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!

So I have just read this thread and have been following the thread on ID cards for the UK …

Im assuming all the posters who agree with the notion that parents shouldn’t be taking young kids out of school are also pro ID cards. I mean, talk about government control!

It is sad that England is not the England of the 80's and 90's. Under Blair when hyper competition came into the Education field, to compete with China, all has gone downhill.

Having 3 children of my own, my only advice would be, if you can financially afford it, move to a cheaper country and privately educate them. I know this sounds very far fetched but can be done.

I 100% refuse to believe the school was happy with this and waved them off happily

This ⬆️

I teach Year 3…in my school, we teach the full curriculum right up until the very last afternoon of the summer term, where we have a ‘leaving assembly’ for Year 6 at 1pm and then a ‘class party’ that celebrate the end of the school year.

LONG GONE are the days when that last few days (note ‘days’ NOT ‘weeks’!!) were used for stripping walls, clearing cupboards and trays (and watching movies)!! The majority of teachers do all of those things during the holidays.

Two years ago, we actually had OFSTED in the last week of term! Could you imagine the panic if we’d already stripped all the displays and had the kids watching K-Pop!?!?! 🤯😬

OP…seriously, three weeks out of school for a holiday is ridiculously indulgent! What were you expecting to happen?

Education is free and your children are very lucky to have that. Your attitude towards not making those most of that wonderful facility is poor.

Surprised you’re surprised to be fined tbh.

Well, you could have taken them to the British Museum ( or similar in Scotland) at the weekend and they would have probably got more from the experience !

You must have been under a rock if you didn’t realise that three weeks out of school for a holiday would land you in Court.

Children are learning all the time they’re at school, there is not such thing as three weeks that don’t matter. Plus you say yourself they then had a month of holiday once you got back - plenty of time to have done this during the holidays!

I’m afraid I have no sympathy at all.

I’m surprised you insist your children have good attendance. They’ve missed 3 weeks of term time and the same 3 years ago. That must be in bottom quartile of attendance for whole country. My eldest is 14 and the total number of days I have taken them out of school for a holiday across their whole school career so far is 0 days. They get enough time off. Good luck for the court process, am sure it will be no more than a fine/ slap on wrist as a deterrent for doing it again.

No one's giving the OP a hard time. It's surely common knowledge by now that schools don't issue the fines.

Also like others I'm highly suspect about the OPs claims she has previously been a teacher.

The OP was a teacher

And the OP thinks last 3 weeks of school term is winding down

Let me guess Op, you were booted out of the profession!

I'm confused by why you are taking the kids on holidays, especially 2-3 weeks long, during term time?

You were a teacher makes this so much worse OP 😂

This! We get a letter at the beginning of the year about the importance of attendance and the rules, not to mention how it's talked about on here, and everywhere online, that you get fines for this. There's no way you can plead ignorance of the rules.

And before anyone mentions Covid lockdowns - Covid lockdowns just showed me how vital time in school really is to children, how much they do miss by being off.

The amount of issues that children are having as a result are almost uncountable.

Covid did the opposite of demonstrating that kids are fine being taken out of school.

So you basically thought the law shouldn't apply to you because your children aren't like the ones who need to be in school? Riiiiiight.

And if Ofsted spot that, there’d be some difficult conversations had. Off-rolling is not allowed, and that could be construed as that, as it would be benefitting the schools attendance figures and also a failure to meet their responsibilities set out in “working together to improve school attendance” .

3 weeks unauthorised absence is a huge amount

I’m not surprised it has escalated like this rather than just the fine being issued

And if she was…. The fact she thinks last 3 weeks are wind down time would indicate that the decision not to be a teacher wasn’t something she had any control over!

Agreed. Poem "First they came" by Pastor Martin Niemöller is worth reading.

Slowly we give away our freedoms, and freedom is such a thing that you do not realise you had till it is taken away from you.

The first holiday may not have been prosecuted because only the eldest child was at school, and given there were, five there's a possibility they were below compulsory school age still. That kicks in the term after you turn five, so if the child was five in April, they could take holiday during term time in the summer term still without problem.

The usual process is to do the fixed penalty fine, but they have discretion to move straight to prosecution. It may be worth querying why this was not offered - have a look at your Council's policy on this.

It is a pretty outrageous amount of time to take a child out of school for a holiday though, especially given you a back home for most of the actual summer holiday. This wasn't some epic expedition that was taking 8 weeks and therefore you'd have to have time off school to fit it in, you just chose to go in cheaper and more convenient. Not that I think they'd be much sympathy for an 8 week expedition either tbh.

If it was something like flying for a grandparents funeral in the Brazilian rainforest, and that was 2 weeks before the end of term, I could see the point in making a holiday out of it and not going back, but for most ordinary circumstances, a school's not going to be happy with this. Heck, they wouldn't authorise a two week trip for a funeral in the Brazilian rainforest anyway, but they'd be more likely to use any discretion.

Loads of us can’t afford the high prices of holidays during their summer time off, doesn’t mean we just take them out whenever. Some people are so entitled it’s unbelievable. Sorry you deserve this

Fuck around and find out, I’m afraid. What if we all just blithely decided to take our kids out of school for a quarter of a term? What makes you so special that you don’t need to abide by the rules?

well, I think maths is not your strong suit 😂

Oh please someone bring back the laughing emoji for this!

This, my daughters have missed so many valuable chunks. They have had so much support on the catching up and it’s been devastating to their overall education.

Unless they are contagious, they go to school.