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?

Education is important. No wonder so many kids leave with poor GCSEs when their parents pull them out to go sunbathing.

As an experienced teacher and parent, I think the new rules are a good balance. There's consistency now across the country, and a sensible acknowledgement of how much missed school will have an impact on their education. Ie 4 days out of 10 weeks will be fine, more than that and it'll start to have a negative impact.

I no longer work as a teacher, though still work in education and I'll be taking my kids out for two 4 day term time holidays per year. This will avoid the fines, won't have a significant impact on their education but will enable me to afford some family holidays while my children are young.

You seem to have a short memory.

During covid a lot of education was unnecessarily denied, by the government who couldn't care less.

Now they want to make money out of something that they did themselves (unnecessarily)

Double standards as usual....

Pupil premium isn't just poorer parents, it children of service personal, and children who are or have been in foster care.

They will argue that the only time they can afford a foreign holiday is during termtime. But a foreign holiday isn't essential. Quality family time can be days out, trips to the seaside, pool days etc, it doesn't have to be abroad.

The other factor is that working parents already struggle to cover 13 weeks school holiday. We have 1 week a year when my husband and I are both off, otherwise we take our leave at different times to cover the school holidays. Whereas parents who don't work do not have this challenge, so can take termtime holidays. If we took time off during termtime, we wouldn't have enough leave to cover school holidays, and would be paying £100+ per day for school holiday childcare

I will continue to take our year 2 child out of school for a term time holiday for the next few years.
Both myself and my husband have minimum wage jobs that simply won’t allow us to take leave in any school holidays (tourist industry)

We have no option to take our children on holidays any other time, and we can’t afford a holiday abroad even in term time. So we take dc out for a week for a UK holiday (usually in January/February as it’s substantially cheaper which means we can afford to go)
We work bloody hard and we need a holiday too. We already have to pay extensive childcare costs for the school holidays, and we can book a week in the UK for under £150 (and then pay a fine) versus paying minimum £950 for the same holiday in any school holiday.

I’m a primary teacher, we have families who go away multiple times a year (they lie and say they’re ill but it’s becoming harder for them to do that) and in most cases these are the children who need to be in the most.

@JKbowling having a disabled child you realise there are some things more important than education. Making memories and living life whilst everyone is well is more important.

Mmm, people know full well that missing a few days where nothing much happens is going to have sod all impact. I know there are always people on these threads claiming their schools teach to the final day, and some of them are probably telling the truth. But clearly there are a lot of children who aren't going to be impacted in the slightest by missing some days of school, which means the every day counts stuff doesn't wash. It undermines the messaging.

I personally would much rather the money, resources and manpower put into this policy be put into actually addressing and solving persistent absence.

There are many children out of school not through parental choice but because there is no suitable provision for them. Maybe if the money, resources and manpower went into actually providing suitable alternative provisions then those absences would be reduced. Perhaps if some of the man power put into tracking attendance went into ensuring EHCPs were properly funded and actually delivered there wouldn't be so much absence. Maybe if the resources and manpower was put into the CAMHS teams and MH support then absence wouldn't be as high. Maybe some of the manpower and money was given to parental support services, then maybe absence wouldn't be as high.

Perhaps rather than fining parents for a week off school in July, the effort should instead be put into funding schools properly and ensuring that the support services around them are also able to function. I would support fining parents for a week off in term time, if all the above was already fully funded, functioning properly and there was plenty of alternative provisions spaces that actually meet needs.

There are plenty of countries where the only option parents have is to scrimp and save in order to pay for their children to get an education. They know that an education is a privilege and a route out of poverty.

It is a shame that some parents and children in the uk think that being compelled to get a free education is such an imposition on their liberty.

If done well, I think the last week of school can be great for children to do fun things in a constructive way and enjoy being at school. They can learn new things off- curriculum. And probably makes it nicer to come back to.

Problem is the teachers are too overworked for it to be a creative experience at the end.

