To think the penalties for term time absence is ridiculous..

[JKbowling]

I got this in my email inbox today, sent to all parents and guardians.

"Failure to safeguard a child's education" appearing on your DBS, really?

As for term time holidays. If a family can't afford to pay for their one measly UK break per year to be had during the 6 weeks holidays (because the prices are hiked right up and become unaffordable) how does school suppose said family is going to pay the fine?

As always two different things are being lumped together and "the solution" is being applied to both things. One of which, IMO is not actually a problem:
Taking the 450k kids missing final week of term stat. Can we ask what is it composed of? Let's just say for the sake of argument 350k regular truants and 100k kids who have good attendance and parents who, generally support the school and their education. The first category may be slightly swollen in the final week but it exists all year round and yes it is a concern and it probably is/will be a problem for society. The second category, I can't get excited about, but it is lumped in with the first for punishments.

That surprises me Would've thought that the poorest parents would be the ones unable to afford a holiday at all.

Yes I know, I get it all. However it's 1 number that is measured and the target is to get that number down. My kids are grown and married but never took a day off sick unless half dead and never had termtime holiday.

Pedantic. I was naming SOME holiday companies. You can give patronage wherever you like, they all do the same thing.

Yes I understand how supply and demand works. However, they are over pricing holidays to ridiculous levels because they know people have no alternative. To the point where if I could go on holiday a day later my holiday would be 50% cheaper. That is what needs regulation.

I've read before (but I don't work in holidays/tourist industry, so unsure if its true) that the peak prices for holidays are the normal or regular price and off peak is a reduction, to entice people to book out of season. So if companies were brought to task about the price discrepancy they might raise the off peak prices?

For most of the stories I've seen or heard about people being fined they are going on Disney or similar holidays that are pretty expensive even off peak (so potentially could have afforded a different holiday during the school holidays, rather than that being the only holiday they could afford)

The schools were closed for such a long time during the lockdowns, even once it was clear the risk to children was nearly zero and vanishingly low to teachers who were not imno-compromised. This set a very low value on having children in school which is now seared into the public consciousness.

It’s difficult to row back now.

No offence but people like you annoy me, i work with people like this they come to work sick and pass it on to others then people like me who are immunosuppresed end up In hospital. If you're ill stay home nobody is going to thankyou for coming in and spreading your germs also having to listen to someone whinge all day about how ill they are is annoying

They are private companies. If there were regulations that required a limited or no price differential, I expect fewer holidays would be offered, and the price of those remaining would increase.

There is no obligation to travel abroad for a week or two in summer, people do have alternatives.

These penalties have been around for a while for some people. The DFE have just made it compulsory for school to fine now so a lot that weren't before have to now. They also increased the amount for the fine. Schools are still able to authorise absences so you don't get fined. Make a case to your school for them to authorise it. Our school authorised a 2 day absence for attending a Taylor Swift concert last year for someone in my DS school.

They aren't aimed at people taking kids out for the odd days / week of the year, they are aimed at parents who consistently take children out for a few days each month / term. That is clear to see when you look at the structure of escalation from fine to court action. You don't get fined until you go over a week off (10 sessions - its 2 sessions a day at school).

Personally I think the fines are not unreasonable. Taking a child out of school regularly does effect their education. Although I plan to do it this year (for a family wedding in Australia) I wouldn't normal take my DS out of school for anything. If we can't afford an abroad holiday in holiday time, we don't go. We do something we can afford.
Holidays are not a right, they are a privilege for people who can afford them. My DS hasnt been on an abroad holiday since he was 7 months....because we cant afford it. We holiday in the UK in school holiday time (90% camping as that is all we can afford). I regularly as a child didn't have holidays because as a family we couldn't afford them.

They absolutely are hiked during term.

Yes, I know, that’s why I wrote Jet2, Tui ETC

Yes people do have an alternative: it’s not obligatory to use the big holiday companies. Or even have a holiday.

The example the BBC quoted yesterday included a skiing trip. Nice but hardly essential (and in 2020 incidentally one of the initial causes of Covid spreading, second only to Boris Johnson's belated actions).

Child not attending school for a week does not affect the class the same way as teacher not attending school through.

