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?

The government can't policy holiday companies, they are businesses

They can however try and limit the disruption to teachers and other pupils in classes

I still think fines are not the answer. Not sure what is though.

School holiday dates could be staggered by area, but that is never going to happen even for summer holidays or half terms, as too many things are planned around the current dates (and no-one would want their school summer holidays to end in the last week of July).

There could be ways of making it less attractive at least for package holidays, the simplest being laws about reduced rates for children, or differential air passenger duty for flights solely used by package holiday companies.

The draconian one would be to ban children from travelling abroad at all at certain times, or having a visa regime of sorts in place. I cannot imagine even if a law was passed, it would get past the courts.

I have never known anyone to be fined at our primary ( my kids went there and now my GC do) all my GDs friends have had 2, 3 and 4 weeks absences….head just says…enjoy and don’t have any more time off this year…..the rest of the year they are on time and in school….I took my own ( 32 and 30 and 25) to Australia 3 times during their school years and never got a fine ( it was 50quid then so not really gone up much since) ….I couldn’t imagine many heads being arsed about fining for less than 2 weeks

I suspect if one of the major political parties offered a retail policy in the GE to revert to a version of the old term time system, allowing 2 weeks out in term at HT's discretion (if pupil has a good attendance record), it would be a massive vote winner. Family time is important and not everyone can afford to go away in the summer peak. It's about fairness and opening access to families irrespective of their wealth. If you don't agree, you don't have to take your kids out during term time.

I think to make any kind of real difference they'd need to double the fines.

But if parents can't afford to go on holiday in the school holidays, they should save for maybe another year or however long it takes until they actually can afford it.

I still think fines are not the answer. Not sure what is though
Same here.

In my experience the students who most need to be in school are the ones who are most likely to have lower attendance and most likely to have term time holidays.

I think headteachers should be able to approve up to 5 days term time holiday per child in set weeks either side of a school holiday as long as the child's attendance is otherwise good, with some mitigating measures for those with long term illnesses and disabilities so they're not discriminated against. It would give parents some flexibility and teachers would know some absence might happen. Parents would also have to sign to state they understand that the school have no obligation to provide catch up material or additional intervention to compensate from the absence.

It’s completely missing the point. But not for that reason. Attendance is a big issue. Lots of kids are missing lots of school and their learning is suffering. But these are generally not the same kids whose parents are taking them off to Disney land in term
time. The kids who are suffering are kids with poor mental health who are refusing school, or kids with neglectful parents who can’t be bothered to get them up and into school. Or teens who have fallen in with the wrong crowd and are truanting school. Kids who are caught up in county lines/CSE etc etc and are missing school and who are leaving school with no qualifications.

Kids missing a week to take a family holiday aren’t going to have any lasting educational issues. And the fine seems unfair. Families should be able to decide for themselves selves when to take a holiday. I think most of us would agree that a holiday is a good thing for a family. Rest, relaxation, time together, new experiences.

Not all holidays are equal.

Take a stage 2 kid out of school and take them to a beach in Spain for a week or take a stage 2 kid of school for two days and go a bunch of things in Rome related to the Romans or other cultural history and you have a kid who has knowledge of geography and history and Italian and culture generally which they can share with the class in some way.

School took DS class to Chester on a school trip to learn about the Romans.

The issue is you can't find for one but not the other because of it being seen as snobbery/unfair and because people would game the system.

Wowsers I’m shocked at how many people are in favour of school term fines! We don’t have them where I am from. Where I am from high absence levels in schools are rarely down to holidays, more so down to socioeconomic circumstances. Find it really strange that parents think this is an affective measure.

“The draconian one would be to ban children from travelling abroad at all at certain times, or having a visa regime of sorts in place. I cannot imagine even if a law was passed, it would get past the courts.”

Yikes! 🫣

Take a stage 2 kid out of school and take them to a beach in Spain for a week or take a stage 2 kid of school for two days and go a bunch of things in Rome related to the Romans or other cultural history and you have a kid who has knowledge of geography and history and Italian and culture generally which they can share with the class in some way.

