Would you pay this school fine or risk it at court

[Coastingtohell25]

I know there is a lot of opinions on talking the kids out of school for holidays but I will not drip feed and I feel like I shouldn’t have to pay the fine.

We were informed that this year the school were not allowed to make allowances and everyone’s holiday request would be declined and it’s not their fault ( okay so I get this )

however the situation is as followed

DC class are away on residential mon -Friday to a sort of PGL like place. DC can’t attend for medical reasons and to be honest there was no real attempt to make it possible for them to attend.
parents were informed that if not attended they would be expected to be at school but DC is the only one not going. So we have booked a similar type holiday as a family at a well known family holiday park that dc enjoys which was very cheap due to not being in the holidays.

this will lead to a fine and I begrudge paying it to to be honest. Would I be unreasonable to stand my ground on this one ?

I'm assuming you have specifically talked to the school about taking dc out on a trip while rest of the class are away?

Will his usual teachers be sitting in their classrooms twiddling their thumbs because all the kids are away? Or will they be going on the trip too? In which case there won't be anyone at school to supervise or teach your son anyway.

Life isnt fair.

I was a boarder and on days the school was closed due to snow, they stuck us all in one big class and we still had lessons.

The vast majority of the school were day kids who could stay at home, sledge, have fun.

It's just one of those things.

The school should be making every effort to make this trip accessible to your child or there's an argument for disability discrimination. I also feel that making a child attend school for a week, alone, while their mates are on a holiday they were excluded from for no fault of their own isn't appropriate, to put it mildly.

Do not let this get to a disputed fine in court though. You need to nip it in the bud before it gets to that stage.

Taken at its very best, the school made "a mistake" and you are trying to mitigate their failure and the effect on your child by taking them on a trip at the same time to address the similar experiental and learning aspects. It's simple within this framing so I think there's scope for you and the school to come to an understanding here.

While I fully support attendance to avoid gaps in learning, this isn't about learning as his class are away: it's just attendance for attendance' sake and the imposition of a fine is hardly justifiable on this basis.

Take it back to the school asap and see if they can find a solution to help your child go on the trip or otherwise grant discretionary authorisation, which they do have, despite what they may claim to parents.

If they refuse, you can escalate this to governors, appropriate charities and media who absolutely won't be as generous with the framing.

You really think that's comparable to a child being punished and missing out because they are disabled and then a fine for being disabled on top of that?

OP doesn't need a reminder that life isn't fair. She has a disabled child and experiences unfairness every single day.

I think it's the local authority who run this system - the school has no say. So I might raise a formal complaint with the LA, about their failure to make any effort to make it possible for your DC to go on holiday with the school. Discrimination, disability whatever. But get a medical certificate that makes it clear there is a genuine problem and you are not an over-protective neurotic woman, which is always their first angle in my experience.

Pick him up at lunch time on the Monday and then go. 9 half days does not trigger a fine.

Pay the fine. You know the “rules” about term time holidays the school doesn’t have any choice about reporting it to the council who are issuing the fine.

What happens regarding his night time nursing when he is at home?

Unfortunately, you appear to have personal experience of somebody at the council telling you 'Not me, love' to get you off the phone.

LAs are not instructed to levy a fine - schools are compelled to submit a lengthy referral and then the LA decides whether or not to apply a Penalty Charge.

OP will be vent trained I imagine. It's usual for parents of children with complex needs to have training on various things - vents, various feeding tubes, nutrition feeds, central lines etc.

I would pay the fine. Not because I agree with it but because the emotional and financial cost to you to fight it is not worth it (even if you won).

Personally I think you should be challenging the school because they couldn't accommodate him. They shouldn't be going on a trip that can't include all the children. And as they have, it seems unfair to fine you.

I'm not sure you'd get away with it in court though. I'd resent needing to pay more so I'd probably just pay the fine.

You should complain about the trip though. Maybe they'll waive the fine if your complaint is upheld.

I’m all for holding schools accountable for making reasonable accommodations, but this isn’t the way to do it. A court case would be about parents decision to keep child out of school, not school’s decision about accommodation. In this situation the parent risks a significant loss while the school faces zero consequences either way.

It’s extremely unfair for the school to give permission for all the kids to be out of school for a week, but to say to OP’s child ‘sorry, you have to stay back alone because getting care for you is too expensive’.
Laws are written by people who won’t have considered every situation. Fining a parent in this case is against the spirit of the law IMO as mum is just trying to give her kid the same opportunities as everyone else.
I don’t know what I would find worse, being in class alone, or with students in a different age group. No one could argue that staying in school that week is better for the child. I think OP should fight it and I really hope she wins (or doesn’t get a fine in the first place).

This is actually the strangest comment I’ve seen here. This child has no choice. Your family had loads of choices. Choices come with consequences, sure. But why should something that no one chose have this level of impact?

