Do you agree with the UK school attendance policy, of fining parents?

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If you are a teacher do you agree with the current UK school attendance policy, of fining parents? What are your thoughts about the focus on attendance, 'getting the child into the building at all costs', the policy of 'not supporting home learning'?
If you are a parent, what are your thoughts?

If you have a child with additional needs, do you feel discriminated against, when family holidays during busy school times, almost always mean your child is not able to be in those busy noisy environments; and the alternative is risking a fine?

The data isn't directly comparable.

Now, it's a legal requirement for all state schools to share live attendance data with the DfE and is mirrored by a pupil by pupil record in the termly census returns. It wasn't in 2000.

Not UK. Scotland does not do this.

My child is in reception. She reads at a year 3 level and spends most of school days colouring in and playing in the sandpit.
I really don’t think a week out of school, spent with her grandparents, where she learns a second language, does more reading than she does at school, and learns how to make pasta from scratch is going to hurt her education that much 🤣

How nice your neice can do this and its what the child enjoys presumably? But you do realise not all children with additional needs and their Families are the same. Some don't have the transport to get to a remote Scottish holiday home. Many rely on public transport, have other children and heaven forbid actually enjoy doing stuff in places that can be busy but ARE manageable when its not school holidays. You know beaches, zoos, aquariums, playparks, museums all things many many children enjoy and learn from but in school holidays some cannot manage at all.

Luckily the Head in complex needs school I work in realises this and authorises holidays within reason. Plus odd days off etc.

My own childs mainstream authorised a day off for one of my children so we could go to a Christmas event on a quiet day when they had a SEND session. Her younger sibling (who also got the time off authorised) needed to go to SEND session and it was a family event. Thankfully both schools realised the importance of being able to do somwthing together as a family, things that typical families can do on any weekend regularly yet we had the choice of 2 sessions both dchool days. For context the event was open with sessions for 12 weekends and only ran 2 sessions for SEND they ran more sessions where peopld could bring their dogs than they did accessible ones. Thats how inaccessible the world can be.

There needs to be flexibility. Most persistent absences as other posters have said are due to unmet needs, not parents not valueing education. In fact many many parents spend months, sometimes years battling to get an education for their child when LA fails to meet their statutory duties to provide a suitable education. My own child had over a year with no education after mainstream broke down before getting EOTIS and still only gets 9 hours a week. So maybe before fining parents for non attendance they should look at their own poor, illegal practice.

Teacher here (primary fo almost 20 years) and I hate the attendance system at the moment. I think it's ridiculous and does nothing to actually improve attendance rates.

But school holiday dates aren't consistent across Europe. To give just one example, the Netherlands has Spring holidays (a week in February, sometimes ending in early March) and May holidays (a week in late April/early May). Neither coincides with our Easter holidays this year and I'm not sure they ever do.

And as for the summer holidays, the dates differ significantly between Scotland and England, so there's no chance of the whole of Europe sticking to the same dates.

I think it’s backfired because it’s turned it into a financial transaction.

People take kids out of school for holidays because it’s so much cheaper. Even with the fines it’s still cheaper. So instead of feeling guilty for missing education the parents just think - yes that makes financial sense.

So why when you are so disparaging of teachers and schools, are you sending your child to school? Given not being in school is so much better?

I agree with fining. Children should be in the classroom when teaching is taking place. Only then can effective learning be secured.

Because she needs to work? Because the child is learning social skills as well? Because in the long term it's the right thing? It's just such inflexible thinking that you can't possibly conceive school is good for 37 weeks of the year but for one week there might be more value in doing something else.

Here's a question for the inflexible thinkers: I'm a teacher so I definitely do have the skills to teach my child. There's also no doubt children perform better with 1:1 support. So am I allowed to take my child out for an extra day abroad (I'm part time) given I can be certain I can provide the academic stimulus, time AND something beyond that? Or is sitting in a class of 30, going over phonics sounds she already knows and taking part in PE in a small gym with a non-specialist teacher preferable to learning a new sports skill (skiing) in a lesson with a specialist instructor? School is amazing but you can teach your child what they would learn in school and more beyond that. It is so limiting to believe the school day is the ceiling on what children are capable of learning.

It's just another example of refusal to spend money on figuring out why students are avoiding school and dealing with the issues.

It appeals to the voter bloc that believes young people and feckless parents all need a good flogging. It has nothing else going for it.

Quite honestly, I don't think holidays are the issue in the life of a child who arrives at Y7 unable to form letters.

First introduce legislation to sort out the corrupt travel industry whch charges more for flights etc at peak holiday time. Just like they rip off single travellers with supplements on package holidays.

They charge less for travel at off peak times. HTH.

I was reading my letters threatening fines from 2022/23 when DD2 kept wanting to try to go to school but struggled to attend. We are extremely engaged and loving parents who were treated like we couldn't be arsed when dealing with an extremely intransigent issue.

The problem really being that the school and most others are totally unfit for purpose. How could a happy, sunny, sociable engaged child who never had a problem and almost 100% attendance at primary school be turned into a nervous wreck by secondary school?

