Do you agree with school absence fines?

[Dreamyseptember]

I honestly don’t have a strong opinion either way. I work term time so I can only go away in the school holidays anyway, plus I’ve never been keen on mine missing school.

However, I can totally understand why for many people they want to go on holiday during term time. A family holiday can be a magical experience, visiting somewhere new, spending proper time together, experiencing new things, getting away from the daily grind. And for many this would be unaffordable in the school holidays. The other thing is that parents can’t always get the time off work.

I do think it’s important for children to attend school, I know they missing large chunks at school can mean them falling behind, miss out on learning as well as time with friends.

But tbh, I know people whose children missing large chunks school frequently anyway. Any sniffle, tired day, weather too hot or too cold and the parents are ringing them on sick. There are other children who attend 100% of the time and is one week away for a family holiday, possibly at a time of year when learning is wrapping up anyway, going to really make that much difference.

When I was at school in the 80s/90s it was quite normal for children to disappear for 2 weeks for a holiday abroad and no one batted an eyelid.

I’m sure that there are lots of arguments either way but do you think it’s right and fair that parents are fined for taking their children on holiday during term time?

Yabu - the fines are correct
Yanbu - it should be the parents decision

Id be interested to know if there is any evidence to show whether school fines have made much of an impact on attendance, and also whether they have had any impact on academic results and children’s wellbeing.

A better way would be three strikes and child loses school place . Either one child going in holiday in term time three times or three children once.

How would that help children?

It should be the parents decision in my opinion but I also understand the importance of school, more so for those in secondary. I think as long as the child’s attendance is ok overall it doesn’t hurt, however, if holiday companies didn’t hike their prices up I don’t think this would be an issue. Granted some people don’t want to go abroad in 40 degree heat in the height of summer.

If you home educate you can do as you please, and I don’t believe private schools fine (correct me if I am wrong).

Before they cracked down on the fines my daughter’s high school didn’t fine, my child who had just turned 5 did get a fine which is ludicrous to me.

hool attendance fines have shown little to no meaningful positive impact on overall attendance rates while actively harming family wellbeing. Despite record numbers of penalty notices issued across England—with first-offence fines increasing to £80—overall attendance has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. 1, 2, 3]
Impact on Attendance

• Minimal statistical change: Higher penalty costs have yielded negligible shifts in national attendance averages.
• Ignored root causes: Most unauthorized absences linked to persistent non-attendance stem from anxiety, mental health needs, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), or family poverty.
• Misdirected focus: The vast majority of fines target term-time holidays rather than addressing complex, chronic school refusal.

Google tells me the above.

All that fines mean is that poor kids have less opportunities to go abroad. Wealthier families will just factor the cost of a fine into their holiday budget.

I doubt it makes much difference to attendance or attainment generally. There is much more to life than rote learning the national curriculum.

No. I don't agree and I enjoy we relocated to a country with less strick ideas in this.

How would that help a child?

Also on the flip side we’ve had letters for school trips abroad in the thousands which are in term time. I would rather utilise that money for a family trip.

I know that at my youngest ds school, a lot of parents were taking holidays and simply ringing their child in sick.

As I say a lot of children were missing school frequently because they were tired, had a sniffle, woke up late.

Im leaning towards thinking attendance does need to be a priority but that it isn’t really term time holidays that are the big issue. It’s the regular absences and the caused that need to be looked at.

Yes. I work in a school so see the other side of the coin. If a child misses 2 weeks of school they have missed 2 weeks of learning. Topics are often only covered for 1 week so the child has missed out. If you then get multiple children off on holiday over different weeks of the year plus illnesses that all children get, it’s impossible to catch everyone up so standards across the board slip.
The add in, if we allow children to have term time holidays then school staff need to be allowed the same and it just becomes completely untenable!
I completely understand that holidays are more expensive during the school holidays, DH and I just booked our holiday for next summer and it’s several hundred pounds more that if we’d have gone 3 weeks before during term time. But it’s one of those things that comes with the territory of working in a school or having children. We save every month for holidays so it’s not a big deal come the time to pay for it.
Maybe the anger should be directed at the holiday companies hiking up the prices during school holidays? Surely it would be better for them to have 1 peak season from say May to August rather than peak April-July and super peak in August?

