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?

Just curious are the fines a deterrent? I am in Ireland and we don' have fines at all, yes it is frowned on and schools always request that parents don't do it but people that do don't get fined. We do have longer school holidays so maybe that means not as many are likely to take their kids out anyway.

I was just wondering though has any research been done to suggest it is actually a deterrent or is it just a money making exercise? Do other countries do it?

It's not just affordability, it's hounding when ill, it penalises families with caring arrangements, young carers, those families that can't shoehorn treatment and health plans around holiday times. It assumes everyone learns at same rate, each day is equally important, each school year is equally important, that presenteeism for its own sake is important. Most of all, some of this push for attendance (e.g. even when ill or contagious - is the very reason a proportion of kids will have become young carers / have mental health issues / be much worse off financially as a family / have spent their holidays whilst family battles another virus brought home from school).

England is afaik the only country to have the system we do. We're not the only one to have fines at all, but it's different in Scotland and Wales. And no, there's no good evidence that the fining system deters parents from taking their kids out for holidays.

A flight from Manchester to Faro was £100 pp in 1986. Grotty accommodation in a studio £30 pw. Holidays are much cheaper these days. Long weekends abroad didn't exist. Nowadays it's so flexible and cheap.

Or I can do what I want and you can stop telling me what I can and can't do

its not until now. However , the threat of court and a 5k per child fine will most likely stop many people doing 3 holidays in term time during 3 years.

I'm awaiting a fine for a holiday I haven't even been on.

Me and my partner can only afford to go camping on weekends and a 4 night stay. Despite us both working full time. My ex partner wanted to take our son abroad. We agreed the dates he was going to book. (2 days out of school) he completely lied. And booked the entire last week out of school. They go away twice a year abroad. So because it's per parent ill be getting a fine. No chance my ex will pay mine. They will say I allowed it. Other than standing at the airport and breaking my child's heart nothing I could do.

What annoys me is every year they have Christmas shopping days in November. A Friday and Monday off. You can't go away on holiday in November. Why not have that weekend in June etc.

That's very optimistic. It's not actually particularly difficult to avoid, as a pp pointed out. A full week three times in three years is a limit that gives a great deal of room to maneouvre, especially if you don't mind bare faced lying.

The Govt. are coming down hard on school absences for a good reason though. Parents should prioritise their children's education above an out-of term-time holiday. Kids get loads of authorised time off - there is no need to take your kids out of school in term-time for a vacation. You cite holiday costs as a factor and I agree that the beef should be with the companies that are capitalising on this, however, there are cheaper holidays to be had. You don't "need" to go abroad, all inclusive, 5 star luxury etc etc. Kids enjoy camping/caravanning holidays in the UK just as much and it's way cheaper! Discounts can be found on some websites if you do choose to go abroad, and if you dedicate time to your search you can scoop some cool deals way in advance.

No excuse sorry!

Thanks for your approval - it means a lot.

We are in a relatively affluent area, with good schools, excellent SEN pprovision, good access to nhs therapies. But termtime holidays are a huge issue in our schools, so what else apart from fines would people suggest to stop /reduce termtime holidays? Because they are disruptive for both that child and the rest of the class, they do overall link to poorer educational outcomes - I say overall as I'm sure someone will be along to say about their child who had 50 termtime holidays, got all A's and is studying medicine at Cambridge.

Now you are telling me what I can and can’t do! (Stomps foot)

I think it's awful. Children shouldn't be owned by schools.
It should be made clear to parents that if they miss it's on them to organise catch up with other parents and the teacher is not responsible in any way.
Other than that, live and let live.

And if a child is always late / missing 50% throughout the year, social services should be involved. Schools shouldn't be responsible for enforcing attendance. Their job is to teach the present, and that is hard enough.

🤗🥰😘

Not RTFT but no, I don't think the penalties are ridiculous.

There are 13 weeks holiday a year. That is 1/4 of the year.

People don't have to go away in August, or go on expensive package holidays. We generally went in May or October half term when it was cheaper (and the weather was often better anyway, especially in May).

