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

[TwinklyTaupePanda]

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?

Holidays for a week or two weeks I do think rules should apply to everyone. They are not essential they are a luxury. A day off for an activity doesn’t sound to unreasonable if once or twice a year not every other week. The thing we have is so many children with SEN needs so it would obviously have to be at the discretion of the head for an authorised day off based of if the child actually needs it otherwise we’d have large amounts of children in and out of school continuously which would be disruptive.

You have pretty much said what i said and i agree with some of your comments, but read what i said -5 days , my children had excellent attendance and very little sickness thankfully ,have now all left school and are contributing members of society.
I repeat those feckless irresponsible parents are not my problem, and many parents actually do know what's best for their children despite your opinion.

Because they have both taken the child out of school.

That's not discrimination, it reflects the fact that there are two adults who have made the decision, rather than one.

@BotterMon I think both parents are fined even if they are separated and one parent arranges the holiday? But I may be wrong.

Certainly as @NeverDropYourMooncup says, if two parents share a household and make a joint decision, it makes sense to fine both

The other thing that's mad is that 4 days doesn't incur a fine but 5 days does so if you take a week where there's an inset day or a bank holiday there's no fine

Why? If the benchmark is missing five days of learning, then a week with an inset or bank holiday only has four days of learning to be missed. This seems quite sane, what is mad about it?

The six week summer holiday is ridiculously short, and drives the desire to take children out of school during term time.

A company that employs a lot of schoolage children will not be able to honour all requests for two weeks off during the unusually short school summer break. This experience is in contrast with that of parents whose children get a longer summer break from school (practically every other western country, in other words).

Can I ask, for those who think it is a parent’s right, and beneficial for children, to take them out for holidays in term time, should this apply to teachers’ children also?

A daisy brooch on my work jacket :-)

I wouldn't mind! I remember when I was in Year 6, our teacher went on holiday and we had a supply teacher who brought a new approach and different knowledge to the topic we were working on.

It is at the discretion of the head. They will also apply exceptional circumstances at the discretion of the head to all children, not just SEN children but reasonable adjustments will apply to them including not missing out on experiences due to their disability which doesn't just apply to things that are essential.

I was allowed to take my son out for a week back in October. It wasn't essential but it was for a specific reason that could only happen during that time and it was approved as an exceptional circumstance so we didn't get fined.

My DD1's teacher went 'on holiday'.

She was actually in hospital and then recovering from losing a baby.

Don’t be silly. He’s in yr 2. Most primary kids have ‘fun’ days in the last few days leading up to the holidays.

Some - not all. DT’s school maintained the syllabus until lunchtime on the final day of term.

But then school staff don't have the cost of holiday clubs for the 14 weeks they aren't in school. There's swings and roundabouts for every career choice.

I couldn't care less, if they want to take a week unpaid to go on holiday, that's fine by me. Of my 4 DDs going through school I don't think we've had many years where they've had the same teacher all year, for various reasons. It hasn't impacted their learning.

As a parent I do agree with the attendance policy and fining. I agree children should be in school as much as possible, illness expected. But I also do take me children out for special reasons (family wedding the only one really). I know that that fines are not targeted as the parents taking the odd few days here and there, they are trying to target persistent absences (although capping at 10 missed sessions does catch anyone taking a weeks holiday). It might not be the right path but the government need to take some path to tackling it.

They really aren't targeting persistent absentees. The overwhelming majortity of people fined are people taking a weeks family holiday, who are back in school and back to full attendance by the time the FPN comes through. The fines aren't shaping that behaviour, they're increasing year on year.

Imagine the uproar if a 3 month summer holiday was introduced!

How do you think that GCSE, BTEC and A level results days happen? Or how staff get paid in August? Or the academy financial year end is done, free school meal entitlements are dealt with, files are transfered between schools and essential works are completed?

There are plenty of staff who not only cannot take holiday during term time, they also have to be in work for much of the holidays. Im guaranteed one week in summer, the one with 1st August in it. Dp (who works somewhere else) might be allowed to take part of that week. The rest of the period is absolutely not.

In my opinion the fines are way too low to act as a deterrent for missing school. They should be increased to stop parents from doing this. I strongly disagree parents should be allowed to take their kid out during term time - it’s disruptive for everyone including the other kids in the class. We already have enough holiday time which is way more than my annual leave allowance. Sure you can argue they learn more during holiday but how is the government going to differentiate between people sitting on the beach on their phones all day and those taking their kid to the Vatican museum.

I have two kids myself.

I'm a teacher (not in England) and I strongly disagree with it. I don't think kids need to be "seen in the building" to be safe. I think we need to go back to trusting parents and stop making the state interfere with private lives of families, and stop legislating to the detriment of ordinary people going on holiday based on occasional outliers who will do shitty things regardless. Because let's be fair, this isn't about child protection or they'd send a CP officer to the house and launch an investigation immediately rather than fine the parents after the fact. That's just the spin they've put on it to get English parents to swallow it hook, line and sinker. I also think it's appalling that both parents in a separated couple get fined.

Apologies, teachers not school staff.

Of course teachers will work some holiday days, but the bulk they aren’t required to be in school.

Of course it isn’t to do with safeguarding becuase when I call mine in sick, no one comes to check on them. The absence is authorised and they move on. If I tell them we’re on holiday, the same but the absence is unauthorised. So if im fined, they don’t need to check to see where the child is? Worth the £80 to let the bruises heal if you’re an abuser isn’t it!