Which is why the Law was changed to be able to escalate for those wealthier families as well - they might not bat an eye at £160 a couple of times, but they'll take notice when they're off to court for a £1000 - £2500 fine and a criminal record.

I don’t necessarily think term time holidays should be ‘allowed’. Missing school isn’t ideal.

But are the fines really appropriate? It seems that they are not making any difference to attendance figures anyway or addressing the real causes of persistent absence.

There has to be something to put parents off taking term time holidays, fines are as good as anything.

Family holidays are important but I don’t believe they are completely unachievable unless parents take children out of school. There is no benefit to the vast majority of children of going in school time instead of during the many holidays. They either need to choose a cheaper holiday or save up for longer. It is not impossible.

Many children can take time out of school and it has no impact on their education, but unfortunately that isn’t the case for all children. Some children need every day in school they can get. Especially when they are struggling to keep up academically due to SEN or simply low ability, it is just irresponsible for parents to take their children out. School staff are expected to plan and facilitate interventions and extra support only for parents to shove two fingers up and go on holiday.

Patents need to think beyond their own convenience and bank balance and consider the real impact on their child, the class and attitude it shows towards education and the school.

They work well to control poor people.

I think it’s hypocritical. My DS with SEN currently has no school place and the LEA have said they won’t be able to find him one before school starts back in September. They should be focusing on appropriate schooling for SEN pupils but they don’t seem to care as much about that.

But surely if parents don’t care about their children’s schooling they will just ring the chosen in sick anyway 🤷‍♀️ or they’ll be the type to have persistent absence.

I’ve never taken mine out of school because I work term time and I felt my children did need to be in school, we could also afford to take the financial hit, but I can see that for some children missing a week won’t have an impact.

Agreed the fines aren’t necessarily making a marked difference yet but without them even more people would be taking term time holidays!!

I don't agree with them, they don't work and it's just a money making exercise for councils.

I’m a teacher abroad. Kids here routinely go on holiday once or twice a year and are expected to take any important schoolwork with them and hand it in on return. Much better system. The fines in England are just another example of a pointless policy that the “wash your shopping” brigade live for. Ineffective officiousness that makes them feel good that someone somewhere is getting punished for not being a good little worker drone. Countries with a different outlook are doing better economically. 🤷‍♀️ I know where I’d prefer my kids to grow up so I’ve voted with my feet.

For most children it has no impact at all to have a few weeks off.
In other countries school systems it's more or less normal.

Sadly some do phone them in sick but then asking their children to lie to trusted adults at school puts the children in an awful position!! They’re excited about their holiday and want to share but have to lie because their parents told them too! Wrong on so many levels!
And TBH we know they’re on holiday anyway!! No one is off for a whole week with a cold!!

It just punishes the poorer families who get less opportunities to have holidays. Everyone takes the fine or pays the premium.
when my DDs were young (late nineties/ early noughties) at their primary school you could have a discretionary 10 days off providing attendance didn’t drop below a certain percentage. That seemed fair to me, we preferred to holiday in June when it was cheaper/ less hot/ less busy.

We all have failing parents in our schools and see children being let down, by a lack of safeguarding. It's galling when your child is doing well, is in unless really ill, you get involved, give donations, then get told they can't have two days off, to book a holiday, early, at a affordable price. Meanwhile there's families who rarely get their children in on time, the child isn't set up for learning (fed, had enough sleep etc), have to stay off for tooth extractions, 'accidents', don't participate in anything going on and their child is regularly off, because they've pulled a all nighter in the house, or the latest partner has had a kick off, or one of the parents has been arrested, and you don't want the child to tell anyone what's gone on. Then there's the SEN children who aren't getting an education while there, so might as well be on holiday. Most parents don't want more than a few days either side of the holidays.

For most individual children it has no impact but it has to be looked as at a whole class/ school. If you have each child off at one point or another then various children off with the usual illnesses it’s impossible to make sure that the whole curriculum is covered for every child.