Despite what they may claim, heads do have discretion to grant absence for special/family events such as weddings/funerals, taking part in sporting events or if eg you are in the Army and only get very specific leave.

People don't need to take term-time holidays except in very limited circumstances.

it depends on the age of your kid. For primary school age kids, I guarantee they are not doing much academic work in the last week of the summer term. They will miss cleaning the classroom, watching films, playing games and doing things like word searches and dot to dot sheets. It will have zero impact on them.

As for companies hiking the prices up in the summer, I was told it was the opposite and they reduce them in the winter.

I am not sure I believe that...

Especially as a few years ago different local authorities chose different dates for February half term and the travel companies were caught out and one week was significantly cheaper than the other! Which rather indicates the prices get put up not down...

Not especially on thread, but years ago a child in my class went on holiday for two weeks. Upon returning, the mum asked “Has he missed anything?” I responded by expressing that I wouldn’t be a very good teacher if he hadn’t.

I wouldn’t particularly stress about the last couple of days of the summer term, but children need to be in school. An all inclusive in Gran Canaria isn’t a human right.

How is that catch going to work with for example a year 1 child? When I ask my 5 year old what she had learnt today, the answer is 'I don't know' 'reading' 'writing' or 'how to make fart sounds with my hands'. She has made huge progress so clearly isn't only learning fart sounds, but no way could I handover to another parent what they had learnt to help their child catch up if missed school. My year 4 child misses quite a bit due to hospital appts, if she asks her friends what they learnt the day before, she gets very little info. I would think that that wouldn't really work until secondary.

Children are not 'owned' by schools, but they have a responsibility to educate them and they cannot do this if the child is at disneyland!

Having kids is a life choice. Your decision.
Once they go to school they are given 16 weeks a year holiday.
Yes it costs more to go on holiday during these 16 weeks, you chose to have kids and have to put up with the inconvenience.
Kids shouldn't be taken out of school during term time, there are plenty of holidays available as standard. They need the education and it's not the parents job to decide they can manage without it because holidays are cheaper outside of the 16 weeks.
Yes, you deserve to be fined, accept it.

The biggest help would probably be if different parts of the country had different holiday dates. That way peak pricing would be a bit less steep and people would be less inclined to go away in term time.
It wouldn’t help us as our issue is always managing to get the same week of work but it would help a lot of people.

We are close to Scotland and even though it’s English holidays at end of August it’s usually relatively quiet in Scotland then since they are back at school. Ditto much of Northern Europe. It is also cheaper. Our holiday home this year was about £800 last week of August but would have been over £1000 last week of July when Scottish schools were off.

I’m generally not a fan of the kids missing school but I will take them out if we hit a year we can’t get time off to do something all together unless it’s their GCSEs or A levels as I think that’s also important. I also have a huge amount of sympathy for parents with school refusers (trust me the child with anxiety in my daughters class is a lot more disruptive to other kids learning if she’s forced into school kicking and screaming than if the school work with her parents to get her in as much as possible). If you allow a bit more discretion for authorising absences it makes things a lot less fraught for parents in those and other difficult circumstances while also allowing heads to say no. As it is I know of more than one friend who wasn’t given permission to take kids to a family wedding of an aunt/uncle or even a funeral in one case. It’s pretty awful teaching lead teams are under such pressure over attendance they feel like they can’t authorise absence for things like that.

This would help though, if schools staggered their holidays.
They do have to push prices high in school holidays to cover the costs of reducing them termtime, but if there was a broader spread of holiday weeks where they could charge a bit more, that may work out as the same annual income overall.
Although I'm sure someone would moan about that as well if their children's holidays didn't match up...

@bazoom

Having kids is a life choice. Your decision.
Once they go to school they are given 16 weeks a year holiday.

This nails it. 16 weeks per annum is a heck of a lot of holiday!!! I struggle to fill it, why on earth would I feel the need to then go and take MORE time on holiday in term-time with my kids? I don't!

There is, but it is prohibitively expensive, often over £1000 a month.

Il give you that one 🤣🤣