New national rules for issuing fines for pupil absence to be introduced despite opposition

[noblegiraffe]

The DfE is to create 'at the earliest opportunity' a national framework for legal intervention and fixed penalty notices for pupil absence, despite opposition from parents.

I guess at the moment whether parents are fined varies between local authorities (it's not headteachers who decide whether to fine a parent) and they want to stop this. I would expect, given the new focus on school attendance following covid, that rules will be more strict than currently.

Schools will also be expected to publish and publicise their attendance policy.

Those parents who up till now have taken their kids out every year for a two week term-time holiday with no consequences may find that coming to an end.

www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/national-school-absence-fines-plan-greenlit-despite-parent-opposition

I think its a much better idea that all authorities and schools are treated the same.

If there is no difference then there wont be any confusion.

Why do you need to take your children out of school for a 2 week holiday? You dont, you go in holiday time or you wait til they are older. There's lots of stuff you cant do when you have children.

I think it should be standardised. With very clear no arguments allowed examples of what can and can not be authorised with the power/pressure to decide taken from head teachers.

stops any confusion.

I look forward to the government investing in mental health care for pupils who struggle and refuse school.

I agree with standardisation.

The point for head's discretion is when deciding if the absence can be authorised. Not the consequences for doing it anyway when it's not

Indeed. Those parents are likely to be targeted.

The point for head's discretion is when deciding if the absence can be authorised.

How much discretion will there be when the school has to publish its attendance policy?

Its crazy . They are looking at this completely the wrong way around.

In australia people arent fined for holidays (and ime people are wished a happy holiday/travel around oz etc) and they have better scores than us.

And the issue around perisitent absence isnt at all fixed by fines... its fixed by looking at the reasons for persistent absence and working on that.

Our education system is positively creaking and the gov thinks by cramming more facts/starting earlier/ fines are the way to improvement. If really really isnt.

I'm definitely concerned that this will be targeted at those children who are emotionally based school avoiders rather than holidaymakers. I agree @megletthesecond I'd like to see how they're going to help these young people to attend.

Ultimately if they tighten the rules, those who want to take a holiday will still weigh up risk vs reward (if they can)

I agree with this so much!!

A lot of kids out there are struggling with MH issues. Sometimes forcing kids to attend school is not the answer.

The government often justifies these fines by saying ‘research shows that each day in school improves pupil’s achievement.’ But they don’t mention that the SAME piece of research also found that although kids who bunk off do indeed have lower achievement, kids whose parents take them on term time holidays actually have higher achievement.

That’s right. Those parents the papers love to slag off who take their kids on term time holidays? Their kids do better academically than the kids who stay in school. Not surprising, given the benefits of travel and that end of term is usually just watching tv / doing crosswords supervised by an exhausted teacher who’s doing something else.

I don’t take term time hols btw, but only because I won’t ask my child to lie to his teachers. (Plus we’re at an independent school so already benefit from short terms and thus lower holiday prices. 😬)

But fining parents creates tension between schools and parents, and more importantly it does not at all improve children’s results or wellbeing - quite the contrary, every end of term, four and five year olds who’ve been ill that term are found in floods of tears, because they didn’t get a shiny gold attendance certificate like the rest of class. It’s deliberately cruel and rotual humiliation of ill kids.

Surely everyone can see that this is just another way to tax and criminalise struggling low income families whom the Tories don’t trust to make decisions for their children.

No other country treats parents like this. Just us.

Imo better ruling for sickness could see attendance improvement.. Our secondary expects dc who are sick first thing to be in at lunch time.. Dd2 was bedridden with d&v on day 1. Day 2 an attendance officer knocked.... Apparently 97 %isn't good enough.. Next week dd1 got it. As did her mates who returned to school the next day. Dd1 got it again. Off twice in a fortnight and all hell broke loose.. They don't even have a 24 hour rule even though primary is 48 hours off post sickness.

In my area there aren’t enough school places for kids with SEN, so many are off with anxiety. Will these parents also be fined?

DD2's attendance is at 16% this term. She's been in to chat with a teacher for 1 hour on one day, and 5 minutes another day. It's all she can do and that 5 minutes took 15 minutes of cajoling her around the side of the building to achieve.

Fine or no fine, it won't make a difference to a child like her. She's not being difficult, she just can't do it. I'm fortunate that her assistant head knows it and accepts it.

Suspect that this will have the unintended affect of even more children being removed from school roll to be home educated. Even though their parents are neither willing or able to.