This child didn’t chose to be excluded, this mother didn’t chose to spend her life fighting for her child to have as much normalcy in his life as possible, the school didn’t choose to accommodate in either activities or location or by budgeting appropriately to support every child. The whole thing is a mess and I commend this mother for trying to find the least awful solution for her child.

I am in Scotland so there are no school fines so I don’t have any personal experience about how to fight this. But the more I think about this, the more infuriated I get so I really do encourage you to try to fight back. Am aware that’s asking you to do a lot of work to benefit the next child, but this is so inherently wrong I can’t wrap my head around it.

Could you not just phone him in sick?

If he'll be doing similar activities to the residential, can't he be recorded as being "educated offsite" or similar?

Are your other dc school age, and will they also be missing stuff?

Respectively, the 'just pay the fine' brigade are the reason schools now issue fines with impunity. Should have been more push-back from parents from the start!

OP - take your child on holiday and if they insist on a fine, take legal action against them for discrimination re: illness/disability. Good luck!

she said the other kid (kids?) are pre compulsory education age so can come on the trip but not on the residential as per the school.

the school has really backed her into a corner here :(

The school should be making every effort to make this trip accessible to your child or there's an argument for disability discrimination. I also feel that making a child attend school for a week, alone, while their mates are on a holiday they were excluded from for no fault of their own isn't appropriate, to put it mildly.

This! And even if it wouldn't fall under disability discrimination, OP would certainly have grounds to claim for bullying or emotional distress.

Either way OP, do NOT just roll over and pay a fine. Show your DC that a good parent ALWAYS fights for what's right!

When you engage with a school you need to be proactive and suggest suitable options. If their options don’t work for you/your son say that, explain why (ideally including why it could cause issues for the school where you can) and suggest alternatives. Don’t wait for them to come up with things. IME you need to be unemotional and clear but firm in advocating for your DS. Prep before the meeting and come up with lots of suggestions (ask around or on social media for other reasonable adjustments children have had in similar circumstances so you know what to suggest).Remember it’s easier to ask for things before they’ve made a decision than after so get in there upfront. And throw about the D-word (discrimination) where needed! You can’t be passive or they’ll walk all over you and this type of unfair treatment will happen constantly.

If you decide to take the simple route of paying the fine (which although would grate and you definitely shouldn’t have to do, I would completely understand with everything else you are managing), I would definitely contract your MP about this as a minimum. It’s disgusting that you are effectively being fined trying to accommodate your disabled child and give them a similar experience to their peers, when the school has said they are unable to accommodate them on a school trip. Either your child is punished by being made to attend school missing out on the fun trip his peers are having or you are punished by being fined for trying to mitigate the unfairness of the situation. Your poor boy is already dealing with what sounds like a challenging and life-limiting disability. His life is already very unfair. Why should anyone be trying to make things more unfair for him. It’s not right.

Has the option of you taking your holiday near the residential venue, dropping DS off every day and looking after him in your accommodation overnight, been explored? That is the only reasonable solution you don’t mention as having been considered.

Get a copy of the school complaints procedure and start the complaints process, following the steps in the procedure in order. The issue is the venue the school has chosen. No residential trip venue for primary-age children is so unique that the same activities are not available closer to home. Once on the residential site, it makes little difference to the educational experience where in the country the venue is, so choosing one so far away is just a waste of the time and money spent on the travel there and back, and is the barrier to DS attending. It could easily have been changed without negatively impacting the other children.

Start collating a time-line of dates when the trip was discussed, who with and what was requested and agreed - include anything you have in writing. When the complaint is investigated, this can be compared with the date that the school made the booking, so it is clear the decision was made after discussing DS's needs or early enough to make changes if his night-time needs only came to light to staff afterwards.

If your DS has an EHCP, also contact the LA's parent support service (SENDIAS or equivalent) as the school is discriminating against DS (Equality Act 2010) and not meeting his needs as laid out by the LA in the EHCP they have issued, whilst it (the LA) is potentially fining the parent for trying to provide an equivalent experience (assuming you can evidence this by the type of holiday activities you have booked) rather than taking the school to task over this.

Edited for grammar

This.

I think most courts are prepared to hear you out. If OP can provide the medical evidence then fair enough. But they'd likely just say that could have been arranged for the school trip too. Regardless of funding issues etc as they'd see it as discriminatory not to I'd assume.

We knew someone who has repeatedly called all DCs in sick for up to two weeks at a time when they are on holiday abroad. I don't blame people who do this but like with the person we know of it's only a matter of time until the LA or an Attendance Officer with a nose for these things spots they only ever get flu/covid/chicken pox/ other long illnesses are available at the same time every year (both parent's birthdays). I most definitely was not impressed to hear they used an illness that hospitalised me last year as their latest excuse considering I was practically at death's door. 🙄

It's your choice OP but be prepared to pay the fine anyway.