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Term-time holiday father wins in High Court

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news today

Interesting and important case. The grounds for prosecution is that a parent has failed to ensure a child attends school "regularly".

So taking a week's holiday in term time is not, in itself, grounds for prosecution.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Overall, I'm pleased to see this parent won his case in High Court. The charge of failing to ensure his child attended school regularly looked flimsy, given a 93% attendance record that year.
Learning doesn't begin and end at the school gate. Sensible and well planned term time breaks, in a situation where parental support, attendance and progress are all good, should not be dealt with so harshly.
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@pam w, can't let your 50,000th posting on snowHeads pass without sending congratulatiions! Very Happy
Now you must stop sitting on the fence with the next 50,000 wink
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Quote:

So taking a week's holiday in term time is not, in itself, grounds for prosecution.

I suspect it will be quite soon. I can't see the government backing down on this one and the promised change in the law might end up being more proscriptive in some respects.
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Problem IMHO with this is that this is a victory for semantics rather than a true moral victory over the essence of this law, which'll more likely lead to a redrafting of the words, rather than any real change in policy.
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@foxtrotzulu,
Quote:

I can't see the government backing down on this one

Yes, I fear you may be right. Our government, stuffed with ministers who attended, and send their kids to, fee-paying private schools. Private schools that seem to have several extra weeks holiday per year, compared with state schools.
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Richard_Sideways wrote:
Problem IMHO with this is that this is a victory for semantics rather than a true moral victory over the essence of this law, which'll more likely lead to a redrafting of the words, rather than any real change in policy.


I fear you are right our political system is so corrupt they will just reword the act. After all so much better to chase the little guys and gals even if in reality it costs more to do so than any fine they would ultimately receive than chase the tax avoiding firms, and spend the time money tightening up the laws quickly to make them pay fair taxation.
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I'm glad Jon Platt was able to source his legal fees through crowdfunding but how can it be right that it costs someone personally £13,000 to defend against an unjust fine of £60?

Good on him for standing his ground and good on the supporters who backed him.
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@intermediate,
Quote:

Private schools that seem to have several extra weeks holiday per year, compared with state schools.
They do, but it's not quite as simple as that. When you factor in the fact that many private schools work on Saturdays and that the school day tends to start earlier (e.g. 08.15) and continues until much later (e.g. last lesson finishing at 1805) then the total hours spent at school are probably the same or greater. Let's face it, the problem with the current system is not lack of holiday weeks. If you increased the holidays by another two weeks per year it is not likely to make a huge difference to the term/holiday price differential. Some difference, but not huge.
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admin wrote:
I'm glad Jon Platt was able to source his legal fees through crowdfunding but how can it be right that it costs someone personally £13,000 to defend against an unjust fine of £60?

Good on him for standing his ground and good on the supporters who backed him.


The British legal system at its best. Biggest wallet normally wins.
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Still a small issue that even with this high court judgement it is the magistrate's court that has the sway in the first instance and there are no hard and fast rules still.

Glad to see a sensible rolling coming from the High Court.
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intermediate wrote:
@foxtrotzulu,
Quote:

I can't see the government backing down on this one

Yes, I fear you may be right. Our government, stuffed with ministers who attended, and send their kids to, fee-paying private schools. Private schools that seem to have several extra weeks holiday per year, compared with state schools.


Those private schools may have more weeks holiday (though not many more from what I can tell), but most of them have more hours in school over the year. Many of them still have some lessons on Saturdays, and also often have longer school days than most state schools.
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It is presumably a different proposition to get an act or amendment through parliament which states children must attend school regularly as opposed to providing a non ambiguous statement of exactly how much they should attend school and exactly how much of what kind of absence is allowed. I suspect the potential difficulty of agreeing such a thing led to the woolly language in the first place. So whilst the government might say now that they will change the law that may or may not be practical for them to actually do.

*EDIT for spelling, should have spent more time at school.