In the last week of the summer term, I had a huge battle with my Y10 son to attend as he said it was a waste of time. They had a full day sports day, a full day "challenge" day, a careers fayre day and the final day they all walked to church, walked back and had lunch then school closed. He had a point.

For most people that go ski-ing that is generally one of several holidays they go on per year, I've never met anyone who's main holiday which they really scrimped for , was skiing! (Potentially people might really save to send a child on a school skiing trip if they had never been, but most people that go skiing for a family holiday do it as well as other holiday/s)

One of the big problems is greed by the holiday companies- supply and demand. If the price of a holiday in the 6 week holidays wasn't as expensive and hiked up then people wouldn't feel the need to take out their children during term time to afford a holiday.

Are there? Maybe they see education as much more valuable? However it’s wrong to say that Scotland and Wales can’t take legal action against holidays being taken because they absolutely can. The problem in England is that we are ofsted inspected and part of that is attendance related. Low attendance impacts enormously on Ofsted ratings. It’s not about school systems falling apart it’s about impacts on learning and knock on effects.

Even not abroad you only have to look at Center Parcs timetable of availability and dates to work out when the school holiday are!

Excellent post @rosesinmygarden
I agree with everything you say.

It's funny how the posters on this thread only take their DC out for "educationallly enriching" holidays isn't it? Yet most children taken out of school are just going for a week or two somewhere hot and sunny and maybe take in a theme park or two. We were open about taking DD out of school when she was in years 3 and 4 and made no pretence about them being educational. Although she did manage to learn to swim on one of the holidays.

When DD was at secondary school the fun trips like skiing, World Challenge etc were always taken during the school holidays. Only trips relevant to A level courses were taken during term time such as a visit to the houses of parliamnent for the politics students, a trip to Chester Zoo for the biology students, geography field trips etc (although, the New York trip was taken during the Easter holidays).

I don't agree with the fines either, but parents shouldn't expect teachers to take extra time out of their day to help the children catch up. At DD's secondary school they always said "ask your friends"

And posters on here who think that all schools don't teach during the last week of the summer term at secondary schools are behind the times. They absolutely do, or at least good schools do. DD's school only used to have the last day of term as a relaxing day.

The real culprits here are the likes of Jet2 and Tui who due to demand hike the prices to extortionate levels!

It's all to do with supply and demand, and that will never change.

We took DD2 (who had 98% attendance) out of primary school for the last week of term when she was in Year 3, and received a fine. I asked to see the lesson plans for the week so I was aware of what she’d missed.

You know perfectly well that this was an unreasonable request @Fireangels
Teachers just don't have the time and resources. Stop blaming the teachers for your decision.

@noblegiraffe I'm sorry that so many self entitled posters are giving you a hard time. I have read a number of your posts over the years and they are always well thought out and helpful.

👍

valid point, let me reframe: you can tell a poster is struggling to cogently defend their position when they resort to ‘what about’ - ism. Again, issues in another area of education doesn’t justify breaking the rules.

None of that is a waste of time.

Lesson plans should be prepared for every lesson. It should simply be case of emailing a spreadsheet for each day/week. The fact was there were no lesson plans and no lessons for that week. As usual the children were taking in jigsaws and board games from home, watching Disney films and having extra playtimes.

As it happens this very unusual absence was not for a ‘holiday’ but was a very educational experience, involving travelling to Australia for family reasons. The new headteacher chose to make an example of us as fines had only just been introduced in our borough.

Sounds like the same argument for imposing VAT on independent school fees.

It does affect the class, as there is a child who then has gaps in learning which have to be recapped. It affects their class partner who has no one to work with. If affect the class overall attendance - highest class each week gets a treat in my daughters school.
But all that is missing the point, it's compulsory for both teachers and pupils to attend, I'm sure teachers would love to take advantage of cheap termtime holidays, but they can't. Taking our children out is disrespectful, it's saying 'my time is more important than the teachers, that their time and skills are not valued by me more than a week on the beach'.

Teachers already often have low morale and significant challenges, let's not make their lives even harder by disrespecting them. Not turning up is no different to those who miss hospital appointment without cancelling.