Abolish LEA fines for taking kids out of school for holidays

[KuanKaKu]

Recent times have proven that taking time away from the home for a holiday is important for families; a holiday provides much needed regrouping time, benefits the mental health and wellbeing of the whole family, provides inter-generational socialisation, access to wider cultures and events, being able to travel in term time will make holidays accessible to those who can not afford to travel during peak school holidays, and planned absence is easier for schools to manage than excess last minute 'sick days'. There are many more benefits to abolishing these fines - for genuine holidays, including the benefit on the tourism sector of demand being spread more evenly throughout the year, providing longevity of employment contracts, cheaper travel for teachers in the holidays and a more reliable income stream for tourism businesses throughout the year. PLEASE SIGN. https://chng.it/PBrrYtRCCB

Yet only one you get fined for, which is why parents say children are ill who aren't.

Most state secondary schools nowadays are very large. The headteacher cannot know the families.

@KuanKaKu What exactly is your definition of a valuable travel experience?
Disneyland? Week in Spain? Backpacking in Cambodia?
the value is in spending time with dcs..you don’t need a travel experience!

I have signed OP, my children have had 100% attendance so far this year. I have booked a skiing holiday for early next year. It is £300.00 pp in half term 8t is over £1,000.00 per person so those saying if you can afford a skiing holiday you can go in term time that is not correct. My DD and DS are working above their expected level. By two years for my DD. I don't expect the teacher to cover anything they have missed. Based on the amount of time missed for sickness by some children. I have no worries that my DC will be behind having missed 5 days. I think that attendance should be under a certain level before for fine is issued. With the fines increasing I will just lie in the future and say my children are ill for a week.

Maybe petition the travel industry to not charge exorbitant prices in school holidays.

@KuanKaKu

"with the bottom line being don't penalise parents who want to provide valuable travel experiences for their children, accept this as part of their education rather than a separate event. "

Or should this read don't penalise parents that want a cheaper holiday for themselves, rather than an "educational experience" for their children. And don't penalise parents that place a higher priority on their own holidays rather than their children's education.

What part of Disneyland or a bog standard beach holiday is a "valuable travel experience" or educational? I bet a tiny minority of people are actually providing an educational experience for their children on holiday.

A far simpler solution is to allow schools or LEAs the freedom to set their own term dates thereby spreading the demand across a wider period.

Teachers might also benefit from cheaper holidays as well assuming this is possible on their abysmal salaries.

I was talking about primary. It worked well overseas in primary, and in the UK when I was a child. Most parents would consider impact on GCSEs for teens.

DS missed just over a term of year 9 due to school closures with no remote work set for half of that, then some of year 10 too. None of that was valuable family time or travel experiences.

The number of secondary schools is higher than primary, so many headteachers will not know families.
Yes, too much schooling was missed because of the pandemic - absolutely! That's why there should not be more schooling missed without good reason.

Can you put in a leave request, detailing the good reason?

While parents can still be fined for children's mental health issues and sen needs meaning they cannot attend? No thanks.

Yes, of course you can. It's usually agreed to, within reason. No fine given.

Thanks again for all of the interest! This really isn’t all about price though for those focusing in that, obviously it is a huge part of the argument for some families but on a personal level it’s more about flexibility and being able to maximise opportunities at the relevant time, such as going long haul in October or February rather than August to tap into better seasonality and climate in destination, as just one example.

If the compliance test taught me anything it was to never take being able to travel for granted and to always question something you do not agree with, don’t be a sitting duck!

For holidays I mean? Such as to spend time with family overseas with different term dates for cousins, experience cultural events, that kind of thing.

Kids don’t need to go on expensive holidays. They need to spend quality time with their families and primary caregivers, which can be done perfectly well at home or camping or whatever. I like holidays to far flung destinations as much as the next person but I don’t see it as my right to have them, particularly not to the detriment of my children’s education and the progress of the whole class.

In the 10 years of their compulsory education I don’t see why people can’t compromise a bit and take their holidays during the 12 weeks the children aren’t at school. If that means a slightly less exotic destination due to costs then so be it. It’s what we did.