Last edited by So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much on Fri 13-05-16 14:14; edited 1 time in total
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You know it makes sense.
speed098 wrote:
Richard_Sideways wrote:
Problem IMHO with this is that this is a victory for semantics rather than a true moral victory over the essence of this law, which'll more likely lead to a redrafting of the words, rather than any real change in policy.


I fear you are right our political system is so corrupt they will just reword the act.


It isn't corrupt to change the law to make it mean what was originally intended.

Quote:

After all so much better to chase the little guys and gals even if in reality it costs more to do so than any fine they would ultimately receive than chase the tax avoiding firms, and spend the time money tightening up the laws quickly to make them pay fair taxation.


I have no idea why you believe cost (to the system) has any relevance at all. This law is not intended to be a revenue raiser, it is intended to be a deterrent to parents taking children out of school.

Which has always been a significant issue for schools. It isn't really about the fact that little Peter misses a week which he has to catch up later. It is about the fact that if there are a few children missing every week, it become very disruptive overall . My wife was a teacher for most of her career, and this was always one of her pet hates.
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alex_heney wrote:
intermediate wrote:
@foxtrotzulu,
Quote:

I can't see the government backing down on this one

Yes, I fear you may be right. Our government, stuffed with ministers who attended, and send their kids to, fee-paying private schools. Private schools that seem to have several extra weeks holiday per year, compared with state schools.


Those private schools may have more weeks holiday (though not many more from what I can tell), but most of them have more hours in school over the year. Many of them still have some lessons on Saturdays, and also often have longer school days than most state schools.


Trust me they have MANY more. It is an absolute nightmare in trying to get holiday cover.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Quote:

Problem IMHO with this is that this is a victory for semantics rather than a true moral victory over the essence of this law,

I'm not so sure. It has for a very long time been against the law to fail to ensure kids attend school "regularly". A law used (or more often not used because LEAs have scarcely any "attendance officers" these days) to follow up on truancy. Truancy is a big problem (my daughter's pay progression depends, inter alia, on a child who has scarcely attended school at all for the last year getting a good grade in her GCSE geography). An LEA which had failed to follow up on pupils with a 35% attendance record might not be able to convince a course that it is "reasonable" to go for a softer "compliant" middle class parent of a child with a 93% attendance rate.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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School tuition hours per subject are probably a matter of online record somewhere.

My own state school provided the legal minimum tuition hours for state examinations.
  • Even if my parents had been rich enough to take me away to ski, I know they'd have had more sense than to take me under those minimum statutory hours.
  • If you're going to waste your kids' education, the least you could do is actually make them decent skiers. The standard of most British skiers is terrible considering what their parents traded for it.
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
@NickyJ,
Quote:

Trust me they have MANY more. It is an absolute nightmare in trying to get holiday cover.



Private schools have many more what please? Extra holiday weeks per year? More hours in school over the year? Longer school days? Puzzled
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Britain has one of the worst public education systems for under-18s in the western world.

Amazed that parents want to take their offspring on vacation rather than study.
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@Whitegold, well at least they don't get gunned down as often in the US, there are some good things about it
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intermediate wrote:
@NickyJ,
Quote:

Trust me they have MANY more. It is an absolute nightmare in trying to get holiday cover.



Private schools have many more what please? Extra holiday weeks per year? More hours in school over the year? Longer school days? Puzzled


Sorry weeks leave... I still need to find cover 2 extra weeks at the beginning of summer. They had 4weeks off at Easter vs my other daughter who had 2....
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I saw the chap on TV this morning. He spoke very well and presumably now has his costs covered by the losing council?

I'm surprised they took it that far given the risk of losing. I wonder if the high court ruling can be applied to previous cases...
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@alex_heney,
Quote:

I have no idea why you believe cost (to the system) has any relevance at all. This law is not intended to be a revenue raiser, it is intended to be a deterrent to parents taking children out of school.

