School fine

[Sara202q]

Hiya wondering if anyone can help please. My daughter goes go mainstream school but has EHCP. She has missed school quite few times and has some mental health issues as well. We being parents were fully engaged with school and the safeguarding team at school. Suddenly we reieved letter for prosecution that we didnt get the fine now we have 21 days to respond. Either we plead guilty or not.
we didnt recieve the fine and the warning letters.
now I am too much stressed and want to seek legal advise. What should we do now. Too scarec to end up in the prison. 😢😢

It is unlikely you will go to prison, but you could face a large fine. Contact your LA and explain to them that you haven't received any communication about the fine.

If it’s for unauthorised absence and you have been engaging with school can you ask school for a record of the years absences and check what they have been put down as then if you don’t agree with the fine go through the process of disputing it with the LA with evidence that you have engaged with school.

Hiya Thank you so much for your reply. Yes they have sent me the record and they made most of them unauthrosied. We have written to the LA that we did not receive the fine forms. I have to fill tje form for the court. From where I can have legal advise any idea so I can contact please.

Ring the LA. Writing to them will take too long. If you need legal advice, consult a solicitor.

There is a Facebook page called against school fines that can offer a lot of good advice.

Surely they call you in for a meeting about absence first? Or was it a block of time they have decided was an unauthorised holiday?

If your child has an EHCP the schools senco May be able to help this can’t be the first situation where there’s a fine for unauthorised absence I got the impression for, your post it the missing school is linked to your child’s mental health issues I would be wanting to make sure the school as recorded the absence correctly

Yes they have not followed tje procedurs of having meeting. Also I have social worker and I have regular monthly meetings for my children. There is one person represents the school in those meetings. She used to say that everything is going well parsnts are working towards attendance. But now they have turned up like this.