What are the exceptional circumstances in which absence will be authorised?

[Suddengeekgirl]

Have just been told that ds' aunt's wedding will not be an authorised absence. We may/ may not be fined.

What are the circumstances where absence is authorised?

School receptionist said only court dates and family death! Is that it?

'As far as Ofsted is concerned, there is no distinction between authorised and unauthorised absence. All absence is taken into consideration.'

Unless absence codes are used by the school which make it seem like the child is in education when they're not.

Just found the school's reply in ds' bag.

It will be an unauthorised absence.
Ds' attendance is currently 96% - although this could all change with one tummy bug etc.

We will still be going to the wedding - dd is a flower girl, it's dh's sister getting married, we can't not go!

The school's absence policy online is from 2011 so not current rules and really only talks about holiday absences.

And I still can't find a list of acceptable reasons for absences.

If we get fined we will have to pay - and will do so promptly but I might ask why the religious observance of a wedding in church doesn't count, why family celebrations don't count and why there is no bloody accurate or helpful information!

I understand that there need to be rules about absence to protect children from missing their education, or alerting EWO when a child may be at risk.
But the current approach is very heavy handed.

Glad you are still going. I so would. it should be a one off very important life event. Too important to miss.

I would be interested to know how many absences now reported as 'sickness' are actually due to people trying to avoid unauthorised absence. I know of several incidences at DCs schools where kids have developed a tummy bug requiring 48hr absence from school just before a weekend of school holiday. These extra sick days must be affecting the schools attendance figures. Does anyone know if attendance figures have actually improved due to this policy?

tiggy but it is helpful to know!
If you go with the speeding analogy then we all know what the limit is. When we break it we are making an informed choice.
If there isn't a list then parents are not able to make an informed choice - I wrongly assumed a close family wedding would fall under the acceptable reasons. If I'd known well in advance I could have at least told SIL when she was planning.

I think if you went with the religious angle you might get AA, SGG, it's worth a try.

Making Absence into a criminal offence is ridiculous; no one should be deemed a criminal for wanting to take their kids to a family wedding.

The Law Is An Ass.

Clearly the wedding needs to be more exceptional then. We can help...

1. Being a flower girl is too 'normal'. Can't DD be the wedding leprechaun?
2. Can SIL have the ceremony underwater?
3. Invite the Queen. And a few other big names.
4. Have an Ofsted registered crèche. (Think there is a code for 'educated elsewhere')
5. Can you change the groom/other bride? Tom Daley or Brian Blessed or Miranda.

There have been a number of discussions on this theme.

What is interesting (and I don't know if this is everywhere) is that at our school the number of 'sickies' has radically increased.

Is the unintended consequence of this policy that it's teaching an entire generation some worrying lessons:

It's o.k. to lie to figures of authority (HT/ Teacher - ultimately your boss)

Rules are meant to be broken

School doesn't respect events important to families, etc...

The power of court appearances/ fines was already there - and was being used in extreme cases.

I like the English. I like them so much I married one. But you do rather suffer from 'The English Disease' - shirking work, pilfering, blaming others, etc... and I begin to see that this beahviour may well be 'learned' at a very young age and is highly embedded in your educational infrastructure (e.g. DD1 reports that her teacher notes when the teacher next door is out of her classroom and sends DD1 in to get scissors, glue, etc... which they never return).

NICE

I'm not sure it's right to say that weddings should be treated differently from funerals. If it's your own wedding then sure, you can arrange it during school holidays. But if it's someone else's wedding, then most people wouldn't expect to have much influence over when they hold it - and nor should they.

So if we accept that both weddings and funerals are important family occasions than children should be able to attend, I think the rules should be the same for both.

@ Gladvent.

(The Law is STILL an Ass).

gladvent - maybe I should get ds ordained online and then he could officiate some part of the ceremony!

They don't fine for less than ten sessions a term so as long as you don't have five days off for weddings you will be ok. It will just go down as unauthorised.

This is ridiculous. The government should have produced proper guidelines about this and not left it up to Las and HTs who clearly have different ideas about what is exceptional.

