Do you get fined for taking a 3 year old out of nursery school for a holiday?

[Givemethestrength]

My DD is 3 in June and set to start 30 hours at nursery school in September. We'd like to go on holiday for a week in October, due to financial reasons we can't go before then. As compulsory school age isn't until children are 5 years old, will we get fined for taking our DD out for a week? I can't find information anywhere for preschool children

No, they can’t fine you until the term after she turns 5. There is no obligation for her to be there at all.

Nope! You don't get fined until they legally have to be at school which is 5.

Take her out now! Make the most of it

Sounds promising! How would you approach the school?

Just tell them she won't be in.

Just email them and tell them she'll be away. In my experience, as long as you've given sufficient notice so that they can take account of staffing, they won't charge you for the holoiday time.

Factually.

Hi, just letting you know Isabella won't be in nursery June 1-8th as we're off to Mauritius.

We have an app where we can make a note of our holidays. Nobody is forcing you to use a nursery so not sure why you'd think you aren't allowed to take them out!

A three year old is not required to go to school or nursery. You might expect to pay for the week but that is all.

We still had to pay but you can take them out whenever.

Nursery is completely different to school. She is not legally required to be there at all. Nursery is entirely voluntary. School & private nurseries are no different at all in this sense. Just simply tell the nursery staff she won’t be in on the dates you go away.

My eldest went to her school nursery & we regularly took term time trips & holidays. I simply told her key worker & they noted it down.

Just to clarify the nursery is part of a school and she will be receiving the 30 hours free childcare. She is currently in a private nursery and when we take her out we pay as usual, but as we won't be paying for the nursery school place, I wasn't sure if this differed.

DS is in private nursery and gets 30 free hours and we’re taking him out next week for a holiday. We just told them he wouldn’t be in. It’ll be absolutely fine.

A week will be fine but if children's attendance does fall too low across the term, then LAs can refuse to pay the funding to the setting and you should be aware that you could be billed.
As I said, a week's holiday will be fine though.

@GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat do you have a link to where that info is? I'm taking my DD out of nursery for longer than a week and it hadn't even occurred to me that the 30 hours free might be affected.

It will only be the week so hopefully they are okay with this 🙂