Leave declined for wedding....

[eleanorrubysmummy]

Oh dear! My husbands brother is getting married in Feb (on a Friday), been planned 2 years, hub is best man & DD is bridesmaid. just moved up to year3 at a new school so did the right thing & applied for authorized day off......declined & also intimated that an application to fine us will be made if we go!! I'm so stuck......can anyone help/advise/guide us for this pls???

My Head has said in the past 5 weeks she has spent more time dealing with the holiday situation and the problem parking we have around our small rural school than she has doing anything else!

It is ridiculous. We are TOLD what to teach. We are TOLD that Ofsted are coming tomorrow. We are TOLD no more authorised holidays. We are TOLD we don't deserve a pay rise. We are TOLD we have to work longer and have less pension! we are also TOLD we are crap at our jobs by many parents!

THAT is why thousands 'striked' last week. We have no power.

Direct your anger at Mr Gove not the hardworking teacher!

Sorry its Friday and I need a glass of wine! cheers!

My point is this bit: " yet they do nothing to speak up about and to help effect change and common sense."

I think you'll find that we ARE speaking up about things we disagree with, yet are being pilloried and bashed from pillar to post.

Married - the decisions on this have NOTHING to do with teachers or schools - it is another Gove idea.

The odd day is fine but having two weeks off (at high school) is a nightmare. I am in tomorrow to do catch up with 15 pupils who have missed doing assessments due to being on holidays, and can't stay behind after school due to commitments ...

OP I can't see the LEA going through with the fine - schools are only doing what they are told to ...

Just for clarity, schools can still approve days off in exceptional circumstances. This can include holidays. Contrary to what some are saying this is still entirely at the head's discretion.

Fines are not at the head's discretion. Your LA will have a code of conduct which will lay down the circumstances in which a fine can be levied. I don't know of any LA that allows a fine for a single absence. If a school issues a fixed penalty notice contrary to the LA's code of conduct the LA will withdraw it.

The only change in the rules is that they no longer refer to children being allowed up to 10 days holiday in special circumstances. Unfortunately a growing number of parents treated this as a right to 10 days holiday in term time each year. Some head teachers felt unable to refuse because of the loose wording in the regulations. Many teachers and head teachers wanted the regulations tightened up to stop this. Indeed, many head teachers who are claiming they have no discretion know full well that they do indeed still have discretion. They are fed up with the way some parents abused the system and want to clamp down. Claiming that they have no discretion is a nice way of putting the blame on someone else.

Oh don't misunderstand me....I am not angry at the Head/school or indeed the Gov, I'm just frustrated I am unable to take any responsibility for my childs life experience too. I could understand it if we permitted her to just "miss days" but we never have (and we don't have odd days off work either!!). I am rubbish at fibbing, won't expect my DD to be complicit in fibbing either......I think, all things considered, I will probably just go & risk the fine. However, I won't ever ask again if the need did arise (we don't have holidays away due to finances so that is never an issue anyway!). One request in now 3 years of schooling, for an exceptional day! Thanks everyone!

I am very pleased teachers are told what to teach. I was a child in the 60s and 70s and remember having a teacher in my last year at the newly opened school - the one with the bean bags and the lack of walls - who spent an entire year teaching us art techniques. No tables, no spellings, no maths, no English. It was the worst year in my school life. The rationale - oh well you've all done your 11+ so you can all unwind now.

Funnily enough it took me a year and a half to catch up at the grammar school.

They complain because they are told what to teach. When they weren't they didn't teach; that's why the rules had to change. Ofsted are coming tomorrow - quite right. Ofsted need to see what really goes on - not what has been staged managed and isn't it less stressful to have no notice visits than to fret about them for three weeks - also means the school doesn't have the chance to arrange a trip for the big trouble makers .

I am in the LGPS. I pay about 6-7%; my employers pay about 14%. It is one of the best pensions in this country. It is NOT AS GOOD AS THE TEACHERS' PENSION SCHEME. I am very pleased to be a member of a fantastic scheme that is not as good as the TPS. I cannot retire until I am 66. That is the law and it affects everybody not just teachers.

just take her out on the day. Say shes poorly.

youve given them warning. She doesnt belong to them

prh47 - I'm not sure I agree. The amendments to the 2006 regs remove references to holidays. DfE says: "The amendments make clear that headteachers may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances." - it's not clear to me whether those "exceptional circumstances" could include a holiday.

