Term-time absences banned by Gove? Have you heard anything?

[FantasticDay]

Just that really. A colleagues had heard that all schools had received a letter from the Education Minister saying that term-time absences were not to be authorised. I wondered if any of school staff on here could confirm /deny? Cheers.

But the gov legislation says it is up to the ht's discretion exotic which is how it should be and makes sense, most ht's should know the family well enough to know if they are taking the piss or not.

I do value attendance but when dp cannot get time off in the school holidays what are we supposed to do?

I would love to see (for primary at any rate) the long summer holidays reduced by 2 weeks and parents and teachers given 2 weeks of bookable annual leave instead. Teachers would need to book in advance and be covered by supply teachers and pupils would only be allowed to go if they weren't supposed to be taking SATs or doing something else of vital importance.

Those that like the current system could stick with a six week summer break. The semi broke could enjoy a cheaper holiday. The really broke could get an extra two weeks of pay in the case of teachers or an extra two weeks of not having to pay for holiday camp in the case of working parents. Everyone should be happy apart from the admin office processing the requests.

The fatal flaw I guess is having to pay for an extra two weeks of teaching time each year. Still someone (Gove I think) was suggesting that anyway. This would be far more fun.

If anyone could book holiday at any time, term time holiday prices would rise.

TheDoctrineOfAllan - I think you'll find it's a bit of both. To make a profit, you have to charge more than the holiday costs in the first place, so if you are cutting prices out of school holidays, you have to charge more in school holidays to make up for it...

exoticfruits - I think you will find that there is a problem collecting fines from families who don't give a toss. How much time do you think a school really wants to spend chasing up its problem families for cash?

scaevola - I think you are still making a bit of a mountain out of what for many families would be a 2-day issue... not all families who think that once in a blue moon a holiday overlapping with school term time would be more beneficial than school are families who in general have an issue with the idea that their children are expected to attend school regularly...

It really is too simplistic to talk about prices going up and down anyway. Holiday companies run an annual pricing model. Ideally they would like, say, 90% occupancy all year round. They may well be able to achieve near 100% occupancy in the school holidays but only 50% occupancy in term time. If they can charge £1000 for the holiday in the school holidays and get 100% occupancy at that price, that's what they'll do. If they charge £1,500 and only get 80% occupancy, they will make a judgement which is more profitable.

Similarly in term time.. If they price at £1,000 again they may get 20% occupancy, if they price at £600 that might go up to 50% occupancy. So again they judge the profitability and price accordingly.

So it's not really possible to talk about prices rising and falling as a holiday company takes a year round view of the best way to hit its profit target - there is no "set" price from which prices go up or down.

Re fines, I think the local authority chases them, not the school.

I agree, it's too simplistic to talk about prices going up and down. Re fines: often, nobody chases them, that's my point... I was told the primary responsibility is on the school to chase them up, though - and I'm sure you won't catch LAs chasing up academy and free schools' fines for them!

Re fines: often, nobody chases them, that's my point

Over 41,000 penalty notices were issued in 2011/12. This figure is going up rapidly - in 2009/10 less than 26,000 penalty notices were issued.

Of the penalty notices issued in 2011/12 over 8,500 were unpaid after 42 days. Nearly 6,500 parents were prosecuted for non-payment. Given these figures I wouldn't rely on not being chased. By the way, the latest changes mean you now only get 21 days to pay at the reduced rate and risk prosecution if the fine remains unpaid after 28 days.

I'm sure you won't catch LAs chasing up academy and free schools' fines for them

Oh yes you will. Even if the school issues the penalty notice the fine is payable to the LA, not the school. The LA is responsible for prosecuting non-payers. Under the regulations the LA must either prosecute non-payers or withdraw the penalty notice. That applies for all schools in the LA's area including academies and free schools.

How much are the fines?

But the gov legislation says it is up to the ht's discretion exotic which is how it should be and makes sense, most ht's should know the family well enough to know if they are taking the piss or not

That is why the letter came home from the LEA saying that holidays would be unauthorised absences.

exoticfruits - I think you will find that there is a problem collecting fines from families who don't give a toss. How much time do you think a school really wants to spend chasing up its problem families for cash?

I think, as others have said, that it isn't the schools chasing them up. I can't say about families who 'don't give a toss', but responsible parents will want their DC to have a good school record when it comes to writing references etc.

I'm not saying that I agree with it-I have taken DCs out in term time in the past-I am just stating facts in my LEA.

I don't know what the fines are-it appears to be up to the school, as far as I know, whether they impose fines or not.