For those who feel unable to accept the rules, there is always the option of home educating.

Yes, that's common. The Hajj, or a wedding in the country of origin, or funeral of a relative. Happens all the time. Always ok.

There were a good few years of school that were mostly a complete waste of time so I think going on holiday in years 7-9 during term time would be fine for some kids.

I know we certainly wouldn't have missed out if we'd had term time holidays. Several people I know did and they have great jobs. I didn't take any term time holidays but a lot of the schooling was just daycare for older children, ie we learned very little at school. Lesson work could be done in about 10 minutes and the rest of the time was just mucking about.

I'm thinking of taking my kids out for a while year between secondary and primary as I'm pretty sure I can home educate them way above the standard. It's not for everyone but there are definitely a lot of people for whom the lessons present little to no challenge and they will miss little to nothing of value in their lives.

Not only about cost what if you want to travel as a group so can only get term time off work? We've been to multiple weddings abroad, the impact also isn't fair I need a clean DBS so can't just pay the fine if we go three years running. If I say owned a business that didn't need a DBS we could just budget for the 2k fine if it was a special event. Also we are reasonably intelligent I have planned out commitments over the next few years to make it so we don't have more than 2 in a 3 year period. I imagine that will have been missed by some parents.

I would also be happy with a higher fine if it was used for say a Saturday or Sunday catch up session to be run 1:1 with DS. Average seems to be £20 an hour say 10 hours max 1:1 so £200 fine problem solved.

I wouldn't oppose teachers having 2 weeks off if cover was planned for.

Also if teaching plans were just dropped onto a shared space with the work the kids were assigned we could cover it with DS once back so should we even get a fine?

I think you will just see a massive uptick in private sick notes for mental health issues to get the kids out of school. Just looked £25 and even adults are allowed to travel for mental health reasons whilst off sick, imagine that is what the middle class in power are planning to do.....or private schools just won't report the absence/have a lower threshold so it's approved. We've moved to get into an outstanding school incase people vote in labour but if private said hey we won't be reporting I would still be tempted!!!

Kids don’t need to go on expensive holidays. They need to spend quality time with their families and primary caregivers, which can be done perfectly well at home or camping or whatever.

Families can be overseas. You may need to tag a week or two onto Easter or Christmas break or half term to match up cousin's school holidays. Or if you are flying long haul. Though, I've now been told that will be authorised.

Known absence makes it easier for the school to manage their resourcing, enabling additional one to one sessions etc..within ratios.

You are absolutely delusional. Additional one to one sessions! I don't have anyone to run 1:1 sessions for children with diagnosed learning needs! I don't even have a TA in my class despite more than 50% of the class needing additional support.

A holiday is not a human right fgs. Education is.

If you can't afford 5* long haul or skiing every year, camping or a caravan in August is just as good for your mental health and family bonding. It's all a lot of teachers can afford!

If the compliance test taught me anything it was to never take being able to travel for granted and to always question something you do not agree with, don’t be a sitting duck!

ok. Compliance test. Now I see what type of person you are...

What a ridiculous idea!

Definitely not signing!

How would you arrange for children to catch up on work they missed - new topics, new maths concepts etc?

I have no issues if parents want to take their child out of school for 1-2 weeks a year, outside of key stage 4 and 5, for a family holiday.

But no to extra work being set, no to additional 1:1 tuition, no to extra work for the teachers.

It's very rare for anything important to only be taught once ime. I've been teaching for many years now and have taught in both primary and secondary. A child missing a couple of weeks doesn't really cause us any extra work ime.

I also had local family holidays in term time throughout my childhood (factory shutdown dictated holidays back then, never went abroad so it wasn't about cheaper sun holidays) with no ill effect. It genuinely had no negative effect on the education of me, my brother or sister, who all have degrees and professional jobs.

The fines are having little impact on those who take children out for extended times. These still seem to happen in the same numbers.

And as fines don't kick in until day 5 here, people just take a few days on to a school holiday. Those taking a week or two are often going on more expensive long haul breaks where the fine doesn't come anywhere near the savings they make in taking a holiday in term time,