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Original poster

Unauthorised absence

52 replies

Mummalunalucas · 25/03/2023 16:04

I wondered if any of you lovely people could help me. I booked a sun holiday for a Monday to Friday. The week before May half term. We don't have a massive budget for things like this hence booking the sun holiday. I work on a holiday park, so booking during school holidays makes it very difficult for me to get time off especially as I'm an assistant manager. I wrote a letter to the school requesting the time off which has been denied. We have been looking at moving the holiday to the school holidays and my work has begrudgingly said if I had to they could allow it possibly, but the prices so way out of our price range. Going from paying £170 for a holiday to at least £1070 is a huge jump. My question is does anyone know what the fines are? Information on the Internet is very ambiguous. Should I just accept that we won't be able to afford holidays while the kids are at school?
Many thanks

OP posts:
scoutcat · 26/03/2023 13:38

When i was a teacher the amount of times you'd get children being poorly for a week and then coming in admitting they'd been on holiday was so high.

"Are you feeling better now x?"
"No miss, I wasn't poorly. We just went on holiday and didn't want to pay a fine." 🤣

Kids are so honest lol. I never told the head though unless she found out for herself!

alyceflowers · 26/03/2023 13:49

Leave on the Monday afternoon and enjoy your holiday.

Brownflowers · 26/03/2023 13:54

scoutcat · 26/03/2023 13:38

When i was a teacher the amount of times you'd get children being poorly for a week and then coming in admitting they'd been on holiday was so high.

"Are you feeling better now x?"
"No miss, I wasn't poorly. We just went on holiday and didn't want to pay a fine." 🤣

Kids are so honest lol. I never told the head though unless she found out for herself!

You’d have to prove they were lying though; not sure how you’d go about that.

LondonQueen · 26/03/2023 13:58

£60 a parent, per child. Just pay the fine if you can't afford to go in school holidays. As schools, we're not allowed to authorise the absence unless it is for "exceptional circumstances", not being able to afford a holiday outside of term time doesn't count.

LondonQueen · 26/03/2023 13:59

Worth noting, you need 10 sessions out to be fined, which equates to 5 days. If you take them in for registration and pick them up shortly after, you can't be fined as they will get their morning mark and therefore only have 9 sessions unauthorised.

MaireadMcSweeney · 26/03/2023 13:59

LondonQueen · 26/03/2023 13:58

£60 a parent, per child. Just pay the fine if you can't afford to go in school holidays. As schools, we're not allowed to authorise the absence unless it is for "exceptional circumstances", not being able to afford a holiday outside of term time doesn't count.

Why should we pay the fine? I don't agree with fining, I am not going to volunteer to pay a fine I don't agree with.

LondonQueen · 26/03/2023 14:00

@MaireadMcSweeney It's against the law to take your children out of school during term time, hence you get a fine. Just like you would if you was caught speeding or littering.

Rockbird · 26/03/2023 14:02

Makes me laugh that people think we don't know they're away. We have plenty of ways to tell even before the children tell us, because they 100% will.

LondonQueen · 26/03/2023 14:04

@MaireadMcSweeney
I've just seen your above post. you're only going for 3 days. Tell your school you are going away, you won't be fined as it's only 6 sessions and not the 10 required by law for a fine. School can still fine you if they have reason to believe you are on holiday, for example if they complete a home visit and you are away, but it must meet the 10 sessions.

MaireadMcSweeney · 26/03/2023 14:04

LondonQueen · 26/03/2023 14:00

@MaireadMcSweeney It's against the law to take your children out of school during term time, hence you get a fine. Just like you would if you was caught speeding or littering.

It's not against the law to take them out for a one off holiday. Only if they 'fail to attend regularly'.
I don't agree with these fines. They are ineffective at dealing with poor school attendance, they criminalise struggling parents and children with SEN/trauma/emotional behavioural issues and they are also ineffective at preventing people taking their own kids on a one off holiday which in my view parents should have the right to do.
therefore why would i volunteer to pay it?

Brownflowers · 26/03/2023 14:04

It’s the ‘if you were caught’ thing, @LondonQueen .

No one is going to ring up, admit to speeding and voluntarily pay a fine!

MaireadMcSweeney · 26/03/2023 14:04

LondonQueen · 26/03/2023 14:04

@MaireadMcSweeney
I've just seen your above post. you're only going for 3 days. Tell your school you are going away, you won't be fined as it's only 6 sessions and not the 10 required by law for a fine. School can still fine you if they have reason to believe you are on holiday, for example if they complete a home visit and you are away, but it must meet the 10 sessions.

That's useful to know, thank you

MaireadMcSweeney · 26/03/2023 14:05

Rockbird · 26/03/2023 14:02

Makes me laugh that people think we don't know they're away. We have plenty of ways to tell even before the children tell us, because they 100% will.