But both kids will have missed two Marhs lessons in a sequential series of lessons where gaps matter. Both are a pain in the fucking arse to catch up. That’s just how one part of the overloaded primary curriculum works.

this ^

Term time holidays are fine, days off school are fine
the research does not show a couple of days missed is going to cause them to be life long failures. It shows children in the sorts of homes where no one cares about their education, or who are missing because of MH etc and who consistently miss school, do worse. That is very different than cultural experiences or even just positive family time.
its just another excuse to fine people and to pretend they’re doing something and for right wing people and people who want to pretend they’re not right wing, to bleat on about how holidays are luxuries poor people don’t deserve if they can’t pay a premium for them. Rich people can afford an extra £60 or £80 no problem.

if a day off was so bad, they’d be in school longer through the year, strikes would be banned or resolved quickly, teachers would be paid better and inset days, or nonsense days when they’re just watching movies or whatever near Christmas would all be banned too. Interesting the only thing the government has issue with though is the thing that they can charge people for and the rich people who own holiday companies can make more money on.

You've got your priorities wrong in life. Why is the assumption made that a child has fallen terrible behind in 5 days? It's an odd take.

This with bells on.

I think you are missing the point: holiday companies are REDUCING the price off peak (to fill the spaces) so one can have a cheap holiday and not pay the full rate when one no longer has kids in school.

I have just booked to go away snowboarding to France for the beginning of January, it cost £330.00 per person. If we went in Feb half term the cheapest week in France with the same company is £1,151 per person. Five of us are going so that is a saving of £4,105 in total. An £80.00 fine is not going to be a deterrent to us taking them out of school!

That’s just how one part of the overloaded primary curriculum works.
Perhaps we should look into why schools are so chronically underfunded and overloaded then, rather than just making it difficult for less well off families to have (according to significant academic research) important cultural experiences that will also benefit the children.

It isn’t an assumption, it’s a fact observed having taught for 30 years and counting. And it’s more a reflection on the overloaded curriculum than anything else. If your child missed multiplying fractions during those two days, then they’ve missed it and are therefore behind.

You had me nodding in agreement until the last ten words, which are just ridiculous. I can’t think of a single term time holiday which any family has taken in, say, the last five years which would fit that lofty description!

Except refer to the point about mixed evidence of it being a problem at key stage 2 if you read the above link.

And add in that kid who goes to Rome is working beyond in maths already, then what?

I don't necessarily this it is as simple as holiday=bad. There's going to be kids who a) are doing well enough at school that it really isn't an issue for them b) come from a home background where holidays are effectively educational and parents are actively coaching them on English and Maths anyway.

A huge amount of kids in Trafford for example, do extra tuition just to pass the 11+ and this is usually the difference between achieving that and not achieving it. What they do in school isnt the end of their education.

It ultimately then comes down to socio-economics being a factor up to the end of key stage two and then it becomes a problem.

The whole fine thing is ridiculous. The children whose education is suffering because they are missing school are not the children who miss a week at the end of term for a family holiday.
The children who are really being failed are the ones who are struggling with mental health issues which make school such a big challenge, and the ones whose parents don’t prioritise learning. I’d go as far to say that missing the odd day or even a week of learning is not going to impact on children who are already performing at least expected levels.
What I do find shocking is the parents who for one reason or another can’t get their children into school( and I know how difficult it can be) but then don’t bother to make sure they are still learning at home. IME these are the children who haven’t learned their tables or standard spellings, who are not reading when they are at home, and whose education is being neglected long term.
I support the right to home school, to give the children the opportunity to follow their own interests, but it’s not OK to fail to educate the child at home and fail to get them to school.
Even so, those parents need support, not financial penalties. I just don’t see how fines improve the attendance of the children who are most in need.

They'd better off being sensible about attendance. Give permission for absence to families with otherwise good attendance. And/or have different term times for different areas.

@Jessie3 I think this argument is always going to be sour grapes. You should know better so you've taught for 30 years and you are saying a 5 day holiday is really adding to children's future career? Well all the kids are thriving still after covid.... some kids are smarter than others not all people have the same skills and abilities. If your kid is falling behind so much after 5 days they surely must of been behind and struggling already.

I won't argue about it tbh because I will continue to take my boy out of school regardless.

Exactly