Will attending his dad's wedding on a school day count as absence and result in a fine?

[Saralocky28]

My sons dad is getting married in a month and it falls on a school day. If I send an absence form into school I'm guessing it will be authorized but does this still count as a day they use against you if you've taken them out for family holidays?

We've just returned from holiday and DS had 2 missed school days unauthorized but they were aware it was for a holiday.

Do I just say he's sick as it's one day? We are planning taking him out 2 days in October too for a family trip. So if we include all of these he will have missed 10 sessions. Likely will result in a fine.....

Not sure whether to be fully honest or not as I feel you have to work the school system these days!

completely agree

Hi Op! I work in a school, this would he authorised as an ‘ exceptional circumstance’.

Then OP would have to accept that. She has already taken him out of school for 3 days and plans another 2 days but the dad can’t asked for 1 day?

Look up the new rules that came into effect 24/25 school year. I know there was a long thread on here last year where a woman had taken her kids out of school unauthorised and was facing a court case.

I think you can now only get fined twice in a 3 year period, if you take them out again for a third time in that time frame you have to go to court and you risk a £2500 fine and a criminal record. I am not sure if you got a fine for the holiday you just took them on though. If you haven't got fined at all in the last 3 years then you should be fine if it's authorised (which it probably will be) or not.

She hasn’t moaned about it, she’s asking if it will be authorised by the school. No moaning or indication that she’s unhappy about him going at all 🤷

Why on earth is this man getting married on a school day? Weddings don't'fall' on a particular day, they are arranged by the couple concerned. If his dad won't tell the school, you'll have to.

I agree that she should just be honest and tell the school what the absence is for. It’s for a wedding which is likely to be an exciting event that the kid will talk about at school so they will find out anyway. But, why on earth should dad be responsible to pay any fines? She has taken the kid out of school for 2 days for a holiday and plans to do so again. The wedding is likely to be authorised anyway but if there were any fines it should be on her to pay them as she has caused 4 of the 5 missed days.

And then to say that he can afford it because he’s having his wedding on a weekday is just pure ignorance. You have no idea about his financial situation, a weekday may be all that they can afford.

What’s wrong with getting married on a week day?

Sounds like it

I wouldn't pay a fine for that

Wedding of close family is authorised

It matches the attitude of the school in terms of the number of holidays, teachers training days and early finish Fridays!!

A rolling time period doesn’t reset.

Why hasn’t his father arranged it for either a weekend or school holidays?
It isn’t more expensive to marry in school holidays.
Who does this?
Anyway, be honest with the school, I doubt you will get fined.

Entirely depends on school’s policy. My DCs school authorises parents weddings.

His father needs to be contacting the school and you need to be changing your holiday plans, wedding trumps you autumn break

Just tell them take the fine if it comes, you had him out for school days for a holiday and were not this worried, where I live there is no fines so the fines are absurd to me when parents are still taking kids out of school but accepting fines,

Schools have strict guidelines now on what constitutes a reason for an authorised absence. Unfortunately, I don't think the school are likely to authorise the time off....even if it's for his Dad's wedding. However, email the school and state the reason why your son won't be in that day. There's no point in lying, because it stands to reason that your son will talk about it at school!

I don't think you'll be fined, it's one day, the absence just won't be authorised.

@Tabbers79 no all British parents, mine missed 4 days over their entire schooling for non sickness, one day was a funeral in which they were singing, one day was singing in Bath Abbey and 2 days was a friends wedding who set it for what he thought was school holidays but their district was a week different, all were authorised by school. We went on holidays in the school holidays to places we could afford

This. I’m English and when I was a child school wasn’t something you just opted out of for a holiday.

What do you mean? It doesn’t totally reset but you can zero it out again.

My understanding is that, for example, if you’d taken an extra two days holiday after Christmas at the start of January, you’d have four unauthorised sessions. If there was no further unauthorised holiday in the subesequent ten school week (I.e. excluding holidays) you’d be back to zero.

But if you then took another day at the end of Feb half term, that’s in the same period, although the January days will drop out of the rolling period before the February one?

I think I’ve made a hash of explaining it, but I guess the point I’m trying to make is that you can get back to zero.

Not sure whether to be fully honest or not as I feel you have to work the school system these days!

imagine there was a way to
”work the system” by going on holiday… in the copious school holidays!

The number of holidays are not controlled by schools. When teacher training days were introduced they were taken out of the existing school holidays - children now have the exact same number of days in school as they did before teacher training days were a thing - the difference is that 5 of those days are now spread through the year, rather than attached to the summer holiday. I work in a primary school and we never have Friday afternoons off, so can’t comment on schools that do.

in response to the OP question, a day for a family wedding would count as an authorised absence where I work, and even if it didn’t in a different school the total of all 6 sessions would still hit the 10 that would trigger a fine.

is the wedding local?
if you can get him in for even an hour in the morning so he is there for registration then he will only be counted as missing a half day (afternoon)

In our area it's 10 sessions (5 days) within a 10 week rolling period for a fine. If the wedding is in a month (may I am assuming) they'll be at school for another 6 weeks plus another 6 weeks before your October holiday (I imagine). Equally there is some small print in our letters that basically says you can be fined for any length of absence if the council decides.
I don't think you can really hold the 1 day of authorised wedding absence as the reason for any fine you might get. If you do it regularly and for fairly long periods then its always a risk. Having said that, I'd think you'd be OK as the dates are set apart by more than 10 weeks. It does also depend on how trigger happy your county are, we are lucky that they've not really minded even when we once did do 10 sessions in a row.