I recently took the children out of school for a holiday - had to have an interrogation interview with the Head beforehand.

She told me that I was effectively taking an unauthorised absence as they weren't authorising any holidays but that she would not be imposing a fine.

The school doesn't get the fine money - this goes to the Local Government.

She was actually very reasonable about it and understood my reasons, - age of children/ flight price hikes etc.

The amount of the fine is not up to the school. It is set by the government and is currently £60 rising to £120 if it is not paid within 28 days currently. As of September the fine will rise to the higher figure if it is not paid within 21 days. Penalty notices can be issued by either the school or the LA. The LA is required to have a code of conduct that says, amongst other things, when a penalty notice will be issued. That is intended to ensure consistency across the LA. Anyone issuing a penalty notice must comply with the code of conduct.

Just to confirm again, it is not up to the school to chase up the fine. The fine is payable to the LA which is required by law to prosecute non-payers or withdraw the penalty notice. The LA has to produce an annual statistical return showing what penalty notices have been issued by schools in their area, whether they were paid on time, how many parents were prosecuted and so on.

Thanks prh47bridgeIs that £60 per day, week, or total period of absence? It doesn't seem like much of a deterrent.

Total period of absence, - and quite, not much of a deterrent when you save hundreds on air fares going in school time.

That's what I'm hearing Try. We have two DCs, one in Y4 and one in YR. We had never done it before, but agonised this year over a holiday price difference of £2000 for them missing 4 days, so decided to go for it - they actually ended up missing only 3 days because one ended up a snow day.

This year the head has started interviewing, however, and I have got to see just how many other families were doing it. When she put the changes to the wording of the legislation on the newsletter, everyone who has spoken about it would rather pay the fine than the extra in holiday price.

I don't think I'll be doing it again, because DD1 is going into Y5 in September with a view to doing the 11+ at the start of Y6, so it's an important year. Also I'm kind of thinking I don't want the DCs to see me actually getting fined over something and being blasé about it. But that just shows the lack of rebel in me, and also the fact that we could still afford a less extravagant holiday.

DD is too young for us to be affected by this at the moment but I just find it difficult to understand what significant negative effect holidays in termtime really have overall. The odd week here and there, that is, not huge amounts of absence, which would clearly make it difficult for a child to learn.

I'm not saying there isn't a problem, just that I don't know what it is. Would someone explain it to me please?

Thinking this through. Our youngest dd starts school in Sept, but as she has only just turned 4 is not actually legally required to attend school until sept 14.
Our elder daughter finishes Gcses next year and it would be nice to go away once exams are over. We are struggling to afford a holiday this year so I was thinking to go camping this year and go somewhere abroad next July before school breaks up.
So given that Dd does not legally have to be in school could we still be fined?

Interesting it's the LA that has to chase fines and that some LAs have overridden headteachers' discretion and claimed all holidays will be unauthorised absences.

I predict an increase in the number of bare faced liars (with suntans).

Personally, I would do everything I could to avoid term time holidays, but frankly resent the apparent attempts to remove the exercise of any discretion on the subject, as though all parents should be treated as feckless education avoiders, or an income stream to enable councils to profit from peoples' holidays, whether detrimental to their children's education or not...

ps only 41,000 penalty notices issued.... I wonder how many holidays were actually taken...

The problem, TryDrawing, is the disruption to the rest of the class as lessons are planned for the class as a whole.

For a moment I thought this was a zombie because I'm sure this was the case when my Dc were in primary, a few years ago.
People did it, but just did not ask for it to be authorised because it wouldn't be, tho' don't remember anyone fined.
What was interesting was it seemed to be those parents who had fought hardest to get their DC into the Outstanding school that then dissed it once they were in
Thought about this today when there was coverage in the news about the French Air traffic controllers strike, and there was a person with school age DC (8 & 6?) complaining their flight to Alicante was cancelled Err, isn't it term-time everywhere in England at the moment, and I think they were form Cheshire...

I predict an increase in the number of bare faced liars (with suntans).
RabbitStew

LAs can say what they like but it is written in law that it is the 'proprietor of the school' who have the discretionary power. In a maintained school that is the head/governors.

If anyone is interested the legislation is here

www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/1751/contents/made

and

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/38/section/23

only 41,000 penalty notices issued.... I wonder how many holidays were actually taken

Based on the statistics it seems that a fairly high proportion of unauthorised absences resulted in a penalty notice being issued. With schools under pressure to improve attendance I would expect the number of penalty notices to continue to rise.

TryDrawing - The law is not specific. It could in theory be anything from one penalty notice for the total period of absence to one for each half day.