This place was a Nest of Vipers long before AIBU established.
this new policy is going to lead to some interesting tabloid headlines.

People actually go along with this shit? Go to the wedding, if they fine you tell them; bite me.

How can it be right that each gaseous is fined for each session? So single parent families pay half what dual parent families do? How can that be right?

I'm a primary Head. New guidelines state that we can authorise leave in exceptional circumstances, but NEVER for a holiday.

Hassled - Under the regulations it is at the sole discretion of the head teacher to decide whether or not a request qualifies as "exceptional circumstances". They are perfectly at liberty to decide that a particular holiday qualifies as "exceptional circumstances".

Parents are now just going to lie about it aren't they? Just like I did a couple of weeks ago - big family celebration booked for a long weekend (dc had to miss Friday and Monday). This was booked months before the new rule was introduced, I knew the school wouldn't authorise it so I rang in and said both dc were poorly. I hate lying but there's no way I could afford the fine and I wasn't going to miss out on the weekend away. Parents are being backed into a corner much like the teachers I suspect. It's not nice to ask dc to lie though and now I know the new rules I won't be doing it again.

In your situation I would frankly just say my child had a headache or a stomach bug.

Isn't there still exceptions for religious reasons? Wouldn't attending a wedding, if in church, be a religious thing?
The world has gone mad if parents are fined for attending family weddings.

This legislation came into force in last month and I have been discussing it with our board f governors and the LEA.

As a list...

a) Holidays or absences booked (with proof) before parents were aware of the rule change are classed as exceptional. This is the view taken by our local group of schools and endorsed by our LEA.

b) A blanket ban on holidays would be contrary to the intent of the legislation.

c) The legislation uses the word exceptional, the interpretation of this word is for the head.

d) If you consider the width of meaning of the word exceptional, you can see why there is latitude in interpretation: "Being an exception; uncommon." "not usual : unusual or uncommon".

e) Even if the absence were unauthorised, a fine does not automatically follow.

f) The head has to ask the LEA to fine the parents.

If I was the OP, I would write a letter stating all the facts and go to the wedding.

In my school, this absence would be authorised.

Schools don't have to say no automatically to these requests. My DDs are also to be bridesmaids at their Uncles Wedding on the last day of this term, and so need the day off school, it was authorised and the form returned to me the next day.

Exceptional circumstances and once in a life time events like being a bridesmaid are of course fine.

Speak to the head again and then If they still said no then I expect I would say something along the lines of "I have a feeling DD will have a nasty sickness bug on that morning then."
There is no way your DD should miss out on being a Bridesmaid.

Family rituals like this are an enormous part of our cultural identity and a blanket no to requests for absence is just a nonsense.

@ MushroomSoup: what guidance have you been given, if any, about foreign-national parents? I feel so guilty that my 70yo dad keeps schlepping half way round the world to see us, so I want kids to go see him for a change.. and my many dozens of aunts-uncles-cousins-their children, too. Too far to go just go for just a week or 2 (would spend all of that in jetlag hell), too expensive to go in summer.

There's something about getting DC in touch with their native culture, too (The America you see on TV is not the America I know).

After 2014 I'll have kids constantly in GCSEs & maybe A-levels for 12 yrs, so 2014 is the last window before my grand-mother dies.

There are other reasons that I think matter why & when I want to go & why for so long (14 days off school).

I agree with the foreign national thing, which is exactly where I am at and why we have had to take the odd day - because it is impossible to get flights to exactly coincide with half term breaks and because things just happen where we have to go as a family (and no you can't just go for a weekend if it's a wedding or a funeral as it takes a day there and a day back, and we have had to attend a couple in the 5 years so far).

I will have to think about this one properly, because I am on the edge whether to go and have a discussion with the head about the situation in general (without having to beg every time) or whether I just say the children are ill every time. I am on the fence on this one because to be honest I feel aggrieved I even have to go and do this in the first place, as I see it as an unnecessary and sudden intrusion into our personal life.

Any system which doesn't allow for flexibility or discretion is, IMO, stupid and opens it up to abuse. If the answer to any request for a day off, for whatever reason, is 'no', then parents aren't going to ask - they'll just pull their DC out and say they're ill.

Which is, of course, why the new rules still allow for flexibility and discretion.

Oh, this is all so very predictable... Whatever prh47bridge says, it was a STUPID thing to change the legislation in the way it was changed. The Government is full of arseholes with no comprehension of human nature whatsoever.

And the biggest arse of all is in the Department for Education.