£60 fine for illness- unauthorised - advice please

[Luckz66]

Hi all, desperately seeking advice please!
On 18/3/19 I kept my son off school for the week as he had a terrible sore throat and cough.
I called in the school everyday and gave them updates on him.
However, today I received a letter from the education authority stating I am being fined £60 for that week as the absences are unauthorised.
The letter didn’t even go to the correct address as the school somehow has my address wrong on the system and the guy from down the road has brought it up to myself.
Also, I have had one for my sons dad (we are not together) sent to the wrong address also.
I know that if he gets fined too will cause issues as he’s going to go mad at me for keeping him off school for what looks unauthorised but I only did it because he was ill.
Totally confused on what to do now!
Help please!

What do you want to do, OP?

If you don't pay the fine, then it will increase to 120 pounds, and if you don't pay that, then it will likely go to court. If it goes to court, your Ex will have to get involved.

It may be worth just paying both fines and being done with it. However, that isn't very fair.

You have three weeks to decide though. I'd fight tooth and nail and complain to anyone who'll listen during that time and see where it gets you.

Unfortunately, there is no right to appeal these fines, but they can reverse the decision to fine, if it is deemed that it was issued wrongly, as it has.

OP - is this the same school you work in?

You really need to see a copy of the attendance record/register to make sure it's accurate. There could just be a mistake?
Until you see that, you have no idea upon what they are basing the absences.

Thing is you need proof of illness, even if it's a doctor's appointment. You can't just keep them off for a week

No you don't.

OP , tell them you aren't paying and they can take you to court.

As a teacher you should be able to find out all the necessary information from the school you work in.

My niece is in secondary school. She has health issues including kidney issues and diabetes so has had time off for being ill and hospital appointments. She then got this awful hacking cough which they actually sent her home for after a mock exam for disturbing the others and marked that as unauthorised absence! She was tested and was found to have whooping cough and tonsillitis at the same time and is being tested for glandular fever. The poor girl can't get much sicker but only now she has the doctors letter with the test results will they change the unauthorised absences to authorised. I know they are under pressure but to behave in this way is not acceptable.

Have you spoken to the school? Sounds like it was sent in error

Contact the head of governors? MP? LEA? Have you asked them what they DO consider suitable proof? Where I am, I can't even GET a GP appointment anytime in the next month except for emergency, so what are people supposed to do?

Yes, ask them for a printout from their attendance software system - it shows all the attendances, late's, unauthorised absences, sickness absences etc - you need to check against every single one in the two period of sickness absence so that you know precisely which ones and how many they have gotten wrong and thus you can specifically state them. Make all requests in writing and traceable as to delivery/receipt
but the receptionist should be able to print that off for you.

I endlessly get letters about my DDs attendance level should it drop below the 90%. I TOTALLY agree that attendance has to be at a certain level for children to make the required progression - that's a no brainer. But every. single. one. of those absences is (by their own records) is a notified sickness absence. DD is a trouper - if she has an excruciatingly painful period/ovulation (I think she's probably got endo or a cyst or something that may soon need further investigation) or she's otherwise too ill to go into school then she doesn't go, but similarly, she went in the other day pilled up on mefenamic acid tablets and in a lot of pain and did a whole day of physical activities and two displays until 9pm. She's not a shirker and I have written back to them before and said, what exactly is it that you want me to do?! If she can drag herself in, she does, but if she's doubled over in pain and bearing in mind she does subjects which are very physical, then she can't come in can she! The 'solution' to sorting this problem out would mean her potentially off school for a good two weeks or so following exploratory/reparative surgery.

OP get all the statistics and evidence from them, don't pay the fine, fight it - it's a point of principal that would give me the rage so I share your feelings on that.

Surely it’s some sort of data breach if the school are sending letters to the wrong addresses containing your son’s details? I’d want to take that up with them.

I'd write back something along the lines of:

"I believe this fine is an administrative mistake on your part and a medical absence has been misrecorded. As you know, Government guidance recommends that schools should authorise medical absences unless they have reasons to doubt that they are genuine. Do you have any reason to doubt that this was medical? I have already shown you some evidence of the medical attention I sought while my son was unwell."

tbh it is kind of unusual that both illnesses this one and the one earlier in the year happened to last a full week Monday to Friday. But feeling a bit suspicious of a convenient Monday to Friday illness isn't a reason to doubt by itself. Unless your son returned to school after the illness with more tanned skin than when he was last there, or has mentioned to a classmate a recently-acquired ability to ski within the hearing of a teacher.

You're being fined because your child has more than 10 sessions of unauthorised absence out of 100 sessions. You may have told the school your child was ill but they decide if the absence is unauthorised or not. However, I would expect that a parent would be previously warned that any future absences would be unauthorised unless evidence (a gp note) was received. This would only be necessary if a child's absence had previously been cause for concern and the child classed as a PA (persistent absence) pupil. With regards to the fine you're taking a risk and may end up paying a lot more if you go to court.

Is it two fines? Or one fine but sent to both parents and only one has to pay? I don't see why parents who are separated should get a fine each.

Rainbow, both parents get fined even if seperated or divorced. Those are the rules.
Op have you actually asked the school what the absence was recorded as, sickness or unauthorised absence? As I still think they have recorded it incorrectly.

