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!

Your current jobs are difficult and restrictive but you can take 4 weeks off at once? BOTH of you?

So your calculating how to cheat the system. If I was in court with you I'd be giving you a hefty fine. This is showing no accountability

I’m actually speechless at your attitude

Right..except the kids in those countries haven’t got access to education. And education helps them escape things such as child marriage and poverty. That’s why they’d give their right arm, as you say. But that doesn’t mean the education system is actually working here. And using kids in countries where they’re struggling to get education as the bar is enabling the government to continue letting our education system spiral into shitness.
There are other ways to get an education here. And she took her kid out for a jolly where they bonded as a family - jeeeze It is so weird how people are so defensive of school when the country is falling to shit, mental health issues are rife, people are struggling in poverty and living month to month. All of this despite the fact we all went to school! Teachers are striking all over the place because they say schools are shit, behaviour is bad and they can’t cope and aren’t resourced. So why so defensive of such an institution?

serves you right. What an idiotic thing to do.

Yabu

3 weeks is loads too much thats a huge portion of the half term.

And if it really is to save money then your fine should be reflective of that

It was a holiday regardless of how you spin it. You all had a lovely time

Wasn't like you needed to take time.because of a bereavement/ close to death relative etc and be near them

So yes harsh as it seems you should get fined a few thousand

And yes i have taken my children out of school and knew exactly what I could face if it was taken further... (not for 3 weeks i should add!)

You said you expected a fine, this is the process by which you get a fine, it just takes a while to catch up.

They're 6 and 8, 3 weeks off school is going to make no difference at all to their schooling or future. We didn't opt in to schools, we chose to home ed, and this just strengthens my belief that we made the right choice. The experiences they will have had on this adventure far outweigh anything they could've learnt at school. It's unfortunate that by subscribing to this system, you lose so much autonomy over your own family, but I suppose you face the consequences as you signed the contract.

Breaks the law. Suffers the consequence. Shock horror.

Do you really need to ask?

Sure you might not like the word but don’t pretend you can’t work it out 🤣🤣

Exactly - children are entitled to an education.

It might come as a surprise to some (including on this thread) but children are not their parents’ property to do as they like with.

The state sometimes has to step in and make sure children are getting the education they deserve.

The govt is not entitled to decide that some children aren’t entitled to an education- either because their parents priorities were wrong (holidays over education) or those much more serious cases where parents are keeping them at home to cover signs of abuse or for so-called “cultural reasons”. Once the govt decides some children “don’t count” we’re really in trouble.

It’s utterly shameful that someone cited Martin Niemöller on this thread. Do you even know what this poem is about?

It's astonishing how many adults take our universal, compulsory education provision for granted. Why do they think so many migrants make a beeline for Europe? Education and healthcare are massive privileges.

I agree. I’m not saying whether OP was right or wrong but in the main, my experience is, it’s sports day.. then not much else after May. No one is starting to teach anything new in June … it’s just the truth! And it’s nice that they wind down, it’s nice that there are little class parties and movie afternoons, I think that’s really important and lovley. But they do wind down.

I think it's disingenuous to tell yourself the only reason other people aren't doing this is that they can easily afford the price hike in the summer. That's not the case, most people can't afford four weeks holiday, covering Europe and the US, they'd save money by having much shorter holidays.

Other than that, it's good you are taking responsibility and realising this isn't a good idea before they are old enough for it to really impact their education.

I agree if you’re planning term time again, take them out to be honest schooled and pray you can get them back into the same school…

You know what they do... I noticed the whole of july before summer hols the school gets especially lazy (and mine are secondary school) , no homework set, teachers being in 'meetings' during their set lessons, being told to just go over notes... the last two weeks before the summer hols is even worse.

Honestly you are insane to do this without checking legal ramifications first. Failing to ensure that a child attends school without reasonable justification (which does not include making memories) is a criminal offence under section 444 of the education act. In exactly the same way that other things are, like stealing, fraud, driving too fast etc.

I’d be speaking to a solicitor asap. Yes you will have to pay to get legal advice. It may be advantageous to plead guilty but you should do so knowing what’s likely to be the consequences. You will probably get a pretty big fine (I think it can be over £2k), and maybe some parenting classes. Your kids will probably have their attendance monitored for a while in the future.

If you plead not guilty you’ll need to prepare a defence (though I can’t see what that would be based on your posts) and worst case scenario if you’re found guilty you could end up in prison, doing community service or with a fine, plus obviously a criminal record.

No i said alongside teaching there are other restrictive and difficult jobs too where your flexibility is highly limited. I work part time and my husband is full time. Our jobs are hard but nowhere near as hard as it was to be a teacher.

@ButterPiesAreGreat Prices of flights can go up quite dramatically during school holidays, and I think the OP mentioned struggling to afford them.

When I was at school in the 1990s and early noughties, my parents occasionally took us out of school for holidays (to visit relatives in the USA) - the maximum I missed due to holiday was two weeks. Back then, though, you were permitted to take some holidays during term-time (and it didn't happen every year.)

Now that the rules are very different, it's unsurprising that this is the outcome for the OP, but I do sympathise with people who have family in different countries (especially two different continents, as OP has stated) being tempted to take the holidays during term time because of the jump in prices once schools let out.

If you take up a publicly funded education place, then you are imposing costs on everyone else. If your child misses content that needs to caught up on, that's resources and time taken from the chosen who came to school every single day.

It's hugely disrespecting your community to regard public provision as solely for your convenience.

I agree. What a waste of public funds opening up a court case! It’s absurd.

I don’t have much sympathy here. You took the risk, knowing you would get a fine. But you seem to have missed that the courts can fine you £2500 per child and given they will want to discourage these types of very long and entirely intentional absences aimed at abusing the system, they probably will do. So it may well end up costing you more than it would have done to go in the holidays 🤷‍♀️.

This doesn't answer your question, but I think a lot of people would be in favour of a policy whereby parents could have one weeks authorised absence for the purpose of a family holiday. Schools are not allowed to authorise them at all for holidays. Many working class families cannot afford school holiday prices even for one week (I appreciate you went for a lot longer), and yet travel, experiencing different cultures etc is educational.

It's ironic when you consider private schools break up around the beginning of July (and get 8 weeks) when holidays are cheaper. (They also break up earlier for Christmas and Easter, getting around 3 weeks). I had colleagues, early on in my career, that would go skiing for a week before Christmas with their kids because we broke up around mid Dec.

I noticed a post refering to 7 weeks in the summer?! Many LEAs, including mine, now get 5 weeks for summer and break up towards the very end of July.

You won’t go to prison, you will likely get a hefty fine though and a criminal record (not the kind that should seriously affect jobs etc). You are probably best to plead guilty if you don’t want expense of solicitor etc as a decent one that could get you off the charge would probably cost around the same as the fine you will get. We have taken ours out a few days of the end of term a couple of years but that’s the maximum, it significantly reduces the holiday cost but sorry 3 weeks you must have realised is a significant amount of time?!

This is simply not true at all of course new stuff gets taught in June. Schools finished for the summer here at almost the end of July this year do people honestly believe schools do no teaching for well over a month?