Unauthorised absence of children

I work in a Bank and only 2 people are allowed off at any time. Considering 85% of the staff have children of school age you can imagine that they have no choice but to take time out of the official holidays. I haven't been skiing in the holidays since mine left school and whilst its nowhere near as busy and there always seem to be a number of school age kids. I don't think the travel industry will ever lower the prices-not while people are willing to pay the price!

According to this, parents will be fined £60 by the Local Authority for a child's unauthorized absence from school if they pay within 21 days, and £120 if they pay within 28 days.

I suppose there could be lots of other unauthorized reasons that parents want to pull their kids out of school - like babysitting younger siblings, working on the farm, caring for a relative etc. etc. And I suppose the government is trying to crack down on all of these, including absence for ski holidays.
When my kids were young we were allowed to take them out of school for family holidays of up to 10 days per year, if we couldn't take the holiday at any other time - and I used to fill in a form to make sure these holiday absences were authorized before we went. It seems the law has changed.

http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/pupilsupport/behaviour/attendance/a00223868/regulations-amendments

Its actually worse than that - it is £60 per parent per pupil! Agree AllyG the 10 day rule worked perfectly - this was the law until September this year when they removed the 'family holiday' clause from the authorised absence section - this means schools are unable to authorise absence for 'family holidays' by law and pass it on as unauthorised absence to the local authority - who presumably then issue a penalty notice - this is all theoretical at the moment but will let you know what happens in January when we are due to go

J Webb wrote:Its actually worse than that - it is £60 per parent per pupil!

You mean - if there are 2 parents for one child with an unauthorized absence the fine is £120? It sounds as bad as the Inland Revenue!

I guess this will only encourage us all to become liars and cheats :(

So based on those figures, the fine is rarely going to exceed the savings made by going away on holiday in term time rather than school holidays.

Well that's what happens when idiots vote labour

If it's any consolation other European countries have similar laws that make it almost impossible to obtain authorised absence from school for family holidays. The fines for unauthorised absence are usually much higher than those that have been recently introduced in the UK, in Germany parents can be fined up to €1000 for taking a child out of school without authorisation.

I doubt if this will have a measurable effect on the European ski tourism business as the number of people affected compared to the overall number of people taking skiing holidays in Europe is negligible. The UK is thought to have about a million skiers whereas France is reported to have 12 million and Germany 11 million. It may however affect the TOs that specialise in family holidays.

Tony_H wrote:

Dids1 wrote:One day the kids grow up and then you have the luxury of paying less and enjoying a holiday without children in tow and the only ones on the slopes are nothing to do with you.
Just got there.
Can't wait.

Welcome to my world 8)

I have gone over to the dark side -)
:D

I didn't think many (UK) schools took time out in term time to go skiing..most seem to go half term or Easter.

There was an interview on radio today with a woman fined £360 for taking her kids outl of school to go to Florida, but not sure if the fine was for the choice of destination or the fact they missed school time as I forgot to listen.

I will see if I can find the article somewhere