What's the difference between "explained absence" and "authorised absence"?

[purpleroses]

I have arranged a private French exchange for DS (14). The school don't do any language trips or exchanges and when I spoke to them informally about it, they were encouraging. It will involve him missing the last 5 days of term, as these were the only dates that suited the French family. I have applied for authorised absence, explaining the educations value of the trip. Today I've received a reply saying "The school is unable to authorise the absence, however will register the absence as an explained absence on this one occasion".

It then goes on to say how unauthorised absence is bad and you can get a penalty notice if you take a "significant amount".

So if the absence hasn't been authorised, then what does it being "explained" mean?

Following with total interest

my friend took her dd(9) to eurodisney for a dance comp.the school ht said she recognised the educational opportunity but couldnt officially aurthorise it but wouldnt take it further( i.e fine).basically its a one off & they dont encourage time off @ all but made an exception in this case.

So you think they're saying it will go down as unauthorised, but they won't fine me? I wish they could have spelt it out a bit clearer!

Surely every holiday request they turn down is in a sense "explained" - ie if the holiday happens anyway they'd know that was where the child was, rather than assume they were truanting wouldn't they?

My DD1 is going to a summer school at a conservatoire in the last week of term. School have authorised the absence. In fact they are delighted she is doing this. She will be 16 though and is doing music at A level and hopefully will go on to study it at conservatoire or university so that might have influenced them.

With our school, this means that they accept the explanation. They will not authorise it, but they accept it. They then do not forward it to the LEA who are responsible for deciding on whether or not to fine the parent.

So I would imagine in your case, that this is the same, that it is recorded as unauthorised, but they won't forward it to LEA, so no further action will be taken. disclaimer, I could be wrong.

The computer systems used in schools have a series of codes, decided by the Department of Education, for different types of absence, authorised and unauthorised from the school.
There is nothing that covers the situation you describe, so the school have come up with this explained absence comment, which does not appear to exist on the department information.
In effect the school accept that the absence is for a good reason and are not going to make a fuss about it.

My dc's (SN) school used to mark the afternoons where we'd take her out for sessions at conductive ed as explained absence. And told me it was nothing to be concerned about

Our local authority codes these absences as 'C' other circumstances. It means they are authorised but not the usual illness, medical appointments etc. In the past they would have been coded 'H' authorised holiday, but this doesn't exist any longer.