing to support those where absence is related to school avoidance and its not a significant enough increase to prevent term time holdays as still considerably cheaper than school holiday prices.
Last year it was £1800 cheaper for 4 adults and 2 children to go on holiday the week before half term rather than over half term. So still saving £1480 with the planned increases

Which is why I said multiply by 10 - so it would cost money rather than save!

That's an unworkable proposal. The 'beauty' of the current system is that people don't have much incentive to challenge it, playing along is financially rewarded and it's not significant enough to do more than piss people off. It isn't much of a vote loser.

Whereas making the fines much more expensive also creates an environment where people have no incentive just to cough up for an easy life, and also means people are less likely to be able to pay up. Enforcement of fines is expensive and resource intensive, and our court systems are creaking as it is. It isn't something that a government could implement.

I know- because it has become culturally 'acceptable' and even by some 'expected' - unlike in the past of other cultures.

One effect however, after a short period of messy adjustment, could be that parents realise that it is just not on at all.

Talking to friends all over Europe about this issue, they are aghast that UK parents do this in droves as if quite normal.

in the past OR other cultures, sorry.

'Could' be. Doubt it, frankly. There's just no basis to think we'd see change at all.
After all, England has some of the shortest school holidays in Europe. Perhaps these aghast Italians and French we heard about upthread might think differently if they didn't have quite so much time off in summer to work with.

Fwiw, opposition to our school holiday fining system certainly isn't England specific. My relatives in ROI think it's backward as fuck.

Talking to friends all over Europe about this issue, they are aghast that UK parents do this in droves as if quite normal.

How many weeks do they have off for the summer in these countries? If you have 8/10/12 weeks, then I expect you have a lot more leeway to go when you want. More choice to weeks/villas and less competition with people you work with over the same weeks.

In Italy, one of the examples given, it's three months!

I think it's good to increase the fine. I'd rather not go on holiday than remove my child from school.

It's daft. The whole attendance push kind of stinks anyway when they keep ignoring major reason for it - if they genuinely wanted to help attendance, they'd talk about illness occasionally and address ridiculous policies around it - teacher absence has also increased significantly and I don't think tons of them are taking time off for holidays.

What pisses me off about the fines is that when it suits the school to close on a school day, that's perfectly ok, but take your child out of school for a day and get a fine.
A couple of years ago, my then 12 year old granddaughter missed four months of school, because her mum, my daughter, fled DV and moved almost 80 miles to live with me until she got sorted.
The schools here were full so she couldn't get a place.
We phoned her previous school and asked if they could send some school work over, or do it online. No, because she's not a pupil at the school anymore.
Yet this was acceptable to the LEA!
But god forbid you want to take them out for a few days. Have a nice holiday, here's your fine!!

What pisses me off about the fines is that when it suits the school to close on a school day, that's perfectly ok, but take your child out of school for a day and get a fine.

What do you mean about suiting the school to close? Closing due to water leaks/RAAC/covid is pretty much out of the school’s hands.

It’s not the schools who introduced fines, either.

What pisses me off about the fines is that when it suits the school to close on a school day, that's perfectly ok, but take your child out of school for a day and get a fine.
Schools rarely close on a school day unless there's an actual reason eg boiler breakage, gas leak, snow making the site or building unsafe, no heating.

Our local news page on social media is full of smart arse people thinking they're really clever talking about all the time school closes for training days, but school training days come out of the school holidays, not out of term time.

Yep, I totally understand being fucked off about double standards given the few years we've just had, but let's place the blame for that where it's deserved. Schools didn't cause this.

Inset days take place in term time at our local schools.
Last year, schools here were delayed returning to school after the six week holiday due to a teacher training day!
They'd had six bloody weeks to do it, but delayed the start of term instead.
Seems perfectly acceptable to do this, but not take your child out without a fine.
It may not happen in your area, but it certainly happens in mine.

I never said it was the schools who implemented the fines.
They're bloody quick enough to dish them out though.

Schools do not issue fines.