My kid is old enough not to say and even if the school does suspect/know so what? Without evidence you can't take me to court.

Brownflowers · 26/03/2023 14:06

You cant know the children will tell you. Some will, the ones who don’t, you will never know Wink

Oxborn · 26/03/2023 14:19

You normally get a warning before a fine

Colourfingers2 · 26/03/2023 14:31

Write back to the school and show them the difference in cost between the two different weeks and ask them if they are willing to pay the difference to keep your children in school that week.
If they say no then take your children on holiday anyway if they try to fine you then you have a correspondence trail to fight it which will clearly prove their unreasonable behaviour. Seriously where do these schools get off thinking they own our children. I am so glad my two don’t live in this country.
There ought to be a law against ripping families off in this way.

Taking money from parents in fines to the detriment of their children yet another great idea from the former Labour government.

Colourfingers2 · 26/03/2023 14:33

LondonQueen · 26/03/2023 14:00

@MaireadMcSweeney It's against the law to take your children out of school during term time, hence you get a fine. Just like you would if you was caught speeding or littering.

In the words of Charles Dickens himself “the law is an arse”!

AncientQuercus · 26/03/2023 14:51

DD is in Y11 and we have never ever taken her out of school for a holiday. This last term she has lost 3 days of school to endless PHSE sessions instead of lessons because OFSTED found evidence of bullying and downgraded them. She's then lost another FOUR days to teacher's strikes because unlike most other schools ours hasn't prioritised the exam years.

So for 12 years we've constantly been told that missing a week of school for a holiday would damage their exam chances, yet school can take out 7 days in GCSE year and that's OK.

I wish now that we'd taken her out of school for holidays and saved the money we spent on more expensive trips to pay for tutors now.

Oblomov23 · 26/03/2023 15:15

Watching. I can't decide what to do because never did this for ds1. Ds2 has 100% attendance most years. I'm taking him out Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday. I can't say he's ill. At the end of one week and across the weekend into the next week. They'll know I'm lying. I'm thinking to just email in saying : He won't be in. What happens then?

90yomakeuproom · 26/03/2023 15:38

Oblomov23 · 26/03/2023 15:15

Watching. I can't decide what to do because never did this for ds1. Ds2 has 100% attendance most years. I'm taking him out Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday. I can't say he's ill. At the end of one week and across the weekend into the next week. They'll know I'm lying. I'm thinking to just email in saying : He won't be in. What happens then?

Nothing happens. You just go. At worst you'll get a fine. That's it.

CeeJay81 · 26/03/2023 16:14

Do your kids have any inset days you can take advantage of? This year due to the coronation the kids school have got an extra inset day in the Summer term. They've added it in the same week as the one they already have. So they have 2 inset days in the last week of June. We have decided to take advantage of this, as sunmer holidays are extortionate. The kids will only miss 3 days. They have to miss 5 days for them to be able to fine you.

alyceflowers · 26/03/2023 17:31

Oblomov23 · 26/03/2023 15:15

Watching. I can't decide what to do because never did this for ds1. Ds2 has 100% attendance most years. I'm taking him out Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday. I can't say he's ill. At the end of one week and across the weekend into the next week. They'll know I'm lying. I'm thinking to just email in saying : He won't be in. What happens then?

You email to say he's not going to be in as you're going away, they probably reply saying it will be an unauthorised absence.

For 4 days, and if his attendance is generally good, I doubt anything further will happen. Worst case scenario is you get a fine.

shard5 · 26/03/2023 17:44

It's 10 sessions of absence over one term. Our school has started to issue penalty warnings and fines have been hand d out by the local authority.
£60 per parent per child.
It might be different in other la's and some schools that have overall good attendance don't bother requesting fines from the council.
A fine will only be issued if your School request it from the council

Autumn3030 · 02/12/2024 12:01

Hi, I've not been on here before. I'm worried about my daughter being absent from school. She is off today as she has a sickness bug and she had a high temperature of 39C last night.
The school says you have to leave it 48 hours before she can return to school because of the vomiting. She has an appointment on Wednesday (which she has a letter for). so will be off then too and back to school on Thursday. I'm worried I will get a fine for her absence.
One of the mums mentioned I will only get fined if it's unauthorised absence. However I don't know what that means.
Can someone explain to me what exactly is unauthorised absence?
It's such a worry all the time, as kids at my daughters age (8) do get ill this time of the year. Yet we get penalised for them being off sick.
Thanks in advance for any advice.

Brycare · 02/12/2024 12:32

I'm not from the Uk but we usually take our kids out of school for the last week of the school year for our summer holiday - purely because of how much more expensive it is thereafter.
As long as you're not taking the piss and have them missing school on a very regular basis there isn't an issue where we live.
I honestly don't see the issue with kids missing one week of school a year for this. It's 5 days over the course of a year. Particularly the last week - they do damn all anyway (my kids are under ten).
Appreciate I'm not answering your question though