"Even though their parents are neither willing or able to."

Either rather than neither, surely? There are lots of willing parents who don't have the resources or knowledge (mostly of what they can do, rather than subject knowledge). Also lots of parents who are able but don't want to.

What is sad is that for some parents HE becomes the only choice because the LA aren't making suitable provision for their child.

Well it could be either or neither.

I would certainly fall into the neither catagory

But anyway my point still stands that it ain't ideal!

Fines won' t achieve anything, as soon as the school threatened me with fines regarding sons anxiety disorder, l opted to HE and best thing l ever did, l deeply reget not doing it sooner, my son has since acieved all grade 8 and 9 IGCSE, more importantly his mental health and wellbeing miles better, a completely different person, now studying A levels and working part time. At age 13 plus a parent doesnt need to intervene re homeschool, all the resources are online, my son managed his education himself, it is more than possible.
The school system is not for everyone and thats ok, there are other and better options.

@Moonface123 what resources did your DS use to do his GCSEs please?

I wonder how thoughtfully the stats have been analysed because if it's just average attendance vs average acheivement its bloody stupid. Those who have chronically low attendance (my ds being one) will drag down the average achievement score so that people think a term time holiday in primary school is going to negatively affect an otherwise willing and able student. It won't - I went on several term time holidays during my schooling and achieved good GCSEs, A levels and went on to get a 1st at uni.

My ds has ASD and in the past 5 years has only had a short period of a few month where he was able to attend school daily. Most of the time he has been on severely reduced hours because he cannot cope with more. His attendance record this year is shocking - and he recently had to be hospitalised for attempting to take his own life. I can't work because of his needs. Am I going to be fined on top of that?

But even when he was younger and was able to attend school daily, he was regularly out of class, and he was already several years behind his peers when he had to reduce his hours drastically.

That article doesn't actually say what the standardised fine policy will be?

I definitely agree with standardisation. But standardized to nothing. Fines achieve nothing in attendance.

That article doesn't actually say what the standardised fine policy will be?

There was a government consultation asking, among other things, 'should there be a standardised fine policy'. The result of the consultation was 'no, there shouldn't be', but the government has said in the results of the consultation that it will do it anyway 'at the earliest opportunity'. So details TBA.

It does rather make a mockery of the consultation.

The question about how the attendance data has been analysed is an interesting one. Are they confusing correlation with causation, for example? Have they controlled for the other factors that affect attainment like poverty?

Are FSM children more likely to have poor attendance, for example?

And do the fines work?

As far as I can see, the intention is to move away from a system where at least one LA issues fines for any unauthorised absence whilst others barely use fines at all, to one where the rules are the same everywhere. That would give certainty to parents - you wouldn't have to go hunting for your LA's code of practise (which some do not make publicly available) to figure out whether you are likely to be fined for unauthorised absence.

The government often justifies these fines by saying ‘research shows that each day in school improves pupil’s achievement.’ But they don’t mention that the SAME piece of research also found that although kids who bunk off do indeed have lower achievement, kids whose parents take them on term time holidays actually have higher achievement.

I have seen this said previously. Unfortunately, it misrepresents the research. The divide is not between children bunking off and term time holidays. The divide is between unauthorised and authorised absence. There is a small positive link between authorised absence and results, a strong negative link between unauthorised absence and results. The change being proposed does not appear to make any difference to whether absence is authorised. That will remain at the discretion of the head. The current rules, under which absence should only be authorised in exceptional circumstances, will remain. From the consultation, it does not appear that there is any intention to set down rules on what can and cannot be authorised. I would be against any such proposal. That decision is best left in the hands of head teachers in my view.

And do the fines work?

Yes. Since they were introduced, absenteeism has dropped from 10%+ to 4.6%. Persistent absenteeism has also dropped significantly.

I Electively Home Educate one of my DC, and I'd say there's an increase in LAs finding home education unsuitable and issuing School Attention Orders. I would expect parents who deregister where there's been attendance issues will find they continue to be under the gaze of the LA.

Thank God we live in Scotland where the DfE doesn't have any oversight of education.

This seems a bit tone deaf.

After two years of lockdowns saying that it doesn’t matter that much, kids are resilient, yada yada yada, now they are going to insist that every day of school is precious!?

It won’t wash. They have been rumbled.

The big problem is all the school refusers…many created by the lockdowns which harmed their development and mental health. Fining them for being ill won’t help.