To not feel sympathy for this mum?

[imreadytodive]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mum-school-holiday-criminal-record-37163490.amp

a mum has been given a criminal record after taking her daughter out of school for two weeks to “see her sick grandmother” and refusing to pay the fine

Surely she realises nobody buys that excuse? If her grandmother was that unwell why wouldn’t she travel to Turkey in the 6 week school holidays leading up to September? I’m

Yea, its all a big conspiracy.

Did i say we didn’t need them? No i said i have yet to meet someone who uses them, learning to navigate an airport is more common skill to need.

Rude, so if you don’t use the periodic table or trigonometry in your everyday life you’re boring?

Your own family does the same thing and you’re putting another mother down for also flaunting school rules?

Term time holidays should not result in bloody criminal records: it’s absurd

Probably that the children of problem families in the school, aren't being safeguarded by being in school and yet, their parents face no consequences. In one case in my GC school, family support went in, paid for flooring and white goods. The Mother wasn't in financial hardship, just liked to party. For SEN children, the teaching isn't adequate, no-one cares that those children miss out on a education. I also know two Pakistani families who claimed home schooling, but had sent their children home. Of course when they came back, they were educationally years behind, no consequence. It reminds me of the 80's when you'd only get criminally charged for not having a TV licence or not paying poll tax. This wasn't a holiday and the school secatary had told her because she hadn't heard anything, it must have been authorised.

It’s not a conspiracy. It’s the way things work. It’s all transparent.

We are allowed to point out how things work snd question their legitimacy.

The principle was mum thought it was exceptional circumstances and should have been authorised. Obviously Magistrates disagreed but sounds like she didn’t present any evidence in support of her argument.
It doesn’t sound like the girl had been taken out of school before, she had excellent attendance. Dad paid for the trip.
Unlikely mum suddenly decided to book a cheap all inclusive. If she had I suspect she’d have paid fine and not tried arguing in court.
Even though LA issue fine and prosecute it damages relationships between parent and school. Mum is unlikely to want to deal with the secretary who misled her or headteacher who gave evidence against her in court.

How long does it take to see an ill relative in Turkey...Let's be generous and say 2 days, or a long weekend. Not 2 weeks.
This just sounds like wanting a cheap(er) holiday and using sick Grandma as a reason.

Look at it this way. Schools are judged, rightly or wrongly, on their results. Ofsted reports affect everything from the type of person who wants to send their child to that school, to the type of teachers who want to apply, to house prices in the area. If parents were able to take their kids out of school whenever they felt like it, it would affect results and judging schools would become impossible as the results become pretty arbitrary. Kids are in school for less than 200 days a year. They need to go on holiday during the other 165 days. I get it - holidays are really expensive. But there is a reason for the fines, as if they didn't exist, some of the kids who need to be in school the most would miss the most education.

The secretary didn’t mislead her. She said if she didn’t hear back it was fine. The mum did hear back, she just ignored it.

She “ignored” it because she’d already left on holiday!

And then when she got home, refused to pay!

That is indeed correct. In fact, I think I would dare to say that it’s the premise of your entire thread.

So how can you say the secretary misled her?

I didn’t say that. But it’s irrelevant to whether or not she refused to pay the fine.

Your question makes no logical sense as a response to my agreeing that the woman refused to pay the fine.

Do you know this person, or anything about her? I think you should take a good look at yourself. You hane no idea of this family, or their relationships, or indeed why this may have been important fir this family. You have made a baseless assumption. You seem cruel. Have you got sone personal difficulties? Maybe seek support?

Maybe the principle is that you should not be fined for your relatives getting sick? Should the kid upon returning have to do make up work for school to keep up with their peers? Of course. Should their parents be fined for say, helping out a parent with cancer, surgery, or injury? NO. Absolutely not. I believe that’s probably the principle.

Doctors are generally accurate for a terminal prognosis once one is given though. Incredibly accurate, although people obviously do survive, they are so rare to be statistically irrelevant.

As for timelines although it is true that accuracy is not great, the vast majority will either be accurate or happen much earlier than predicted. Surviving longer is the much rarer case. So statistically it is not very likely she was expected to not survive, the fact doctors aren’t psychic doesnt change this.

YABU
Regardless of whether the woman’s reasoning is false (and I think it’s quite possible that it’s true, though I wouldn’t put money on it either way) I think it’s unreasonable for the state to fine or criminalise parents for taking their kids out of school.

Just best to pay the fine really, so many questionable factors so why draw attention to them? We all know taking DC oit of school time without prior authorisation will result in a fine.

My children went to private school and years ago a parent that had taken her children skiing for two weeks got very snippy with the teacher because she wasn't prepared to entertain them when Sophie got behind when important work was covered.
She was not prepared to give her extra time.

The parent was a bit gossipy about it, bad mouthed the teacher for being lazy, and it got back to the teacher.

Teacher kicked up a fuss with the head teacher (she was a long standing teacher), refused to teach the child going forward.

The child was moved to the other class in that year....easier for the head teacher than dealing with a teacher going out sick with stress (i was told).

An very frosty email went out to every parent that any approach to a teacher to provide catch up for holidays mid term, was not permitted and would be takdn very seriously.

Parents could choose to take their children on term holidays, but it was not the responsibility of teachers to provide extra tuition to play catch-up.

This caused huge gossip but most parents found it perfectly reasonable.

A few cheeky fxxker types thought it "outrageous "🙄.