Just to be clear, I wasn’t asking for the teacher to do any additional work. I was just asking to see lesson plans which should be prepared BEFORE each lesson. It contains information such as what the lesson will cover, which aspects of the National Curriculum it will meet, the format, (worksheet/class discussion/essay, how the class work will be differentiated etc) the desired outcomes of the lesson, and how these will be measured.
The reason why I am still waiting to see these 17 years later is that THEY DID NOT EXIST! because no lessons had been planned.

Haven’t rtft but this is terrifying for parents of anxious children.

There is already a mental health crisis within schools, there is a lack of support and empathy for children with SN, particularly undiagnosed or those who mask in school so “look fine” (who likely make up a large amount of persistent absenteeism).

Introducing draconian measures isn’t going to improve this. If anything it’ll make it worse.

Why can the government not see how damaging schools have become for everyone involved, and start at that point to try to fix things. Instead they pile even more pressure onto children, their families and teachers.

It’s not remotely the same as adults working, because adults, if necessary, can choose to work part time, they can change jobs if one work place doesn’t suit them, they can wfh, they can retrain and take a whole new direction, if they are ill they can be signed off sick without their boss breathing down their neck and threatening to fine them.

The whole thing is ridiculous.

It’s not remotely the same as adults working, because adults, if necessary, can choose to work part time, they can change jobs if one work place doesn’t suit them, they can wfh, they can retrain and take a whole new direction, if they are ill they can be signed off sick without their boss breathing down their neck and threatening to fine them.

Excellent point. The attempts to conflate school attendance with jobs in these discussions are invariably ridiculous.

It's a shame that the uk government unnecessarily denied education for such a long time during covid.

It's like anything which is free, people feel more able to abuse it, it's like the nhs.

If they were paying for their child's education I'm sure they would be much less likely to take them out during termtime.

Just to be clear, I wasn’t asking for the teacher to do any additional work. I was just asking to see lesson plans which should be prepared BEFORE each lesson. It contains information such as what the lesson will cover, which aspects of the National Curriculum it will meet, the format, (worksheet/class discussion/essay, how the class work will be differentiated etc) the desired outcomes of the lesson, and how these will be measured.
The reason why I am still waiting to see these 17 years later is that THEY DID NOT EXIST! because no lessons had been planned.

Interestingly, private schools have longer holidays and thus the incentive doesn't exist in the same way. It's just the proles who are expected to be restricted to the dearest weeks and like it.

im so pleased i dont have to deal with schools its so much drama.

I don't need to defend my position it's my opinion. Why do you think I need to defend my position to you. Why do you think your opinion matters above others. We have different opinions and that's OK if we all thought the same we would be robots and mumsnet would be boring. Mumsnet is a platform for people to share their opinions and to have healthy adult debate not to prove who is wrong or right as with most things in life nothing is that simple or black and white.

I occasionally think if I could start a political party based entirely on somehow getting legislation passed to prevent school holiday prices increases for holidays I’d win in a landslide.

To play devil's advocate, private schools have longer holidays, in some cases 2 week half terms, so potentially can get slightly cheaper holidays by going eg early July.

Oh, very true. Terms seem to be a week or so shorter in private schools. No one is yelling about the academic failings that surely must result from this! (sarcasm)

This is frighteningly dystopian. Stay in in your lane, don't make a fuss, rich people can have nice things but others need to just quietly accept their place.

Of course people need to be mindful of their means, but if you can only afford £500 and that buys you a holiday in term time but in holiday time it costs £1500 then why on earth would you not take it when you can? Only rich children should be allowed to go anywhere? Everyone else should know their status?

The problem with these fines is it is aiming to target theworst offenders - people who aren't considering things like their child's overall attendance / attainment / ability to catch up etc and you're unlikely to fix that problem with blanket sanctions.

Children missing multiple days or weeks or school and falling significantly behind is of course a problem for both children and teachers - but punishing families who take one week a year to target a few is using a sledgehammer to squash a fly.

Probably! It would be completely impossible though.