No you don't

Yes, you do need to prove that your child is ill if you are keeping them off school. If your child's attendance record is otherwise good the school is unlikely to question sickness absence. But if they do, it is up to you to prove that the absence was due to sickness.

And, as HollowVictory says, the law allows both parents to be fined. In some cases this leads to parents being fined despite having no contact with the child in question following divorce or separation. LAs vary in their approach. Some always fine both parents, some will only fine the parent with whom the child lives.

The OP confirmed that she had called the school ad it isn't a mistake

I’ve called the school and spoke to the Head who has not retracted the fine.
I asked why my ex would have one and she said because he has parental responsibilities as he’s on the birth certificate and there was no child protection issues etc to why he shouldn’t, even though his fine also got sent to my address and not his!

I would contact his Dad by email and clearly explain the situation and say you are going to make a complaint. Fight it all the way, other parents will support you as noone wants some kind of draconian regime where you can't keep your 6 year old off sick without legal evidence.

Given there is a presumption of innocence unless proven guilty in this country, let them take you to court!

You have evidence that your son was ill. For a fee I'm sure the GP can write a letter confirming this. The school, on the other hand, has zero evidence that you kept him off school unlawfully (no photos on FB of you on the beach in Crete, you weren't spotted by staff or seen on TV at a concert or sports event...) So how they propose to prove beyond reasonable doubt that your son wasn't ill, when a GP said he was, is beyond me!

I would take it to court as a point of principle, stressful as it is. Seek legal advice. And when you win, ask for all your costs to be reimbursed.

Go to court if they won't cancel it. Do you have Google review (iPhone do something similar) which tracks where you are. After years of 100% attendance my youngest has had what adds up to four whole weeks off this school year. I said I would go to court,but the Lea asked for proof in advance. I showed the previous years attendance and my Google time like which showed where my phone was in the weeks he was off. I also printed off bank statements to show that I was still shopping in my local town.

And I'm not a weak parent who keeps children off for sniffles he was just unlucky that as he was recovering from one nasty bug he picked up something else. Maybe if I'd kept him home until 100% better in the first illness he wouldn't have caught everything else.

Also ask about the data breach, schools have a duty to have upto date records of where you live.

@prh47bridge
But it very obviously shouldn't be unauthorised! The school have to authorise absence for sickness - they have no choice. OP has a GP appointment an a prescription. That is more than enough proof that a child is ill. There are plenty of illnesses which last a week and don't require any input from a GP and I would refuse to waste the GP's time with them. Therefore it would be impossible to prove the child was really sick. Your post is so ridiculous I can't believe you even wrote it.

Some of the comments on this thread are so quite frankly ridiculous people need to take a long hard think. Unless there are reasons to suspect otherwise a parent can decide when their child is too sick for school. This is plain common sense. You don't take a sick child into school so they can infect everyone else and be sent home again anyway that's plain stupid. You also don't waste a GP appointment on a child who doesn't require medical attention. That would also be stupid. The school can't just decide to fine someone for no reason and set up an unattainable standard of proof that's absurd.

I'm all for working with families with a history of poor attendance but a week of school with a bug is just the kind of things that happens - sometimes it'll happen even a few times in a year. The school can't object to that.

Call their bluff. I fail to see how they are going to prove he wasn’t sick. It would be different if he was having a couple of days off here there and everywhere, that would look suspicious and the court might side with the school then. But in your case with two very clear separate bouts of illness that you can explain I suspect you would win.

It’s not people like you that they should be pursuing. And to me this proves that it’s not about attendance, it’s about box ticking and money making.

Wow what a load of mindless bureaucrats we have in this country.

School HAS to authorise absence for sickness and you don't have to prove it in court. I would absolutely go to court to stop the school pursuing this bullying behaviour in future. I would also make a formal complaint and keep pursuing it as long as I could.

Anyway who thinks this is reasonable behaviour on the part of the school is clearly an idiot. The child saw a GP who said he was ill. This is actually above and beyond what is necessary. If your child had a tummy bug for a few days and was off school you wouldn't take them to see the GP but you'd keep them off school. What does the school actually suggest you can possibly do to prove sickness?

You're being fined because your child has more than 10 sessions of unauthorised absence out of 100 sessions.

I don't understand why, if the op has phoned every day to let them know he is still I'll, it would be recorded as unauthorized. Surely the school should be querying it before slapping on a fine. In fact surely, if they require proof, they should ask for this whilst the child is off sick, otherwise how can you prove it (especially if you haven't taken child to dr)

Obviously you take it to court - the school don't stand a chance. I'd also be doing a sad face picture in the local paper to shame the school - they've behaved terribly. The parent-school relationship is very important. Imagine a hard up family who kept their child off school sick being issued a fine out of the blue for literally no reason. This would be panic inducing.

I think you need to ask them why they refused a sick child authorised absence. They aren't allowed to mark it as unauthorised when they were sick. They have to prove he wasn't sick. You can easily prove he was.

@prh47bridge

Firstly OP can prove the child was sick because she has a GP appointment and prescription. Secondly you often can't prove a child is sick (apart from by wasting a GP appointment and my surgery would refuse to see you unless there was a medical need) and you shouldn't have to. The school are clearly being outrageous and don't stand a chance of proving the fine is justified.