Holiday fines for taking kids out of school, is the government missing the point?

[Supersares]

With the government announcing today they’re increasing the fine from £60 to £80 per parent, does anyone else think the government is missing the point here? I assume that the reason most parents have holidays during term time is to avoid the extortionate cost of going during the 6 week summer break. Wouldn’t it be better to clamp down on holiday companies hiking their charges instead… or am I missing something?

Yeah but parents with kids in private school are already paying around £100 a day for the privilege, which they won’t get back, so in effect they are being fined too 🙄

Let’s also remember that this government forcibly closed the schools for a long time to appease public fear and panic (which they stirred up), and prioritised reopening pubs over schools. “Schools are safe” said Boris Johnson, the same day that he closed them.

Jesus a child missing a few days once a year isn't going to kill them if the teachers are that worried about it they can cancel all these "training days" they keep having

It doesnt. It's per parent per child for absences of over 10 sessions. It's not per day or half day on any of England or wales, not sure about Scotland but I don't think they fine at all.

Holiday companies do not “put prices up” in school holidays. They sell a seasonal product and charge what they need to charge to make a profit over the course of the year.

If they were forced to price the same all year round, they would make a loss if they charged the current “off peak” pricing every week. They would be much more likely to charge the current peak pricing every week and accept lower than current occupancy in off peak weeks, but still maintain full occupancy in peak weeks.

That’s a different response to @prh47bridge

Jesus a child missing a few days once a year isn't going to kill them if the teachers are that worried about it they can cancel all these "training days" they keep having

Bingo! Mumsnet would be so boring without the terminally ignorant.

Only if you think it would be OK for them to force you to sell anything for less than the best price you can get for it.

The authority to issue penalty notices has been around since 2004 and is in the Education Act.

The relevant Statutory Instrument

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2024/210/made

(3) Where no penalty notice has been issued to the parent under section 444A(1) of the 1996 Act in respect of the same child in the preceding three-year period, the amount of the penalty is—

(a)£80, where the amount is paid within the period of 21 days beginning with the date on which the notice is received;

(b)£160, where sub-paragraph (a) does not apply.
(4) Where a penalty notice has been issued to the parent under section 444A(1) of the 1996 Act in respect of the same child in the preceding three-year period, the amount of the penalty is £160. (5) “Preceding three-year period” means the period of three years ending with the date on which the penalty notice is issued.

So if you've already been fined once in the last three years, it's doubled. And

An authorised staff member who becomes aware that a relevant entry of absence has been recorded in a school’s attendance register in respect of 10 sessions in any given period of 10 consecutive school weeks in respect of a child

So it doesn't have to be all in one go - or even one term.

This is wrong.

A session is half a day. LAs can fine for any unauthorised absence of a single session. However, each LA has to set its own code of practice that determines when parents will be fined. Whilst there is at least one LA that fines for any unauthorised absence, most will only fine when absences go over a certain threshold. For some LAs that is 5 days/10 sessions in a single term, but many LA set different thresholds. Most LAs will issue one fine per day, even though the legislation allows fines per half day. Most LAs (probably all) have a limit as to how often a parent can be fined. If a parent goes past this limit, they risk prosecution.

Scotland does not have fines. Instead, parents taking their children out of school may receive an Attendance Order. Non-compliance can lead to the parent being taken to court and facing a fine of up to £1,000 and/or jail time.

Training days were originally taken out of the school holidays, which used to be one week longer. And how would not training teachers help you to have a holiday?!

I’m absolutely fine with holidays in term time - as long as teachers can have them too. That alright with you? 😉

The new regulations to which you link don't come into force until 19th August. The position today is as I have described.

The SI's been updated to have 2 maximum fines in three years before prosecution (as they're an alternative to prosecution);

12A.—(1) An authorised officer may not issue a penalty notice to a parent under section 444A(1) of the 1996 Act in respect of a child where two penalty notices have been issued to the parent under that section in respect of the child in the preceding three-year period.

I know - but people are talking about the new penalty amounts/new legislation.

I thought it would help.

There are 5 INSET days per year. They come out of teachers' holiday. Pupils still get 190 days (380 sessions) teaching per year, the same as before INSET days were introduced.

Whilst a few days once a year isn't going to kill a child, it will affect their educational outcome. The evidence on that is clear, however much you may wish to deny it. What is worse, by taking a child out of school in the year you are not just disrupting your own child's education. You are disrupting the education of every child in the class, because the teacher is now going to have to try and help your child catch up with the education they have missed.

Even under the new regulations, the LA still has to set a code of conduct setting out the circumstances under which parents can be fined.

The fact that the new regulations require schools to consider fining parents when the child misses 10 sessions in a period of 10 weeks does not prevent them from issuing fines for less absence than this. It simply places an upper limit for absence beyond which the parents really should be fined in most circumstances. It will therefore still be open to LAs to fine for less than 10 sessions absence if they wish.

Where the changes will have an effect is in limiting the number of fines parents can receive. This is a significant tightening of the regime, with an expectation that, if a parent continues to take their child out of school for unauthorised absence after receiving two fines within 3 years, they will be given an Attendance Order or taken to court.

I work in a school where most kids and their families can only dream of going on holiday -anywhere, ever.
If going in term time made it possible for a family to have the experience of Saturday-Wednesday in a caravan in Poole, I'd wholeheartedly support this.
It would be so good if families could have 2 or 3 'grace' days in a year which could be tacked onto weekends or holidays in order to enable them to get away at a reasonable cost. I kind of want to say children on pupil premium, but many would find that discriminatory.

https://uk.style.yahoo.com/science-behind-taking-children-term-time-holiday-151510359.html#:~:text=However%2C%20contradictory%20research%20by%20the,actually%20affect%20performance%20adversely%20instead.

That is a single study by a physicist, not an expert in the field. There are numerous studies by actual experts that show that absence does negatively impact educational outcomes.

Yahoo 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Thanks for the laugh!

https://fullfact.org/education/mixed-evidence-link-between-term-time-holidays-and-attainment/

Jesus a child missing a few days once a year isn't going to kill them if the teachers are that worried about it they can cancel all these "training days" they keep having
Students have 190 days of term time.
Teachers have 190 days of term time + 5 days for inset.

Students aren't losing lesson time for teacher training days.

This always comes up on a thread about term time holidays. It's like bingo.

This isn't what I thought the main post of your post was about OP. A £60 fine increasing to £80 isn't much of a detterant is it? Quite clearly the gov aren't actually that bothered if they was we would certainly know about it. DS will be missing 3 days of school this year as I paid the maximum I could afford. I may also pull him out again later in the year if I can't find an October deal we will see!

Perhaps when people start finding out that they're not getting a fixed penalty this year but a court summons and a criminal record in exchange for a cheaper week at Centerparcs, they might begin to feel differently.

This meaningless nonsense always gets trotted out by the hard of thinking.

When did anyone ever say that missing education was a matter of life or death?

my DD took her 2 girls to Australia for 6 weeks…it would only have been 60 quid ….she wasn’t fined tho….just got an email asking her not to book any more term time hols this year….£80 wouldn’t have stopped her …..it would have to be around £1000 fine to make any difference …..because that’s what people save ( and more) by holidaying term time