We were never actually fined but the threatening letters and some of the staff's attitudes really piled on the stress and caused a lot of unneccesary upset.

What do I think of the system? Fucking ridiculous.

Sen children can get holiday approved more easily actually

They exist to make a profit though, that’s not corrupt. They drop their prices as non busy times like all services

It gave the school and more evidence to start the process of referrals and social services involvement to get those children the support they need.

Lol. What are you talking about? How am I being disparaging of teachers and schools? If you think I was suggesting she should be doing more at school than “colouring in and playing in the sandpit”, I don’t at all. She’s 5 years old. The point I was making was that she’s in reception- they are very young and have not even started formal learning yet, hence lots of colouring and playing in sandpits, which is how it should be. But it also means she’s not exactly missing out on much if she misses some school. Not exactly going to miss that vital mock GCSE paper is she?! People that are pro this fine system are very narrow-minded IMO, they can’t seem to see the value in other types of education and seem to think a child can only learn in one setting - when they’re sat at a desk in a classroom. That’s just not true. There are learning opportunities everywhere. If you’re the kind of parent who knows this and will utilise those learning opportunities then your child’s education isn’t going to suffer one bit if you take a week or two off a year

Yesss. This. The people who believe this system is a good thing are the same type of people who’ve never broken a rule in their life. Same type of people who never question anything a doctor tells them, think alcohol is fine but all drugs are bad because one’s legal and the other’s not. Same type that will grass a colleague up for being 5 mins late, shushes people in libraries for whispering, would NEVER cross the road on a red man 🤣

Right, when I was five i started school a couple of weeks late because i was moving from England back to Scotland and yet I was still miles ahead of my peers because my mum had taught me to read at age 3 and we basically lived in the library. I loved primary school and my attendance was practically 100% most years, but I don’t really feel missing a few weeks on a yearly basis would’ve affected my academic performance.

Even in secondary school I didn’t take that much in during school. I found teaching useful for giving us the learning syllabus and pointing us in the direction of what to learn along with the various worksheets and textbook etc, but I found the classroom environment distracting. For me most of the real learning was done at home or in the library (back when libraries were quiet!) i was the type of kid who could’ve easily been homeschooled if it wasn’t for the fact I loved the social interaction at school. I appreciate it does depend on the child though. Maybe some kids already struggling a bit would fall behind.

Or the ones who know exactly what can happen when there isn't a legal driver for school attendance.

Alcohol is fine when not abused, but there are laws regarding the sale, supply and consumption of it that need to be followed. Medication is fine when not abused and there are laws prescribing the sale, supply and consumption of it that need to be followed. 'Drugs', meaning non legal sale, supply and consumption, are not because it intrinsically removes the legal protections.

You won't be interested to hear that my abuser was absolutely against alcohol and despised 'druggies' but spent her adult life off her nut on prescription medication she overused and abused. My only time of relative safety was when she was out of it in bed due to a genuinely painful spinal condition. Once that was more or less resolved through surgery, the abuse resumed with additional violence because it wasn't as painful for her to punch, kick and stamp on me anymore.

Don't give a shit if somebody's late, except for it screwing over others having to cover for them. Shutting up in a library is considerate to others.

I have no sympathy for anybody who puts their feelings of entitlement to a cheaper holiday - a luxury, entirely optional purchase - above laws that have been put in place to maximise children's opportunities, reduce potential harms and put their educational needs foremost. Anymore than I respect those who do the 'how DARE anybody suggest I'm like one of THOSE people' thing. Neglect and abuse is not the preserve of the Poor and respectable little widows do it just as much as pillars of the community, people with QTS, people who don't want to pay August rates, people who see their child as an extension of their personality/image/property or those who don't really give a shit what their kid does as long as it doesn't affect them.

Maybe you do really think that I'm a goody two shoes. I don't give a shit. I'm looking out for kids, some of whom could be in a life like mine was, some aren't but are also having their right to a full time education for 38 weeks a year stolen from them because their parents believe their wants outweigh that. And if it weren't for the I WANT A CHEAP HOLIDAY parents doing that, it would be easier to spot and give time to picking up on the victims of neglect and abuse.

I don’t think I learned a single thing that has been useful or relevant to my life in secondary school from Y7 - Y11. All the maths and English/grammar that I’ve needed in my life was learnt in primary school. I’ve never needed to know the difference between a nimbus and cumulus (or whatever they’re called!) cloud, the reproductive cycle of a fly, Shakespearean English, needlework. It was all so deathly boring and pointless! This was the 90s, so I really hope things are different now. But I suspect they’re not different enough. There are so many more important life skills kids could be learning and so many different ways to learn other than sitting in a classroom. I wish the education system was more dynamic and creative. I feel like I learned a lot in Y12 & 13 at college, but high school felt like one big long pointless waste of time. My biggest learning experiences have been travelling and experiencing other cultures. And working in my first job at 16 (which I could have been so much better prepared for if schools taught more about budgeting, understanding taxes, time management etc)

Presumably you learned the knowledge that allowed you to succeed at GCSE and go on to study the A Level subjects you enjoyed in Y12 and 13.