Told I'll get a fine for taking child on holiday in school time

[taytotayto111]

We took our two children aged 5 and 6 out of school for 6 days to attend a family wedding in Spain. That was in May. Today I received a letter from the council saying next time we will get a fine if we do it again and only got away with it this time due to their excellent attendance.
Where does the law stand. Will my husband and I both get charged £120 or is it £120 per child. We are taking them out again for 5 days next year. I thought things were on hold due to the recent court case.
I've left a message asking the man who sent the letter to contact me.

The children that did cause problems were the ones that often had a Friday off because mum couldn't be bothered to get out of bed, who came in smelly or unfed. No fine is going to resolve a situation like that, it will likely make it worse.
I disagree here. It can be really effective. A fine often gives them a kick up the backside. It's s safeguarding issue and fines can be effective.

Dont see why lying would be obvious unless you posted facebook pics everywhere. Its only five days. Who cares? Kids get sick at the same time - more likely even than just one being off. Let them prove you were on holiday first

The school secretarys told me to lie!

Oh piratepete the differences are huge aren't they. I'm so envious. My girls go to a school in a not-leafy area where I expect larger than normal number of kids are not meeting expectations.

I wish they could do an hour of sport a day. And the drama and music is pretty much not there as the mornings are all spent drilling in maths and English towards the tests.

Ihate it.

It's £60 per child per parent per period of absence. Usually only nine sessions or more are fined .

I meant over nine sessions.

Bombardier - it's pretty obvious when it's 5 days. 5 days is quite a while and a lot of schools would require/ask for medical evidence. Plus if they phone and get international dialling time if abroad, do a home visit and no one is in. Or (more commonly) another family or child reports it. Kids can't keep quiet!

I issue these fines and would welcome some kind of system that allowed holidays for excellent attendance but I don't know how it would work, with how schools are judged on attendance.

Well there you go, they might or might not require evidence, it makes no difference if they decide to issue a fine but they might not so nothing to lose really. Our schools dont ask and they wouldnt bother if it was just a week. Home visit ?? Its not the stasi.

It means nothing since you weren't fined this yr & you haven't reported definite plans for future. Are you planning to attend a wedding that requires 6 days off in May 2017? Policies and fines may have changed by then, anyway.

oh nuts, my bad, OP did say 5 days next yr.
Why did you think everything was "on hold" ?
It still means nothing we can figure out for you since every EA has own policy. Ours wouldn't fine if the days were off after 1 June, for instance. some would only fine per period of absence, others would try to fine per session missed. Some would not fine for last than 6 days, etc.

Can you ask other parents at the school? We are taking DD for 2 days due to not being able to get the flights we originally wanted and so I asked around. according to the parents I have spoken to the standard response is a bit of a stiff letter from school, but they don't actually fine you unless you have had more than 10 days off in a year. Might it be worth checking the usual response for your area?

Mov1ngOn - it's such as shame that state schools are so dependent on the whims of the government. When I was quite high up
In education I constantly campaigned for smaller class sizes. My local school has a reception class of 30 with a TA for 2 hours a day. My daughter's school has a class of 18, 1 class teacher, 1 full time Higher Level TA and the school has 2 full time special need teachers who work with any child with a difficulty throughout the week. This is what every child should be entitled to. All that money that is pumped into catch up programs, changes of curriculum, fine nonsense.....if class sizes were smaller and children had a more enjoyable, more rounded educations lot of these problems would melt away and school would have more time to devote to children who had difficult home lives.

Interesting, my DD's school takes 2 or 3 high need local children for free every year. Some of them are in care, others have a parent with a severe or terminal illness. Every one of those children in the last 3 years have gained free scholarship places to local independent secondary schools. And that's children from the worst circumstances, having 20 weeks holiday a year. So it's a massive issue about which children do well at school, you can't reduce it down to being fined for taking a holiday.

Yup. I'm a (secondary) teacher and fully agree with you. If i could buy that environment for my girls I would. I used to be anti-private schools but I can so see the difference to a rounded education. We flitted with homeschooling but can't afford that either and eldest loves school. I'm just hoping to provide extras and museum trios etc.

We took DS out at (oh the horror!) the beginning of the new school year last Sept for 7 school days. This was unauthorised (despite mitigating circs but hey ho) and we received a letter from LA saying if it went over 10days we may be fined £60. Just had his school report and his overall attendance including the absence was 96%.

He'll also miss the last two days of school week after next, also unauthorised so maybe they'll fine us. No problem, we'll pay. I'm especially not bothered given that last week, they (yr4) spent two mornings watching films.

My children take part in professional productions. When my children first participated the school authorised their absences. The head changed, and refused to authorise any absences, I took my children out un authorised, but it was never for a solid block of time, usually half days, some full days. Last year my daughter managed 95.9% attendance despite a 6 week pantomime run (partly in the Christmas holidays).

We haven't been fined, but our head is changing again. I wonder how the new one will view performances?