School Holiday Rip Offs

[Hacker Khan]

Attendance rates of less than 95% now warrant a reminder letter that a child risks being labelled a regular absentee.

No they don't. Head teachers can try and nip an issue in the bud by reminding some feckless parents that they need to send their child to school. If there are genuine reasons for low attendance such as illness then a letter is not automatically produced.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

In all these cases these would be classed as exceptional circumstances. If these stories are true and not urban myth as many of these things are, then the head teach and governing body has not interpreted the rules correctly. In those cases then it's not the fault of the rules, but the people that misinterpreted them.

They are very much true and very much a regular occurence from what I could tell by the phone in

 

[Hacker Khan]

They are very much true and very much a regular occurence from what I could tell by the phone in

Phone in..... enough said.

As a school governor I can assure you that schools are not in the business of regularly stopping pupils from attending their parents weddings or funerals of family members. Yes there may well have been a one off, but this kind of thing does not happen regularly.

 

[SaintHacker]

Mine took me out when I was a kid, we went to Disney world it was brilliant. It should be done on attendance, good previous attendance and the school can use their discretion, poor attendance, maybe not.

This exactly 100%. If a child has 95%+ attendance then they should be granted the time off. Why not use it as a dangling carrot for those who don't attend as regularly as they should?

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Phone in..... enough said.

As a school governor I can assure you that schools are not in the business of regularly stopping pupils from attending their parents weddings. Yes there may well have been a one off, but this kind of thing does not happen regularly.

Hearing the stories it seemed more than one offs in regards authorised absence approvals being turned down. They also had an ex head teacher on who even stated he very rarely if ever authorised a child being absent - for any reason , and one request did include a parent return from Afghan on R&R asking to take their son out of school a week early before Easter

 

[Hacker Khan]

This exactly 100%. If a child has 95%+ attendance then they should be granted the time off. Why not use it as a dangling carrot for those who don't attend as regularly as they should?

Because ofsted place huge emphasis on maximum possible attendance.

 

[SaintHacker]

So the fines are a little money spinner for local council who then may well give the school a bit of extra funding ?

When on the way back from golf a couple weeks back they had stories of parents who had recieved fines - one took their son out of school to attend a family funeral because they wouldn't authorise absence , another wouldn't allow a child to attend their own mothers wedding ,also a couple of stories of families being fined when taking their child out of school so they could spend a week with their military father who had been away for months - it all seemed a lack of understand and compassion for family life from the head teachers

My sister in law was booked to go to Tunisia during the holidays. She has two kids in the same primary schoold, one in infants one in juniors. Obviously their holiday gotcancelled, the only thing the travel agent could offer them was a week in Lanzarote 4 weeks into the school term. She put in the holiday requests stating extenuating circumstances. Infant school said yes, juniors said no. How does that work?

 

[SaintHacker]

Because ofsted place huge emphasis on maximum possible attendance.

So would it not be in Ofsteds interests to encourage poor attenders to go in more regularly by using holiday time as a carrot?

 

[Hacker Khan]

Hearing the stories it seemed more than one offs in regards authorised absence approvals being turned down. They also had an ex head teacher on who even stated he very rarely if ever authorised a child being absent - for any reason , and one request did include a parent return from Afghan on R&R asking to take their son out of school a week early before Easter

And the head was interpreting the guidance incorrectly. Just because the radio station had got him on does not mean he was correct in his actions. And I suspect he was on because of the fact he added to one side of the debate, rather than his knowledge of the guidance.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

And the head was interpreting the guidance incorrectly. Just because the radio station had got him on does not mean he was correct in his actions. And I suspect he was on because of the fact he added to one side of the debate, rather than his knowledge of the guidance.

If it's one offs why does it seem to have a lot of stories of heads "interpreting the guidance incorrectly"

If that is the case why do they people still get fined then ? Why doesn't someone above the head overrule him and waive the fine ?

 

[HomerJSimpson]

So here you quite clearly have no time for Parents who don't like it and I asked a simple question.



This is the short sharp answer you gave and then follow it up with this



So in the space of a few posts you've gone from one side of the fence to the middle, is it any wonder you get asked awkward questions when it's difficult to follow you at times.

Simply trying to find common ground in an argument. It's caused reasoned debate. It's what adults do rather than snidey cheap digs. Never mind. Carry on

 

[Hacker Khan]

So would it not be in Ofsteds interests to encourage poor attenders to go in more regularly by using holiday time as a carrot?

Ofsted and the government will never encourage pupils to have time of in term time to go on holiday. No way, will never happen. Saying if you come to school you can get more authorised time off does not make sense.

Attendance is not run like some supermarket reward scheme. Legally kids have to go to school unless there are exceptional circumstances. These include many things such as when parents genuinely can not take time off in school holidays, when kids have special educational needs and accommodation they need is not available in school holidays plus things like funerals and weddings. Also many schools look favourably on parents who genuinely can not afford holidays in school holiday time. As in any holiday, not the fact they can afford 2 weeks all inclusive at Disney during the easter holidays.