Which has always been a significant issue for schools. It isn't really about the fact that little Peter misses a week which he has to catch up later. It is about the fact that if there are a few children missing every week, it become very disruptive overall . My wife was a teacher for most of her career, and this was always one of her pet hates.

I agree that cost is irrelevant, but I disagree on your second point. As far as I know the new guidelines were intended to crack down on widespread but 'minor' truancy on the understanding that even small amounts of absence have their impact. I don't intend to debate that particular point, but I'm pretty sure it's what the new guidelines were trying to tackle.


@pam w, I think it is about semantics. The government have a different idea of what 'regularly' should mean.
Quote:

An LEA which had failed to follow up on pupils with a 35% attendance record might not be able to convince a course that it is "reasonable" to go for a softer "compliant" middle class parent of a child with a 93% attendance rate.
Is this relevant? I've never heard of anyone being acquitted on the basis that other people have not been prosecuted for the same offence.

Are you also suggesting that a 93% attendance record is good enough?
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Quote:

Are you also suggesting that a 93% attendance record is good enough?

There is no doubt a lot of law which has served to establish what kind of attendance record is "good enough". The BBC article I linked to suggest that 90% the threshold for persistent truancy defined by the Department for Education.
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Quote:
It isn't really about the fact that little Peter misses a week which he has to catch up later. It is about the fact that if there are a few children missing every week, it become very disruptive overall . My wife was a teacher for most of her career, and this was always one of her pet hates.

That's completely understandable but Gove's draconian solution causes more harm than good. For each chav-spawn that his rules keep in school, disrupting classes instead of learning how to down a pint with nu-daddy and his crim mates in Marbella, there must be a dozen kids who don't get to go on a trip that would enrich their lives far more than that week in school would.
But, as you say, if they're all off different weeks, that's another problem.

In a similar vein to how the French schools have their day (or is it afternoon) each week for 'club' activities, there should be a week allocated each term, or perhaps each half term for 'extra curricular development'. To compensate for the increasing inflexibility of the curriculum, there should be much more latitude for parents, teachers and schools to use these weeks as they think appropriate to the benefit of their kids.
There could be in-school options: eg. intensive sports development for those that suits or the opportunity to run workshops to acquire new and interesting skills. School organised extra-school activities eg. this is when the school ski trip would take place.
Before U know it, there would be a plethora of commercial/community options being offered.
During these weeks, families should be free to take their kids away, with just a little guidance regarding how to garner extra educational value from it. After all, most parents want their kids to do well - they don't always know where to start. So, for example, if a trip abroad is planned, acquiring elementary conversational skills appropriate to age. Hello, goodbye, please, thank-you, numbers to 10 - that sort of thing. Making a point of noting specific cultural references eg. differences in food, religion or even bed times.

Ideally, the result would be greater opportunity for all. Transforming the current culture where scope of choice equates pretty directly to scale of capital.

So, a snowHeads-relevant case study Wink
Gregory's school was one of the ever fewer that did run a ski-trip but he refused to go on it. As it had to be outside term time, it was rather expensive even though corners had clearly been cut to save as much as possible, but moreso "They only let you ski 3 hours each day and most of them don't even care because they've never done it before - I'm not going all the way to just ski 3 hrs a day!"
A school might well organise a ski-trip during club-week at a much more reasonable price, opening up the opportunity to those less fortunate than Gregory to try it for the first time, while he would be at liberty to go away with his family or a club and strive to attain eg. his Swiss Black Star badge - without financial penalty or inconvenience to his teachers.
Meanwhile, another kid would be begging to opt out of his family's ski trip to attend a week's course in... well, U name it!
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@intermediate,
Quote:

Overall, I'm pleased to see this parent won his case in High Court.

