Schools expelling students?

[Enigma007]

DH came home yesterday and mentioned that one of his work colleague is stuck in a red list country with his wife and 2 children. He can't return home because the hotel quarantine cost is too much.
Both children were attending full time school, year 8 and year 5. The school has emailed him saying they will take the children off the school register.

The children haven't been in school since end of march (when schools reopened) and when the country was placed on the red list, ticket prices were sky high and hard to get hold of. Is the school allowed to remove the children from the register? It feels a bit unfair because he's not stuck there by choice.

Before everyone starts bashing him saying he shouldn't have gone unless it was a reason allowed by the border force, he did leave the UK under the criteria set by the border force and had the evidence with him incase he had to prove it.

School can offer those places to someone else. They can’t expect the school to save places for a term just because they don’t want to pay quarantine costs.

Surely they need to come back ASAP for work? Even if wfh if he’s been non resident in the U.K. for six months at what point does he then start to count as paying tax in the other country? Are HR aware that their U.K. employee is no longer located in the U.K.? I don’t know at what point you would become non domiciled...? (I know a few ex colleagues who moved to Ireland over Brexit and tax wise there are very strict amounts of time you can spend in any one country).

Also yes as per PP I’d be interested in knowing what the plan was when they left. School closures hadn’t been announced at that point.

I once worked in a city centre primary with a very transient population and they were always off-rolling pupils. I think it was after one month. The places were filled the next day by dc who had come in to the area. Some of them had been previous pupils but who had left the country and had to wait for a space to open up again.

In this situation the school is probably worried about how they are going to fill those gaps. Children have missed enough as it is without another huge chunk being missed.

I feel sorry for the children here. Their parents have made poor choices and it is going to mean they lose continuity with their learning and their friendship group. The hotel quarantine fee is 1750 for a single adult, an additional 650 for an extra adult, and 325 for children . Pricey, but not unattainable for someone with a steady income. Its about choices and priorities. It wasnt a surprise that many countries became red list, there was plenty of time to get back. Thay was the poor choice. The school cant keep a place for a child when theyve no idea when they will be back in the country. If the parents gave school a date and dealt with hotel quarantine, Im sure the off rolling could be avoided. The losers here are the kids.

@Enigma007 what did they decide to do? Accept hotel quarantine or lose the school places?

As others have said, this is off-rolling and common when families take children out of school for extended periods to visit their home country or go travelling.

If the children haven't been in school since March and haven't been resident in the UK since December and they are being contacted now, then the school have given them a lot of leeway. Many schools will have it in their attendance policy that this process begins a lot earlier.

If they have no plans for the children to come back soon, then really they either need to make a decision about whether they are going to home educate or enrol their children in a local school where they are now living. Once they are back in the country or have a date for being back in the UK, they can then begin the process of applying for school places.

@Enigma007 - look at it this way. If you have physically moved into the area and want a place at the school, would you think it fair that you are not allowed a space because other children who haven’t turned up for over 3 months are hogging it? Surely it is more fair to give you the place, as you are there and able to attend, and the other children can apply to get back into the school if and when they ever turn up again? Why should they take the place away from you when they are not even using it?

How are they managing to finance a property in the UK and live elsewhere for so long?

The costs must be adding up.

They need to take the plunge and quarantine in the UK if they want to keep their school places.

There are also massive tax implications of WFH in a foreign country so I suspect his company will want him to return ASAP. We have had to be really strict on telling people that they can’t work from a non U.K. location any more.

They don't need to pay the hotel quaratine costs though. They can legitimately travel to a yellow list country and stay there 10 days and then home quarantine once they get back to the UK. If the father is working remotely all they're looking at is flight costs (which they'd always have had to pay) and costs of accomodation in the yellow list country. Some yellow list countries are not that expensive to stay in for 10 days (eg Malta or Bulgaria).

The reality is he's chosen not to return for an extended period. I can't blame the schools - a child on the waiting list should get the spot.

@Normaigai

That's a really good point! Probably not much difference in costs, hotel quarantine would cost 3375 for that family so by the time they've paid for an additional set of flights , and accommodation and living costs, plus whatever testing requirements the amber country has, and UK testing requirements, its probably not much different in coat, but would be an awful lot more pmeasant (albeit comolicated) to do that via an amber country.

@Enigma007 maybe mention this to your husband, it could be his colleague hasn't thought about this option.

I think it's a bit of a shame the school can't be flexible in the current situation.

There are two families at our school who are stuck in India right now and have been there since January. Don't know anything about one family. The other one went because grandparents were dying. Since then they have died, a succession of family members have had Covid, they've had Covid themselves and they can't afford quarantine.

The children log on for registration every morning and follow all the lessons online just as they would if they were in the UK. They aren't absent from school at all really, they're learning remotely. Surely, one thing we've learned from Covid is to utilise technology better?!

[quote Nootkah]@Normaigai

That's a really good point! Probably not much difference in costs, hotel quarantine would cost 3375 for that family so by the time they've paid for an additional set of flights , and accommodation and living costs, plus whatever testing requirements the amber country has, and UK testing requirements, its probably not much different in coat, but would be an awful lot more pmeasant (albeit comolicated) to do that via an amber country.

@Enigma007 maybe mention this to your husband, it could be his colleague hasn't thought about this option.[/quote]
It is normally much cheaper if you choose a low cost yellow country. When the Maldives was on the yellow list, it worked out about the same for a family 10 days in a 5* resort as hotel quaratine in the UK.

Off roll - yes so that children actually in this country can use their places

Is it you @Enigma007?

Australia post previously:
"Enigma007 Fri 04-Jun-21 07:17:11
Hate what's going on but it could be worse. Could have been like australia and been militant not letting people fly at all. They don't care if your mum or dad have died in a different country but they refuse to let you leave. Human rights being taken away in my opinion."

Our schools are 6 weeks of non attendance and the place is withdrawn - there is a waiting list for places and they would be very happy to get a place.

So schools finally reopened and they took their kids abroad just as they could go back to school. Shameful.

I think it's fine, presumably the school wouldnt do it if they didnt have a waiting list. This family will need to reapply whenever they are back.