MNHQ here: 'school gate' fines for being late to school - what do you think?

[RowanMumsnet]

Morning all

We're being asked for your views on a couple of press stories over recent days (here and here - ££) indicating that some schools are going to start fining the parents of children who are late to school more than ten times a term. The fines will be £60, doubling if they're not paid within 21 days, and ultimately (as with unauthorised term-time absences) parents could be prosecuted and even jailed for non-payment.

What do you think? Does your school already do this? Is it a constructively tough approach to persistent lateness, or a wild overreaction - or something else?

Would be great to hear what you think.

Thanks
MNHQ

In primary school, it isn't up to the kids whether they are on time or not. And it's very likely that the chaotic families which are most likely to deliver their children late are also the families least likely to be able to afford a fine.

Better to spend the time, personnel and infrastructure on working with those families to get to the root of the problem.

Ten times is two weeks. Taking out anomalies of traffic and weather this is still a lot - it allows for 60 lates a year. I was a pastoral lead in a large high school and 60 is a lot over the year. These pupils will have been targeted by education welfare and strategies put in place - that obviously have not worked - this I guess is when the fine takes place.
Most of our children with sen don't have a problem getting in on time

three terms in a school year, purplesky? So thirty occourances?

Whatever, its a bad idea. Work with the parents who are late - or, heaven forbid, guarentee that all kids go to the closest school, so there are other children/ parents going in the same direction at the same time, rather than the 4 different (primary) schools that our neighbours try to get kids to.

Traffic is sometimes horrendous. I live rurally and occasionally get stuck behind farm vehicles. Sometimes the car doesn't start or the snow makes it difficult to get along the lanes. Sometimes ex DH takes the kids and is late. Would that count towards my 10 strikes?

I'd say that the time you leave needs to allow for some of these, if they are regular - so that usually you're on time and if it's a good day you're early. So yes, if traffic makes you late more than ten times a term, you're not leaving early enough. If it makes you late once or twice - that's life.

Was supposed to put 6 weeks not 60 days - as I said cocodamol haze!!!
Six weeks of lates is a lot. It is parental responsibility and whilst I know some kids find it difficult they need to be taught that time keeping is important - I get stuck behind herds Of cows, snow etc and adjust travel time accordingly. Allowing lates is setting kids up to a lifetime of not knowing what is important

The OP is late 10 times in a term (13 weeks)

Over three terms that is six weeks of being late - 10 sessions per term

There have been a few teachers here saying about how lateness affects the whole class. Not many mind.

I'm not a teacher. In my DD yr3 class are two persistently late children.
They have now been in school 4 years. Both are higher than average achievers actually. And whilst I can't say for certain that neither has any needs, if they were trying to establish a statement, I would have thought 4 years was long enough.

They are both late 2-3 times a week. Both live within five minute walk of the school. Both mum's do all school runs. Four years. Four years my Dd has had her lesson interrupted pretty much daily by one or the other.

This is what I would like to see tackled. I'm not agreeing with fines. I just want it tackled. My dd has three more years with them in her class.

I haven't said but it does.

Purple there are two sessions per day.

Mrz I know. But I don't get what you mean? If OP is late ten times a term that is the equivalent of two weeks. I am sure people are not late morning and afternoon sessions as most stay in school.

Bad idea. The only times DS has been late to school - and that's less than 10 times a term - is because he has had a meltdown linked to his ASD. The Ed Psych advised us that it was better to take DS in late if that was the case, rather than try to deliver him to school mid-meltdown. Once he's calmed down, he can get there fine and be ready to learn.

Kids with SEN are already many times more likely to be excluded from school than average. I had no idea that this was the case until it happened to DS in reception. We really don't need any more things that penalise kids with additional needs.

No purple it's possible to be late twice in one day (3 times if you count being late at pickup ). Had a child achieve that yesterday and twice last week!!

In secondary it is possible to be late several times a day as the register is taken in each lesson.

I'm all for it. I can't understand why so many are against it.

You know what time school starts. Yes of course there are freak occasions when something goes wrong but the only time in 4 yrs my DD has been late was when younger sibling was sick as we walked out the door and obviously needed changing and comforting. I don't think things like this happen 10 times a school year?

Had 2 hrs sleep last night after hellish night with youngest vomiting but ( thanks to wonderful friends collecting ) eldest was still on time for school today.

This is not trying to be smug I just don't get why people don't think turning up on time is important?

Reading through more of this thread I just want to make it clear for me I am relating to primary school. My children are 5 & 8. I expect this to all come back and bite me in the arse when they're teenagers!

Posted too soon...

