Marked as unauthorised and fined

[anywherebutthere]

Long story short we booked a family holiday. The majority of it fell over the Easter holidays, but some of it fell the first week back.
In total we were planning to miss 9.5 sessions, which would mean we wouldn't be fined, as it's under 10 sessions.
We had a night flight home and landed at 7am. We live 15 minutes from the airport and had all intentions of getting the children to school that day. When we landed the barrage handlers were on strike and it took 2 hours for our luggage to appear. We phoned school numerous times to update them and to say the children would be late.
We finally got them to school at 9.45am (45 minutes late)
This lateness has now been marked as unauthorised even though it was out of our control and we are being fined £480. It was originally £240 but we are trying to contest it and school haven't been open as it's the holidays so has gone past the 2 weeks early payment amount.
Realistically if this goes to court then do we have a leg to stand on? I believe we should have been marked late or authorised for the 45 minutes they were late to school that day.

The the financial situation of the parents is irrelevant, they all get fined the same.

You knew you were pushing the rule to the limit and you took a gamble. That’s fair enough but you lost and and now you should accept it graciously instead of whining that it’s not fair.

I suggest you take a look at attendance compared with results. There is a direct link.

You are being "that parent" OP. The one who thinks the rules don't apply to them, will argue til they are blue in the face and waste everyone else's time in the process. Just pay the fine.

Totally on you OP, not that I think you’ll take responsibly for this but I think you’d be better off just paying up.

I used to work in this area - there's a lot of misinformation out there so I'll state the facts & hope that helps.
In my LA anything over 2 days (4 sessions) could incur a fine so I'd double check that if I was you. Paying in instalments isn't possible..... unless the case goes to court & you are found guilty, in which case you should be able to pay in instalments because the payments are then made to court & not the LA. It makes absolutely no difference to the court if other parents have 'got away with it.' Courts aren't interested in any kind of excuses either no matter how good they are. The LA issues the fines but only if the school requests it (if the school don't request fines then the LA basically never even knows about it unless your DC has terrible attendance the rest of the year.) In my experience LAs do not take cases to court unless they are absolutely certain they will win....it's very expensive & time consuming...so if you are issued with court papers you will almost certainly be found guilty & your fine is likely to be significantly increased in court because you have to pay costs victim surcharges in addition to the fine. My advice is always to pay the fines asap. All this is based on my LA but I think the legal process is the same everywhere. Just to add....these things take months....the LA has 6 months from the last date of absence to issue you with court papers....the court date can then be months later. I would call the school & try to get them to contact the LA & retract the fine (it is possible & happens a lot) otherwise just pay the fine before you are issued with court papers. Hope that helps, good luck.

To be honest I think you kind of played the system.

You knew what you were doing, it was totally against the spirit of absences and you thought you could sneak in under the bar.

Unexpectedly you got caught out because something went wrong out of your control.

If you had really cared about missing actual school you could have returned the 15 mins back to the airport , for your luggage, separately. Two taxis wouldn't cost the fine.

Now you're pushing back at every other loop hole

They took a long time
It's not fair as other people do such and such

I think you played silly games and you lost.

Local authorities now have access ( certainly in my LA) to individual student attendance reports so to say they are only aware if the school reports is no longer accurate. We have an LA officer who comes into school each term armed with the attendance reports. Any holiday absence which doesn't result in a fine is highlighted and the school has to explain why it was not referred for a fine. Head's discretion is now severely limited! So unauthorised holiday absence ( and the VAST majority is unauthorised) will result in a fine.

I really hope this is the case everywhere now. It's a couple of years since I worked in this field but one of the most frustrating things was that some headteachers just didn't request fines & parents at their schools would happily go off on term time holidays without being fined while other headteachers wanted to fine for one day of absence. The injustice that people felt at that really made our lives difficult.

Going against the grain here, OP, but I sympathise. You’d taken your DC out of school, which is a heinous crime on MN, but had arranged it so you were just under the limit — then events conspired against you. I can see it would be frustrating. I guess the only thing you can do, as you’ve said, is to talk to the school tomorrow and see if they’ll change the final unauthorised absence… Good luck…

Come on OP. You were sailing close yo the wind and you know it. Air travel is not known for running smoothly!

You should have cleared your holiday plans with the baggage handlers before you left. 😀

I wouldn’t roll over and pay nearly £500 in fines for trying to take my children on a holiday. Travel is important. It makes fuck all difference to their education.

Not true. It does.

If she’d just rolled over she’d only have had to pay £250 in fines. I presume taking it to court will involve some court fees + the fine.

It might not make much difference to their education as they have DPs who make sure they do their homework and attend the rest of the time, but it may make a big difference to the DC in the corner who doesn't have as supportive a home background as the teacher needs to use any spare minutes she had to get OPs DCs back up to speed on what they missed, rather than on the DCs who really need it.

And they'd take you to court and you'd lose.

In every school my children have ever attended, I've signed a contract saying that I'll support the school, endeavour to get my child in, get them the right uniform and equipment etc.

Holidays in term time have been forbidden for years.

@AnneValentine I was taken out every year for two weeks in July and a week in October and still got a level 7 qualification considering doing a PhD. Husband had similar and has degree. DS is doing well academically despite us taking him out.

Then as a person with a level 7 qualification you will know that a single example is just that. The evidence is clear - attendance impacts results.

You deserve to pay the fine purely for expecting your children to go straight to school immediately after an overnight flight and a 2 week holiday. I’m absolutely 🤯 that anyone would think this was acceptable (purely to play the system to try not get a fine…. over your children’s well-being). Surely you could have just made the holiday one day less?! And I’m sure this is exactly why the school decided to mark you as unauthorised rather than late.

No, they were marked as unauthorised rather than late because they arrived after the registered closed. Children are late if they arrive before registers close ( we have a 30 minute " Grace period" to account for late arrivals, traffic hold ups etc) and unauthorised if they arrive after. After that, the registers close.) Each school will have an attendance policy which sets out the grace period permitted.

@AnneValentine

If attendance is so hugely important why is home schooling not policed in the same way? 🤔

You're being very disingenuous. There's a massive cavern between the parents taking children away on a week or 2 weeks holiday at the end or beginning of a term and children who do not have involved parents and who bunk off or rarely attend school.

Teaching staff are the only ones who can judge how it affects an individual child so to apply an arbitrary 'one size fits all rule' and fine all parents was obviously brought in as yet another vote winning, sticking plaster solution without any intention of actually dealing with the problem. 🤦🏻‍♀️

What does home schooling have to do with attendance? They’re completely unrelated.

I don’t agree re disingenuous. There is a link between attendance and results despite many people’s assertions there are not. And you’re assuming that this is isolated and not part of a wider attendance issue. Regardless the rules are clear. We all know the rules. Stick to them or don’t. But if you don’t this is the consequence.

Just to make this the most mumsnet thread possible, do the plane pals work if the person in front reclines their seat?
misses point of thread

I don't think missing school will have made any difference to the OPs childrens education. If as the OP has suggested they only get about 6 hours sleep a night, there education is already so messed up a holiday isn't going to change that.