Term time absence

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
tenor.gif
 

zebidee

Well-Known Forumite
Many people think the fine is a flat £60. Im led to believe its infact £60 per child, per day, per parent. So 2 days for 2 kids is 2x £120 = £240!


That sucks indeed.

Edit: Tried to clever quote and failed here, but, again: they get to make the rules
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Do we deny our daughters and ourselves of this experience or do we risk irreparably harming their education because they missed a day of learning naff all?
Unfortunate illness.

Everyone affected.

Call it in.

These things happen.
 

Cue

Well-Known Forumite
When I was in primary school my parents were able to take me out for holiday in term time. Everything is a lot stricter now though, and school leaderships have absolute power trips these days about the most benign of things. Realistically the rules are meant to be there for those yobs who would abuse it constantly, but they get applied to anyone - a fair few of my days at school were absolutely worthless even in secondary school, imagine a day of PE, French (non-GCSE), etc and you’ve got a good idea of what I mean. Could have sat at home and done something more productive.

Pull a sicky, if anyone asks she went on Saturday. You’ll benefit from going on Friday anyway as it won’t be rammed. We always go to EGX on the Thursday and it’s dead compared to the weekends.
 

Bob

Well-Known Forumite
So the joke that is the school system continues!

School are going on a trip to the seaside, all the kids from ages 4 to 9 piled onto a coach with the minimum levels of supervision legally allowed.

I don't feel comfortable packing my kids off on a 200 mile round trip where they will spend more time on the coach than they will off it, so have declined to send them, but stupidly promised the kids we would do something else instead - now the entire school are going with the exception of just a couple of other kids who have opted out, I said we'd go for a picnic to a national trust property if the weathers good.


Oh no though, I've been told in no uncertain terms that I WILL be fined and my kids need to come to school in uniform to be 'educated as normal'

Where's the harm in missing that day of lessons when the rest of the school are at the beach?

And why can't my kids miss a day of school to go to the seaside at my discretion?

Extremely flawed system, completely lacking in logic and any common sense!
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Your kids were sick that day weren't they? I saw you, I remember them being sick ;)

Love to see them drag you through the courts when the other kids weren't there either!
 

Cue

Well-Known Forumite
So the joke that is the school system continues!

School are going on a trip to the seaside, all the kids from ages 4 to 9 piled onto a coach with the minimum levels of supervision legally allowed.

I don't feel comfortable packing my kids off on a 200 mile round trip where they will spend more time on the coach than they will off it, so have declined to send them, but stupidly promised the kids we would do something else instead - now the entire school are going with the exception of just a couple of other kids who have opted out, I said we'd go for a picnic to a national trust property if the weathers good.


Oh no though, I've been told in no uncertain terms that I WILL be fined and my kids need to come to school in uniform to be 'educated as normal'

Where's the harm in missing that day of lessons when the rest of the school are at the beach?

And why can't my kids miss a day of school to go to the seaside at my discretion?

Extremely flawed system, completely lacking in logic and any common sense!

Sorry to hear about the family illness, that can only be cured by being surrounded by pollen.

They'd be watching films anyway.
 

Mikinton

Well-Known Forumite
So the joke that is the school system continues!

School are going on a trip to the seaside, all the kids from ages 4 to 9 piled onto a coach with the minimum levels of supervision legally allowed.

I don't feel comfortable packing my kids off on a 200 mile round trip where they will spend more time on the coach than they will off it, so have declined to send them, but stupidly promised the kids we would do something else instead - now the entire school are going with the exception of just a couple of other kids who have opted out, I said we'd go for a picnic to a national trust property if the weathers good.


Oh no though, I've been told in no uncertain terms that I WILL be fined and my kids need to come to school in uniform to be 'educated as normal'

Where's the harm in missing that day of lessons when the rest of the school are at the beach?

And why can't my kids miss a day of school to go to the seaside at my discretion?

Extremely flawed system, completely lacking in logic and any common sense!
I think that's harsh and that the school should use its discretion (assuming it's able to do so).

I'm normally in favour of schools fining parents who take their kids out of school as the teachers (and maybe even the parents) will normally want to put in the extra effort to bring those kids back up to speed*. But as it clearly doesn't apply in this case, as I say, the school should use its discretion.

* - Take maths for example - say in order to do D, you'll have had to have learned how to do A, B and C first. If you were around for A but your parents took you to Disneyworld while the other two modules were being taught, your teacher may still be expected to teach you B and C.
 