I also think that HT discretion should be allowed. There is a big difference between knowing a child has SN which could cause them to be late for whatever reason or there's been a major traffic incident that's affected loads of people and the ones who are late 2-3 times a week.

Legally only two sessions per day are accountable as late. What I was saying mrz was that the majority if pupils in the majority if schools are late once as they stay in school forlunch

Presumably, if this does become more widespread, there'll be an argument to extend an amnesty to children with SEN (if those needs influence getting ready, getting out of the house, wanting to go to school in the first place) - but then that would drive a further wedge between families who have to cope with SEN and families who don't.

I'm very lax and this thread's really shamed me (I'm not the worst offender by far though.). I'm determined to do better. We live pretty close (20 mins walk, 3 mins drive) and I get blasé because of that, frequently driving away at about the time the bell goes.

Doors open at 8.50 and, somewhat miraculously the children are expected to be divested of their coats and lunchboxes and book bags, and ready in their seats at about the same time. Obviously it doesn't happen but there's an expectation that they'll be seated by 8.55, working in their rough books and waiting for register. But the school doesn't help matters by encouraging parents (KS1, this is) into school and then you get them milling round the classroom doors, chatting to one another, going into the classrooms (ok, sometimes to talk to the teacher, but also just to hover by their presciouses). If they were told to drop their children at the school door, it would foster some bloody independence and cut the numbers struggling down the corridor to the small cloakrooms!

Oh, and no, I don't agree with fining. It's a crude and often unfair 'solution' - someone needs to use a bit more creativity to come up with a better solution.

A 6 year old with (sometimes diagnosed) ASD is a very different prospect to a 14 year old with moderate LDs, purplesky.

Primary schools are often full of kids who have left mainstream education by secondary. I've watched my 11yo's MO transform from in the moment rage and sheer unreasonableness (yes, I had him out in the back yard in the frost in vest and pants once, because he angrily refused to get dressed. He sat on the garden bench and quickly got himself dressed after and then actually had a pretty decent day at school - all bar missing PE because this was the subject of his protest and throwing his PE kit back into the house and locking the door on it had made everything less grim for him) to constant MH difficulties (constant low level anger, involuntary tics, self harm) before we got him into a specialist placement. You'll never meet him in your MS secondary. Nor will you meet last minute dirty nappy DS2 because MS primary is great for him socially but MS secondary will be absolutely inappropriate for him. Partly because you probably don't have nappy changing facilities.

"Presumably, if this does become more widespread..."

It's slightly shitty timing, because if you don't want it to become more widespread, the single most important thing you can do is make it an issue in your local elections.

Fines policy is decided by your LEA.

The then government gave them these powers about 12 years ago. They don't have to use them, or not to the or full extent.

(The registration codes, which mark late arrivals as unauthorised have been around for yonks too).

OMG - you need to read other posts properly, if you want to not come across as a smug tit. For some families, such things are not freak occasions. An incontinent child will often need cleaning or changing at inopportune moments. Not everyone has a friend they can just hand a child over to. If DS1's home, ill, then if I can't get him out of the house, the only way I can get him to school is if his 1:1 comes and collects him. I can't hand him over to another random parent (actually, usually grandparent) and ask them to allow him to tag along like I could for them because he needs his hand held the entire time - and he's 9. He tried to run into the road, yesterday, because he was attracted to the wheels on a van. I can't leave it to someone random to pre-empt that behaviour and keep him safe. And that's assuming that he would go with them in the first place. He needs predictable routine. He had a strop, this morning, because I got him out of his twice daily bath before DS1's taxi had collected him. As I mentioned, he refused to leave the house, last week, because DS1 had a later start than him and was still around.

Bad idea. An Ms Ultra you sound like Katie Hopkins. If you have an issue with working with working class children whom you condescendingly deem "low lives" then perhaps you should get a job in a private school, rather than a MS one. I wouldn't want you teaching my child.

I don't think fines are the answer to everything, especially not with regard to school.

I think it risks further alienating those who struggle to fit in with the system, while those who don't, are normally going to be there on time anyway.

People who are regularly late often have a reason for it. It's not just a case of 'Oh sod it we'll turn up when we like' for most people.

Examples I have known personally:

Child with coeliac illness who often needed the toilet before leaving in the morning, and took a long time;

Parent with chronic lateness issues, due to something deep seated and psychologically challenging.

I don't think a fine would address either of those issues particularly effectively.

I should say those are people I knew - not me, in case anyone thinks that.

We are probably late about once a year, for the grace of God, I'm more the chronically early sort, which pisses people off too...