As I keep saying, the heads and schools do have the authority to authorise time off. But rightly or wrong they are under a huge amount of pressure to ensure attendance is high.

 

[Deleted member 16999]

Simply trying to find common ground in an argument. It's caused reasoned debate. It's what adults do rather than snidey cheap digs. Never mind. Carry on

Rubbish Martin, I asked you a genuine question and you made the snidey cheap dig, you need to practise what you preach, your very good at trying to bait Phil on numerous threads, even though you know he will not answer you and when you choose you throw them at others, can't have it both ways.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Rubbish Martin, I asked you a genuine question and you made the snidey cheap dig, you need to practise what you preach, your very good at trying to bait Phil on numerous threads, even though you know he will not answer you and when you choose you throw them at others, can't have it both ways.

Not necessarily just you. Others always chip in. Sorry, not singling you out. I was simply trying to find an understanding of how/why my belief, which I still think is valid, isn't in line with outhers and the examples of off shore workers, forces posted overseas etc would seem to be prime examples of where a degree of discretion could (but clearly isn't) applied.

 

[SaintHacker]

Ofsted and the government will never encourage pupils to have time of in term time to go on holiday. No way, will never happen. Saying if you come to school you can get more authorised time off does not make sense.

.

Ok, I understand where you're coming from. But if it gets a child from say 70% attendance to 90+% does that not make sense?

 

[Hacker Khan]

If it's one offs why does it seem to have a lot of stories of heads "interpreting the guidance incorrectly"

If that is the case why do they people still get fined then ? Why doesn't someone above the head overrule him and waive the fine ?

Because the head and the governing body are responsible for interpreting the guidance. There is basically no one above then who moderates their decisions unless you decide to challenge it in court. Which is very expensive, so basically people just pay up.

And there are always 2 sides of the story. All we hear is one side from a very angry parent. You rarely hear the other side of even hear about the many thousands of parents who have been given authorised absence. I am pretty sure I could counter every high profile story where kids have wrongly not given authorised absence with an example of where they have from my school alone.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Because the head and the governing body are responsible for interpreting the guidance. There is basically no one above then who moderates their decisions unless you decide to challenge it in court. Which is very expensive, so basically people just pay up.

And there are always 2 sides of the story. All we hear is one side from a very angry parent. You rarely hear the other side of even hear about the many thousands of parents who have been given authorised absence. I am pretty sure I could counter every high profile story where kids have wrongly not given authorised absence with an example of where they have from my school alone.

So it's not just the head interpreting the guidelines wrong ?

Using the wedding example - the parent was still fined ? So you say it's clear that it's exceptional circumstances that the head should allow the absence but doesn't so why doesn't the governing body above him reverse his desicion when he put through the paperwork ?

There just seems to be too many instances where absence has been denied when it's a clear exceptional circumstance - the fact other schools have allowed it doesn't change that head appeared to be unable to judge or under pressure or want the council to have a bit of money into the coffers

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Because the head and the governing body are responsible for interpreting the guidance. There is basically no one above then who moderates their decisions unless you decide to challenge it in court. Which is very expensive, so basically people just pay up.

And there are always 2 sides of the story. All we hear is one side from a very angry parent. You rarely hear the other side of even hear about the many thousands of parents who have been given authorised absence. I am pretty sure I could counter every high profile story where kids have wrongly not given authorised absence with an example of where they have from my school alone.

I see where you are coming from but don't forget these cases of angry parents sounding off makes good paper and TV coverage and parents saying how happy they were for the school to have helped meet their needs doesn't

 

[Hacker Khan]

Ok, I understand where you're coming from. But if it gets a child from say 70% attendance to 90+% does that not make sense?

I think the kids, or more often parents, that have poor attendance will not be incentivised by the opportunity to have authorised absence. If they are poor attenders then they tend not to care about absence being authorised or not.

In a way your suggestion is a bit like trying to solve the issue of slow play by saying if you get round in under 4 hours 5 times in a row, you can then take as long as you want for the rest of the year .

 

[Hacker Khan]

So it's not just the head interpreting the guidelines wrong ?

Using the wedding example - the parent was still fined ? So you say it's clear that it's exceptional circumstances that the head should allow the absence but doesn't so why doesn't the governing body above him reverse his desicion when he put through the paperwork ?

There just seems to be too many instances where absence has been denied when it's a clear exceptional circumstance - the fact other schools have allowed it doesn't change that head appeared to be unable to judge or under pressure or want the council to have a bit of money into the coffers

Governing bodies do not audit the heads decisions/paper work in real time, they just set the policy. If it becomes clear that the head is not interpreting the policy correctly then that will be discussed at a governing body meeting.

Also it is not the local authority putting pressure on schools to fine parents, but more the pressure on schools from ofsted that is causing a lot of heads to do this.