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Alee

Well-Known Forumite
If child vomits then you have to keep them off school for at least 48 hrs from last episode....
If you don’t want to lie to school just let kids eat a ton of junk food and let them on trampoline for half hour Lol
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I really don't see what all the fuss is about. As with most things in life, it's really not that difficult to achieve with a bit of discretion and common sense.
Expressing a preference for discretion and common sense on this sort of matter shows a lack of discretion and common sense.

Even if they are just sitting in a classroom repeating yesterday, or just colouring-in or whatever actually goes on by this part of the year, we must accept the fact that they can never learn what they missed that day, it will be gone for ever and remain completely unattainable for the rest of their lives.
 

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
Expressing a preference for discretion and common sense on this sort of matter shows a lack of discretion and common sense.

Even if they are just sitting in a classroom repeating yesterday, or just colouring-in or whatever actually goes on by this part of the year, we must accept the fact that they can never learn what they missed that day, it will be gone for ever and remain completely unattainable for the rest of their lives.
If you say so.

I really can't think of one thing that I learned at school that has been useful to me, ever. It was only at Uni that I actually learned some things and got a degree that allowed me to get a job. Most of what I've learned has been through work and life experiences.

Now I no longer work in an industry that I even need my degree for. I do need a knowledge of maths, but I could never fathom maths at school, so my dad taught it me, mainly through practical applications, where it actually made sense.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I learned how to deal with people in authority who had little real idea what was actually going on. Very handy, although I don't think they were deliberately teaching that as a subject.

Maths - few people ever use anything more than arithmetic - most of the 'mathematical' difficulties I had when a Design Engineer were about trying to get my pay-slip corrected on an almost monthly basis.
 

zebidee

Well-Known Forumite
Expressing a preference for discretion and common sense on this sort of matter shows a lack of discretion and common sense.

Even if they are just sitting in a classroom repeating yesterday, or just colouring-in or whatever actually goes on by this part of the year, we must accept the fact that they can never learn what they missed that day, it will be gone for ever and remain completely unattainable for the rest of their lives.

:lol:
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Well that's just ridiculous.

If it's any consolation, the 'assistants' that will consequently be required to shepherd your younglings will be massively pissed off at the thought of it.

Enquire before the day that your children will be supervised by sufficiently accredited and suitably experienced 'teaching' staff. If you cannot be given suitable assurances that the staff available at the school are actually qualified to care for your children, then you would have to remove them from school as this would potentially be a safe-guarding issue.

They will have a much worse day than your bairns will if it comes to it, and will be happy for the opportunity to avoid all of this unpleasantness.

Only take this kind of approach if you're not that bothered as being perceived as an irredeemable PITA.
 

EasMid

Well-Known Forumite
If it's anything like the school the child we care for attends, they have all sorts of procedures in place regarding absences & child protection. If a child is absent & no-one has informed the school they will contact the child's contact list. If they can't make contact they'll report it to the police ( there's a couple of steps before this). It'll be recorded as "unauthorised absence". If the child is "ill" & a responsible person informs the school before 9am no further action is needed & it's recorded as "authorised absence". Usually informing them just means leaving a voicemail message on their absence line. I think you can work out what I'd do.
In our case the school won't normally report "unauthorised absence" if the child has less than 10 absences in any 2 half terms (1day would mean 2 absences, am & pm). According to our contact at the school, they don't issue any fine. It's their decision whether they report the incident to the county council who have the final decision about penalty notices.
We took him out of school for 5 days last year, we applied for prior permission. We weren't "officially" granted permission but he was marked as 3 days authorised, 2 days unauthorised. No further action was taken. He did have 100% attendance other than that though & he is doing really well at school.
Just as a follow up
We took him out of school again for 5 days for the week after May half term this year. We applied for permission as usual but this time (new headmaster) it was refused & we got a letter back stating that if we took him out of school during this period "it would be reported to the County Council as unauthorised absence". We heard nothing more until yesterday when we received a Penalty Notice from "Families First, Staffs County Council" dated 8th August for £60 if paid within 21 days, if paid later it rises to £120. If payment not received within 28 days "you may face prosecution with a possible fine of £1000". This was for pupil with 100%attendance before half term. Next time I'll just call in each morning telling the school he's got the squits.
 

basil

don't mention the blinds
Can I claim a rebate on my council tax,. whereby I unconditionally make a community contribution to provide education for Tom, dick and harry and yet they are No's when the register is called.......
 
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