Kids missed 3wks school, council taking me to court!

[Questionairballoon]

Hi all,

I am very unsure about what to do.

DC aged 6 and 8. I took them on holiday this summer. missed the last 3 weeks of school (July 2025).

For context, their attendance is always good. Only time they ever miss school is when poorly. They enjoy going. Last time we took them on holiday they were 3 and 5 and they missed maybe 2 weeks of nursery/school.

Before we left this time, I emailed the head teacher and spoke with the staff partly to apologise and also to find out what they might miss for the last 3 weeks so I could cover with them if needed. For what it’s worth, both kids do well in school. Teachers wished us happy hols and we left on a positive note.

The holiday was 2 weeks in Europe and 2 weeks in America. They had some fantastic experiences and got to meet relatives who live abroad. We were back in August, they had almost a month to recoup and then back to school business as usual!

We expected a fine but got nothing. This week, I’ve received a court order telling me to expect paperwork where I’ll be “pleading guilty or not guilty”.

I’m gobsmacked tbh. Has anyone been in this situation? Any advice at all? I don’t even know what to say!

My advice would be to be extremely contrite, accept the fine without arguing, and say, "Please don't give us a criminal record, we won't do this again but we really do want our children to be able to visit their family in the US. In the school holidays of course, from now on."

it depends where your school is. We have 6 terms now- used to be three ages ago. Now each stretch between holidays is called a term, not half term.

Clearly you haven’t read my posts.

my mother was a teacher. I never went on holiday in term time in my life.

secondly, she said her five year old was at school in 2022.

If it was me I'd plead guilty and grovel at the earliest opportunity to minimise the sentence. Trying justify it will make it worse. The court doesn't want 'I'm sorry but...'. The law is clear. You broke it so now the only thing to do is minimise the impact and seek legal advice if you can afford it. It'll be a good investment.

We expected a fine but got nothing. This week, I’ve received a court order telling me to expect paperwork where I’ll be “pleading guilty or not guilty”.

Councils (and other bodies) can't actually issue "fines" (not to be confused with a Fixed Penalty Notice for parking or littering), only a court can "fine" someone. So you plead guilty by post, the court issues the fine, you pay up and that's the end of it. I'm pretty sure that it would be "spent immediately" so wouldn't need to be disclosed to most employers but I am not a lawyer.

You are substantially missing the entire point.
If you got a fine for speeding would you want that to go towards better roads. Regardless how it is spent. This woman as a teacher / former teacher broke a law knowingly and the money goes towards education - where to you want it to go, legal advice for parents that want to go to Disneyland. Google the maximum fine then tell me her local authority could not make use of that.
Primary schools in my authority take every student on residential every year. That is hugely expensive and gives every child together amazing experiences. You've never worked in education,LA or the courts and clearly do not know how things work.
More over you are arguing that someone should break the law and what not receive a fine or that the fine should just go straight to government. Get a grip. It's wonderful that money is ring fenced for all children.

For me it’s not whether the personal reason or valid or not. I have no issue with someone doing this as long as they then accept the repercussions they were positioned before they made the choice.

The process is there because you can’t make it fair if you assess an individual circumstance. A lot of bias would be applied, therefore nobody can assume that it’ll be a one off, as some will make it a regular occurrence.

Ah right, stop changing the story then. You said they missed a couple of weeks of school and nursery. Sorry for taking you at your word 🙄

Lol.

No. 6 weeks is only half a term. There are 3 terms in a year (spring, summer and autumn term), roughly 12 weeks each. Each with a half term break in the middle.
Therefore 3 weeks, is a quarter of a term.
It's not complicated.

It's not a funding issue. It's about children missing out on chunks of their education and teachers then having to help them catch up.

You can of course argue that missing the last three weeks of the summer term isn't disruptive in the same way that missing three weeks in the middle of the autumn or spring term would be, but they can hardly make a rule that says children must attend school during term time except the last week before Christmas and the last three weeks of the summer term because everyone knows they don't do any real work then.

I'm not missing the point at all. I just don't agree with your premise. Presenteeism isn't always in our children's best interests and I believe parents should be able to make that judgment (unless there are other existing concerns)

Tradtionally three terms a school year - (though some areas now take 6 week blocks as term other areas and older parents don't)

So roughly 12 weeks each split with a week. Each bit of that is a half term 6 weeks - so OP taken three weeks - half a half term.

This term being 6 weeks - is newish terminolgy as goes along with people calling Easter - (2 weeks and end of term ie one of the three school termes hoildays) - a half term spreading confusion with language as they skip on they merry way.

Personally I think they need hunting down and stoning along with people who use staycation for UK hoildays to avoid the spread of confusion - but I do accept that's an exteme stance.

@Questionairballoon not sure if you’re being naive or deliberately obtuse. Of course they were going to be ramifications. 3 weeks is a very long time to take your kids out. Surely you knew the rules in the UK

She also said this

Are so many people unable to read? I said we don’t take term term holidays AS IN: before this one, we did not take any TT holidays and our children have good regular attendance. This was an exception to our normal life. It’s not something we do every year.
**
weeks on end, twice” - the first time was when my eldest was in nursery lol there was no fine, nursery absence is different.

it doesn’t seem as if the current sanction has anything to do with the previous holiday.

I've just looked it up and there are about 3 counties that have 6 terms but the general system is 3 academic terms.

Three weeks is a long time at those ages, and the handover and winding down you mention is the last few days, not three weeks. Our school would not have sent you off on a positive note, so I’m suprised yours did. Perhaps they know that it’s really only their job to log it and the LA will do the rest. There has been a massive crackdown on attendance and increased pressure on schools over it since around Easter, so you chose a bad time to do this. I know parents with family in other countries etc. and none have taken more than a week out of school to add onto a holiday.

Which wouldn't be such an issue were educational adequately funded!
It's all about funding. And now the government can point fingers instead of doing something about it. Let's see if it improves outcomes... (it wont)

Also bear in mind a conviction might jeopardise your and/or your partner’s employment. You can find the current sentencing guidelines by googling school non attendance.

I work in a school in Ireland (we have no such things as fines and court appearances are a not really followed throw threat) where if a child misses 15 days we consider that a good year! To give context, I'm working with a family where the child missed over 85 days last year. So OP, don't feel too awful and I hope you had a great trip best of luck with court

Parents like you are part of the reason these fines were brought in. I spoke to a teacher who said some parents took 6 weeks off school to go back home to visit relatives. This was a regular occurrence in a deprived area. Then there are children on the waiting list wanting a place at that school which was taken by the absent child. So fines were brought in as a deterrent.

I know someone who went to court for non attendance. They had to fill in a means test form when they arrived, and you will have the opportunity to speak to the duty solicitor before you go in.

They read out a statement they had prepared and explained their reasoning for going during term time (I would question why you did not receive a penalty notice, and ask the LA why this was). It's very unusual to go straight to court with no warning, or penalty notice.
They got a fine (I'm not sure how much) but first offence is up to 1k I think. They didn't get criminal records.

I doubt very much if there is room in prison for people who comity ‘ crimes’ of this nature

So are the government controlling us or not, make up your mind!

It doesn't matter how well funded schools are. Having kids miss weeks of their education randomly during term time and then come back not knowing what they have missed would be disruptive in any school, no matter how well funded.