Oh no, just realised this will increase demand and prices for off-peak weeks....there'll be more kids crowding pistes and pushing into lift queues.
Damn this parent, he should be given a custodial sentence. rolling eyes
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@admin, But surely these weeks for 'extra-curricular development' already exist. They are called holidays. Your suggestion of including these weeks within the school calendar either means that the children miss out on a week's academic learning (which really cannot be a sensible idea given the current problems) or we add an extra week to the school calendar with all the attendant costs.
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Quote:

But surely these weeks for 'extra-curricular development' already exist. They are called holidays.

That's fine for those fortunate kids with parents who have the will and the wit to organise interesting activities for them. Many don't. And they are often exactly the kids who derive little or no benefit from the "academic" aspects of the curriculum. My daughter was trying, a while ago, to teach a rather technical topic on tectonics (for GCSE geography) to some low ability kids who can't write a simple sentence in coherent English and cannot hold a coherent discussion on a simple topic.
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When are we going catch up with the rest of Europe and spread the school holidays across the whole summer, rather than everyone trying to have holidays at the same time.

Wouldn't that have benefits for everyone ?
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@Peter S, our summer holidays are much like the French ones. I don't know about others.
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Peter S wrote:
When are we going catch up with the rest of Europe and spread the school holidays across the whole summer, rather than everyone trying to have holidays at the same time.

Wouldn't that have benefits for everyone ?

Not for those of us that would like them to spread the winter holidays across the whole winter snowHead snowHead
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alex_heney wrote:
Quote:

After all so much better to chase the little guys and gals even if in reality it costs more to do so than any fine they would ultimately receive than chase the tax avoiding firms, and spend the time money tightening up the laws quickly to make them pay fair taxation.


I have no idea why you believe cost (to the system) has any relevance at all. This law is not intended to be a revenue raiser, it is intended to be a deterrent to parents taking children out of school.

Which has always been a significant issue for schools. It isn't really about the fact that little Peter misses a week which he has to catch up later. It is about the fact that if there are a few children missing every week, it become very disruptive overall . My wife was a teacher for most of her career, and this was always one of her pet hates.

It always rather amuse me to see in this increasingly "individual-oriented" society, school appears to be one so strongly AGAINST individual.

Is the classroom teaching still stuck in the previous century, where a teacher lectures to a roomful of students in the hope they'll all understand at the same rate and level?

My early school years were spent in a communist country with strong emphasis on conformity (no surprise there). Yet, parents and teachers were NOT at wars regarding how often kids were taken out of school by their parents. My parents took me out of school rather frequently. But since I was getting excellent score in school, teachers merely shrug their shoulder, followed by a nod. Other kids with less good academic result may get a bit more scrutiny, still it's rarely denied.

I'm at a lost to why schools must have such inflexible policy regarding student ATTENDANCE alone.
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abc wrote:
I'm at a lost to why schools must have such inflexible policy regarding student ATTENDANCE alone.
I think most schools would like to have the authority to set their own rules for term-time absence, but they do not as this policy is set by the national government (the current government is very keen to reduce term-time absence, so the rules have changed in recent years).
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@rob@rar, but I see many here representing teachers asserting their dislike of term-time absence. Some even suggest those rules save teachers from having to make such decision on individual basis. So it seems to me the rules are a reflection of (at least some) teachers' wishes?
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I'd like to see the 5 inset days currently sprinkled around the school year lumped all together, say in the 2nd or 3rd week of January...
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@jd_evans, actually my son's (special) school does do that , but in June Confused
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@jd_evans, I am sure somebody said about one school doing that (having 5 inset days in Same week)
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Ah didn't see @Tubaski, post when I typed mine Happy
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jd_evans wrote:
I'd like to see the 5 inset days currently sprinkled around the school year lumped all together, say in the 2nd or 3rd week of January...


As I've said before, I struggle to understand why the inset days don't happen during the holidays or on Saturdays.
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INSET means in-service training, @foxtrotzulu. In-service training isn't done on your days off. wink
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