Search Mobile

collapse

already registered?

Please sign in with your existing account details.

Email address

Password

need to register?

Register to access exclusive content, sign up to receive our updates and personalise your experience on brownejacobson.com.

Privacy statement - Terms and conditions

Forgotten your password?

collapseSign

Browne Jacobson home

Home

Insights

Blogs

Parents face bailiffs over term time holiday fine

parents face bailiffs over term time holiday fine

10 April 2015

Controversy around the Government’s decision to encourage schools and local authorities to tighten up on term time holidays continues, with news that bailiffs attended the home of a couple in Essex who were fined after taking their 14 year old on a 5 day term-time holiday without permission.

Regulations introduced in September 2013 state that headteachers should only use their discretion to grant pupils leave in term time in ‘exceptional circumstances’. Subsequent DfE guidance states that permission “is unlikely…to be granted for the purposes of a family holiday as a norm”. Parents who take their children out of school in term time without permission can incur fines of £60 per pupil for each period of absence, rising to £120 if not paid within 21 days.

Despite calls for the rules to be relaxed, including most recently from Christine Blower of the NUT, both Labour and the Conservatives appear committed to the policy. It is likely that schools will therefore need to continue to apply it post-election.

related opinions

Security in schools – new guidance from the Department for Education

Following a consultation last year on a draft form, the Department for Education (DfE) has now published extensive guidance for schools and colleges in relation to security.

View blog

General election 2019 - implications for schools

Parliament has announced that a general election will take place in the UK on Thursday 12 December 2019. Schools are popular places for polling stations and whilst some larger schools are able to continue to operate on election day, many smaller schools are forced to close.

View blog

Admission policies may confuse disadvantaged families

In the run up to the deadline for completing the application form for secondary admissions for September 2020 entry, the Good Schools Guide has reported that some admission policies for state funded schools may confuse parents who are less affluent, work at weekends or have English as an additional language.

View blog