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.

[prh47bridge]

An academy is not a maintained school.

Any appeal is to the LA. They are the only people with the authority to withdraw a penalty notice.

I don't see a mess at all. Regardless of whether your child goes to an academy or another type of school the situation is the same. If you want your child to have a day off you must apply to the school. It is at the head's discretion whether or not to grant the absence. If they do not you have the option of taking your child out of school anyway but you may be fined. If you are fined you can appeal to the LA.

I don't see any reason why academies should face more complaints than any other type of school regarding whether or not the exercise of their discretion is opaque and arbitrary. Community schools are perfectly capable of being opaque and arbitrary.

Head teachers are not employed by the government. I therefore don't buy the idea that headteachers have to do what the government wants. Discretion is absolutely in the hands of headteachers. It is not a pretence. Headteachers have the absolute authority to decide whether or not to grant leave of absence. If they decide to grant it there is no mechanism whereby anyone can challenge that decision, let alone force them to change it.

saintlyjimjams - The provisions regarding children taking having leave of absence to take part in a performance are not changing.

BoffinMum - The special provision for children of travellers covers any child where the parent's business requires them to travel from place to place. Such children can be registered at more than one school. An unauthorised absence can only occur if the child is absent from all the schools at which they are registered.

[rabbitstew]

Like when the child is not in the country... . Bllcks that headteachers of state schools don't have to do what the government wants.

[rabbitstew]

Why bother to legislate at all if nobody has to do what you want?...

[5madthings]

Is there a way to challenge/appeal if a ht says no to a request.

We have issues that dp cannot get leave in school holidays. Prrvious hts have bern fine but at the high school they have a new ht and not sure what his stance is. Dps employer provides a letter for school confirming restricted leave etc. We are asking for five days off not in exam yrs etc. Am wondeting if we were refused and got fined we could appeal? But there is no way of appealing/challenging hts? Am i reading that righy?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Also, what does it actually MEAN to say that the school must supervise the child once off-site in order to get an educated off-site rating?

I am doing an MSc next year and my 'supervision' will be predominately electronic. Would this work?

[saintlyjimjams]

Thanks prh47bridge - hopefully no problems ahead then.

[EliotNess]

I presume they were imprisoned for non payment of court fines under wilful refusal rather than not ensuring kids attendance.

[rabbitstew]

It goes back to the difference between what is technically "allowed" and how human beings react. The reaction to the change in wording of the Regulations where I live is for all schools but one to say that no holidays in term time will ever be authorised in future. That seems like a very poor exercise of discretion to me and one you would only expect from schools scared to use their discretion because they don't believe they really have any that won't be heavily criticised by the powers that be if they don't toe the party line. Blanket bans are always a silly reaction, because there is always an exceptional circumstance that crops up, so the reaction of the majority of schools around here is to cut off lines of communication, rather than use the discretion it is claimed they have.

So, why did the government change the wording? Quite obviously because it wanted to interfere in the way headteachers use their discretion - otherwise no change was required, was it?....

[rabbitstew]

So, who do people appeal to if it is the LA is flouting the law and claiming that schools in its jurisdiction have no discretion with regard to allowing holidays?...

[rabbitstew]

And how can anyone claim it isn't a mess when the DfE says on the one hand that it wants schools to have more freedom and on the other, tells schools they are doing everything wrong at the moment, teachers, academics and anyone else who disagrees with the DfE are a bunch of loony socialists, and maintained schools should follow a ludicrously prescriptive curriculum which quite clearly doesn't give much freedom? And how are we supposed to trust all these lunatics in education if we give them more freedom, anyway, now that we've been told what a useless bunch of idiots they all are?????

[rabbitstew]

Obviously, the minute you become an academy school, you cease to be populated by idiots.

[rabbitstew]

And if you employ ex-soldiers without degrees, you'll have all your problems sorted. I just hope they'll be doing good mental health screening, looking for PTSD, first...

[TwasBrillig]

I think if my daughter's school was taken over by ex soldiers without degrees it would be the point I start to home school.

[rabbitstew]

But TwasBrillig - don't you understand that one of the main problems with state schools is the lack of discipline and that a fantastic solution would be to get a bit of army discipline in schools from soldiers made redundant from their chosen careers by government cuts?

[prh47bridge]

So, who do people appeal to if it is the LA is flouting the law and claiming that schools in its jurisdiction have no discretion with regard to allowing holidays

That is not flouting the law. It is just making a false claim. The claim by the LA is not binding on schools. Schools are entitled to exercise the discretion given to them by law. They can use it to refuse all holidays if they wish. At the other extreme they can use it to allow all holidays. The LA cannot force the school to comply with its wishes.

[TheDoctrineOfAllan]

Rabbit stew, what is your solution?

[rabbitstew]

My solution: don't change the law in the first place? It's all up to the HT's discretion, after all.

[rabbitstew]

A change in the law that isn't really a change in the law because, apparently, it hasn't changed the law at all, is just IDIOTIC. So the current government are clearly IDIOTS intent on causing unnecessary confusion....

[rabbitstew]

... and they haven't changed the law, because the law is it's up to the HT's discretion and nobody can stop a HT from saying that all holidays are exceptional circumstances.

[rabbitstew]

Or am I misinterpreting what prh47bridge has said here, somewhere?... Maybe, heaven forbid, HTs do not have quite the degree of discretion claimed, because political pressure is more powerful than the law?

[Elibean]

great rant by rabbit

I cheered (inwardly, dd is having a piano lesson and I'm trying to keep quiet) all the way through.

[rabbitstew]

And who would have guessed that the law is so weak that a HT can exercise their discretion in a way that appears to flout the spirit of the Regulations under which they are exercising their discretion without anyone being able to call them up on it? Because I would have thought exercising your discretion to allow all term time holiday requests would be doing just that. As would refusing all term time holiday requests before they've even been made...

[rabbitstew]

Why, thank you, Elibean...

[prh47bridge]

Who do you suggest is going to sue the head teacher and on what grounds? This is not criminal law so you could only sue if you have suffered a loss of some kind that the law is able to redress. The government therefore cannot sue a school for breaching the regulations as they do not have any loss that can be compensated. A parent could try but would have to show that the school's decision is unreasonable and the bar for that is very high, so it is very unlikely the parent would win.

The regulations do not define what is meant by "exceptional circumstances". They simply say that the school should not grant leave of absence other than in exceptional circumstances. It is therefore up to the school to decide what that means. The school can set the bar for that as low or as high as they want. Yes, the regulations are worded in such a way as to imply that the bar should be fairly high but there is no way for the government to enforce that in law. Having said that, most schools already set the bar fairly high and have been moving it higher steadily as they are aware of the damage absences can cause to the pupil's education and they are under pressure from Ofsted to reduce absenteeism.

By the way, I'm surprised you don't want to change the law since you seem to thoroughly object to the current law as well as the change the government is making.

[rabbitstew]

The current law allows up to 10 days in special circumstances and that's always worked fine where I am. The law change has got lots of HTs' knickers in a twist.

I love the way you hide "pressure from Ofsted" in the middle of what you say. As I said, political pressure... not the same thing as HTs' free will or true beliefs on any subject.