Weddings by their nature are exceptional. There should be some sort of list restricting authorised ones to close family but this is hardly difficult and the child's uncle or aunt is pretty close. No one can control when someone else chooses to get married and it can be a lot more expensive to get married at a weekend which is why people are starting to have week day weddings.

Even if you are not fined you are still guilty of a criminal offence and I would resent having to choose between breaking the law or missing a close family member's wedding.

I agree the law is an ASS.

Even if you are not fined you are still guilty of a criminal offence

The offence is failure to secure regular attendance at school of a registered pupil. That has been an offence since 1996. The fines have been around since 2003.

The only thing that has changed legally is that there is no longer anything in the regulations about allowing up to 10 days for holidays in term time in special circumstances. This was removed because parents, particularly with primary school children, were treating it as a right.

As has been repeatedly pointed out on these threads, every time a child is removed from school for a wedding or whatever it damages that child's education and disrupts the education of all the other pupils in the same class. Teachers mostly hate it when parents take their children out of school for anything other than sickness, although some choose to hide that fact in order to maintain good relationships with parents.

Weddings by their nature are exceptional

Not in the sense used in these regulations. It is perfectly possible to organise a wedding so that it does not involve children missing school. If you want children to attend that is the responsible thing to do.

The government should have produced proper guidelines about this and not left it up to Las and HTs

I strongly disagree. If the government produced a list it could not possibly take account of every set of circumstances with the result that absence would not be authorised in situations where any reasonable person could see that it should be. The head is best placed to make the decision as he or she is in possession of all the available facts about the circumstances. That is why the guidance from the government is limited to telling heads they should take into account, "the nature of the event for which leave is sought; the frequency of the request; whether the parent gave advance notice; and the pupil’s attainment, attendance and ability to catch up on missed schooling".

It is just so ridiculous.
I deregistered 1 of my children from a school once- just emailed a letter to say she taht she wouldn't be coming back again.She didn't go to school for 6 months (til she started secondary) and not a peep from the LEA in all this time.
Another chjild was off secondary school sick a lot in their first term and the school rang me to say I would be getting a letter inviting me to come for a meeting, but I was to ignore the letter it was just to keep the EWO happy!

The more I read, the more I love dd's HT. We asked if he would consider dd having a day off for a family wedding. He didn't even pause before saying 'of course'. He's such a reasonable man.

weddings can be scheduled for everyone's convenience...

It is assumed here that the wedding is happening somewhere close to the relative lives. All my relatives live in a different EU country (where I am from) and any trip to any wedding or big family event would require absence from school...

"weddings can be scheduled for everyone's convenience..."

"It is assumed here that the wedding is happening somewhere close to the relative lives. All my relatives live in a different EU country (where I am from) and any trip to any wedding or big family event would require absence from school..."

What about the school holidays?

It is perfectly possible to organise a wedding so that it does not involve children missing school. If you want children to attend that is the responsible thing to do.

Yes, but it is not the parents of the children in question (or even parents of any children) who are organising the wedding most of the time. People organising weddings are quite likely to be blissfully ignorant of the stupid rules round school absence and won't realise their beloved nieces and nephews may not be authorised to take one (or perhaps two) days out of school to attend such an important family event.

Ironically, the wedding of the children's own parents (who could be said to be expected to know rules) is apparently an example of an exceptional event, but not the wedding of other possibly less well-informed family members.

If the government produced a list it could not possibly take account of every set of circumstances with the result that absence would not be authorised in situations where any reasonable person could see that it should be.

Well, that is happening now, given that some Heads are allowing AA for family weddings and some are not. There is no consistency and it is entirely down to the individual and their personal interpretation of what is exceptional.

And I did not suggest a list - I suppgested guidelines. A decent set of examples and some guidance as to what to think about when making the decision is needed. But if it has to be a list, then family weddings should definitely be included.

I've only asked once and that was so my kids could visit their dad in the US for two weeks and they said yep.

A decent set of examples and some guidance as to what to think about when making the decision is needed

As per my last post there is guidance as to what to think about. There are no examples, however. And I disagree that family weddings should be included unless it is one or both of the child's parents getting married.