Fine for unauthorised absence

[Bluesunflower89]

Hi,
I put in a request to take my children out of school for half a day as I have booked a holiday and we fly out the last day of term so my kids would only need half the day off which is only 2hours absence. I received a letter to state it has been declined and if I take my kids out then they will request to issue me with a penalty notice. What should I do, for the sake of 2 hours will they really fine me? My kids have amazing attendance.

It's not 10 sessions anymore, that changed in August last year. Now each council decides how many sessions is needed before they fine, it can be as little as one. At 10 sessions a fine has to be issued, but there is no minimum number of sessions for a fine.

Ours still do the 5 days, I know previously parents used to get away with multiple 3-4 day absences as it didn’t seem to trigger it however now if we try and get an authorised absence for 3 days and then a subsequent 3 day one later on in the same year a fine would be issued, even though it’s not 5 days consecutively.

I agree, but I also think a judge would consider getting fined for leaving school 2 hours early ridiculous.

This I would have absolutely fought. The last thing your dd and her family needed was a fine at a time of grief.

I know our old HT would mark this down as unauthorised as per the schools blanket policy, but would “accidentally” forget to file the paperwork with the LA in time to issue the fine. She did this with a friend of mine but asked her not to tell other parents.

Stop trying to make excuses and Pay it! Unauthorised absences lead to a fine regardless of how long the absence is!

To all the people supporting schools / councils for fining parents taking their kids out of school… and also to those who say “those are the rules pay up”:

Go crawl back under your rocks and stop bashing hard working parents for wanting a friggin holiday that’s affordable!! You are sooooo ignorant

What time do they do register? Once they are ticked in then they are classed as present.
I do this with my kid for his orthodontist as the secretary at his secondary is really mean and thinks she has power.

he registers in the morning and then I take him to orthodontist. This also means others can get the 8-9 early slots if they are working. I work but have flexi time

the drama he had arriving at school with all the kids that were late and getting detentions at 9:05am was ridiculous and I hadn’t even left the car park when he was calling me in tears as they were giving him a detention. My kid has never even had a behaviour point!
i had to return and politely ask them to get out their attendance policy and tell them what code it needed to be and I asked them to pull up the email I sent or I would be doing a full
subject access request.

you won’t get a fine so long as you don’t hit the absence limit within the time period.

don’t worry about it

the amount of kids that disappear after lunch registration on a Friday before a bank holiday weekend is insane. Never known the dentist to be so busy. I used to be a teacher 😜 I could see them all walk past and see their cars all packed up with holiday gear 😜

how much is the fine anyway?

I think it’s £80 per parent that has parental responsibility, so if I got fined my husband would get fined the same amount.

I am at the moment appealing against a fine from the council... I let my daughter go on holiday with her grandparents as a little bit of rest bite and normality for her ... As a family me and my children have been under a lot of stress caused by the authority who say every child must attend school on a regular basis but do not practice what they preach..my daughter has an attendance of over 90 percent only having time off when she's unwell.. yet my son has been left at home since march of this year when his placement ended at his school..my son has ADHD/autism/dyslexia and struggles with mainstream school he has an ehcp which the school are funded for but my son has no placement has had no work sent home and has no welfare check nor any communication from send or his school where and how is his funding being spent... I have been InTouch with my local MP explaining our situation and how my son has been let down so much I raised my concerns when he was in year four now he is ment to be starting to prepare for exams we waited and fought 8/9 years for appointments and for his diagnosis ... The government and local authorities are nothing but hypocrits.

The problem with that is the schools have discretion what to make an absense with. If they decide an ill child should be in they can mark it unauthorised.

My DS was off school to go to an emergency Dr apt after trying to hang himself because his bully pulled a knife in him in the classroom the previous day.

The school marked him as unauthorised because as the child had been excluded for 2 days there was no reason for him to be off anxious.

He never went back to that school as that (confirmed) told me all I needed to know about them.

just leave them in for registration and then collect them.

You should have started your own thread. As you have seen, posters may answer the OP, not realising that was months ago.

If the school is not complying with your son's EHCP, you need to take that up with the council. They are responsible for making sure the school complies with the EHCP.

The government has set the level of unauthorised absence at which they expect fines to be issued. Allowing your daughter to go on holiday with her grandparents was always likely to be an unauthorised absence. If the holiday meant she had 5 days or more absence in a 10-week period, the school was required to consider fining you. Once a fixed penalty notice is issued, there is currently no right to appeal. However, the council can withdraw the penalty in some circumstances. In essence, it is only likely they will withdraw the penalty if they believe your daughter's absence should have been authorised.