Term time holidays

[roundtable]

Apologies if there is already a thread on this.

During August this year, the fining system of parents for taking children out of school for term time holidays is going to be nationalised. The local authorities (not the school or the teachers they don't do the fining) will have the ability to fine £80 per parent per child for the 'first offence'. Second term time holidays £160 per parent per child. Third could result in prosecution and if found guilty failure to safeguard children's education can be added to show up on any dbs applied for.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more outrage to be honest. Most parents don't seem to know about it yet. I think it's a nonsense. Most parents who chose a family holiday in term time are not the persistent absentees. I'm a teacher and I can't speak for all of them but having a term time holiday isn't really something that gets me in a tizzy. There are far more pressing concerns than that. Although, dont ask me to send home the work they've missed!

I can't take term time holidays so I've no real skin in this game but if I could - of course I would! I believe it should be at the head teacher's discretion as it used to be. A head knows whether or not a particular family has an issue with attendance and could authorise it accordingly.

Everything is so expensive for a lot of families at the moment and life can be hard. Taking away the opportunity for a family ro spend some quality time together in an affordable way just seem really sad. Lots of mine and my children's best memories are holiday related. Or am I being unreasonable?

(Unless you play the system and take a term time holidays every other year as it's within a 3 year period.)

I'm fully expecting some replies of - 'well I never went on a family holiday in term time as a child and I'm fine' and words like 'parents are so entitled' to be used but I think it's very such a shame that people's quality of life seems to be getting worse, not better. Surely it should be the other way around?

Attendance is BS anyway. My DS's school have sent a letter out asking for doctor, hospital, dentist etc to be after school. Yeah, good luck with that. If not they want the child in for their attendance mark. So if I take DS to the dentist at 9 and get him into school for half 9 this is treated worse than if I send him in for the register and then take him out for the rest of the morning. Absolutely ridiculous.

My kid has consistently relatively poor attendance, somewhere between 90 and 95%. Her worst attendance record was 7% for one term. So presumably she’d be one of the “persistent absentees” who’d be fined and not allowed a school term time holiday.

However, her attendance is not great because she had cancer age 6 and still has a tonne of follow up appointments. So why should she and we be penalised for this? Don’t judge persistent absentees too quickly.

It is ridiculous, I took term time holidays in my GCSE and A level years as it was allowed then and it didn't do me any harm.

My DD is on yr2 and has 100% attendance for this school year. She is working beyond expectation in all areas. We have booked a term time holiday for the first week back after Xmas. Holiday is £300 pp instead of over £1,000.00 pp for Feb half term. Holiday was booked before I was aware of the rule change, luckily I haven't informed the school yet so I will probably say she is unwell for the week. I don't believe for one second taking a week out of school will make any difference to her educational attainment.

Sorry your daughter has been through that. I don't think for a second anyone would include her, or any child with genuine reason for being off, as a persistent absentee. When I think of that phrase its more where the parents just cba.

It’s England only. Move to Wales. We don’t have this here.

Yes. That’s devolution for you. 👏

They can fine me. I'll still do it if I need to.
Both kids have 100% attendance, are top 1% academically (thus not realistically catered for in school anyway) and we take them on educational site visits to enrich their learning.

I agree though it shouldn't be discretionary. Whilst it makes sense to be, headteachers have enough admin and crap to deal with without holiday admin for parents. Our LA has just stopped all school dinners because they don't have the budget. Whole system is a bloody mess.

My child learns a hell of a lot more out of school than in it. School is only part of her education.

She’s about to go into year 9 and it looks like she’ll be doing 3 extra GCSEs from home due to the limitations of her choices at school.

The critical thing there is the school as
to ‘consider’ a fine- it doesn’t say that they have to fine.

There is enough wriggle room with the 4.5 days to stay within the guidelines. And if you’re saving money on the holiday then you have to suck up the fine and budget it as part of the cost.

I’m in Cromer today. There are whole classes of kids here presumably on a school trip. They’re all wondering up and down the pier not learning anything. I don’t see what the bloody difference is

I wouldn’t be too annoyed about it if the money went directly to my child’s school, but it just goes in the LA’s massive pot which has no real accountability on how the money’s being used.

Ex teacher here with a 3 year old and a 1 year old.

I’ve already got a schedule of when I plan to take term time holidays 😂.

3 for definite over their school life. Maybe 4. It’s not even about costs, just about experiences. I’m not even pretending it’s educational. 2 of these are for Disney World.

We’ve got an international family so if weddings, funerals, big birthdays etc fall in term time I’ll definitely consider letting them miss a couple of days of school to attend.

I won’t be asking for work to be sent home but pretty confident I can plug any gaps sufficiently having taught most subjects at some point!

DD’s science department are considering a trip to Disneyworld (USA) to “study rollercoaster engineering”…….

Yep, that’s what I said. They can miss a whole week of school without a fine. What am I missing?

They can't though? It's the 10th session which triggers the fine.

So glad we don't have to deal with this fine nonsense in Scotland. It all just sounds absolute madness to me and would eb quickly abolished if I was in charge.

It seems they thought it would stop people taking kids out during term time, but it seems the people who do are happy to just pay the fine anyway - so would appear the policy's not achieving the stated aim

Is this just a rumour? I saw this too but no where official. Your child would only be missing 8 sessions.

The whole thing is a joke and should have been scrapped. I remember when I was younger you’d fill in a holiday form and have a nice week away making memories. Now they’re fining those families and meanwhile the persistent offenders of children who aren’t in school, are guess what - still not in school.
It’s not going to get children with anxiety or being bullied etc back in! I’ll still continue to take mine out for 2-3 days to save on prices. If we wanted to do 5 days I’d probably now lie and phone in sick for one day.

Sorry what- they’ve stopped all school dinners!?? Eh?

Unfortunayely no. Our school have communicated this. It is a joke isn't it.

I live in Wales and fines are in place here. My youngest is 19 and I had to ask permission to take her out years ago, we don't have 2 weeks in my area.

WG guidance is headteacher discretion up to 2 weeks.

DD’s school doesn’t approve it but nothing happens if they have unauthorised absence, unless there are existing attendance issues.

"I believe it should be at the head teacher's discretion as it used to be. A head knows whether or not a particular family has an issue with attendance and could authorise it accordingly."

That is open to unfairness and discrimination.

Yup. The Council can't afford them (Cheshire East) so the responsibility for organising is now in school. Like the headteacher doesn't have enough to deal with,

I take my kids out most years.

Scotland so no fines and quite a different attitude to it

We often meet English people on holiday with their kids who factor the fine into the price.

I think the English system is bonkers but it suits us as we can get cheap holidays in English term time.

yanbu. Both DC have autism and struggle with crowds and busy places. Due to their high care needs, I can only work part time and money is very tight As a result, we have never been able to go on a holiday (other than visiting family). DC are teens. I couldn't afford the fines either and school won't authorise it in term time. I keep telling myself it's a nice to have and that it is not that essential.