Holiday - Exceptional Circumstances

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Okay, I know this has been done to death, but dd is about to start school next week and this topic is really stressing me out, especially given we have just had the wonderful 6 week holiday and my children have developed so much I feel they are an essential part of their childhood.

DS has ASD, and is in a special school, who are flexible to his needs and would grant any term-time holiday on the basis of his sensory issues and need for places to be less busy, with more space, less queuing and quieter etc. We've done some camping and selected sites carefully but this won't be an option until next summer.

DD is starting a mainstream primary and unless they agree to termtime holidays we won't be able to go away, or even simply visit museums etc. as a family. In fact, because ds will be at home in DD's holidays, she will never get the opportunity to go places that children from typical families get to go to.

How likely is it that the HT will authorise absences? She stated in the open evening that she NEVER authorises absences for family holidays.

What do you think she 'would' authorise an absence for that would enable us to spend time as a family on fun things and also educational things?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

You couldn't claim disability discrimination in the OP situation, because it is by proxy.

[prh47bridge]

HattyJack - It really depends on the school's willingness to regard the time as the child being educated off-site. Most schools won't buy it and I suspect that any school that did would get marked down by Ofsted.

Dancingdreamer - You are right that there is no law that forces you to send your child to school. You can HE if you wish. However, once your child is a registered pupil at a state school the law requires you to ensure that your child attends that school regularly (Education Act 1996 S444). An LA would therefore have no problem bringing a case against you for an unauthorised holiday regardless of how educational it was.

[HattyJack]

The Education Act 1996 Section 9 also says

"In exercising or performing all their respective powers and duties under the Education Acts, the Secretary of State and local education authorities shall have regard to the general principle that pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents, so far as that is compatible with the provision of efficient instruction and training and the avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure."

Essentially it's a mess of contradictions.

[morethanpotatoprints]

So I suppose its fair to assume that the Gov/schools would object on the compatability of the provision of efficient instruction and training.

So basically they assume that education would suffer in that case.

[prh47bridge]

It is easy to see the law as a mess of contradictions but once you understand how the courts interpret the law it is generally pretty clear. One of the principles of legal interpretation is that a law that covers a specific set of circumstances takes precedence over less specific laws. So in this case S444 takes precedence over S9 because S444 is specifically about absence whereas S9 is a more vague, general clause that doesn't have anything specific to say about absence.

[teacherwith2kids]

It's not even 4 or 5 children being away for the SAME week that it's a problem.

Week 1: Child A is away.
Week 2: Teacher devotes extra time to catching child A up. Child B is away.
Week 3: Teacher devotes extra time to catching child B up. Child C is away...

etc etc.

Each time, the education of the 29 children who ARE in school is disrupted because some of the time that is rightfully theirs is devoted to the child who has been away.

If the child is genuinely sick (and I have just this week classed 1 five day absence for a child reported sick as unauthorised absence, because said child chatted happily about their holiday) then while the same disruption occurs, I know it is unavoidable. However, for avoidable absence such as family holidays and trips (which could in almost all cases be done in the 175 days the child is NOT in school) I resent it. I do it, because my interest is the child. But I still fume on behalf of the 29 who suffer.