School fines: Close to 900 parents have been given multiple penalty notices says Medway Council

Hundreds of parents have repeatedly taken their children out of school for unauthorised holidays, suggest figures obtained by KentOnline.

As education chiefs prepare to clamp down on those who regularly allow their children to skip school without permission, senior reporter Lauren Abbott looks at the scale of the problem in one part of the county.

Tougher rules introduced to tackle school absences have reignited the debate about whether parents should be able to take their children on family holidays in term time.

Since September 2013, when the government put an end to the discretional 10 days of holiday head teachers could grant in ‘special circumstances’, parents have faced fines of £60 each, per child, for unauthorised absences of five days or more during the school term.

But amid worsening attendance since the pandemic - a record 390,000 penalties were issued in England in 2022-23 for unauthorised absences with 90% of those for family holidays - new laws have been introduced to tackle pupils routinely missing school.

Critically, alongside higher fines (now standing at £80 per parent per child for a first offence, leaping to £160 for the second), a cap on the number of fines parents can receive before they risk more serious punishment - most notably a criminal conviction and possible jail sentence - has also been introduced.

With the cost of fines often felt to be small change when compared with the hundreds of pounds - if not thousands - parents can save by going away in school time, the new limit is designed to address those who repeatedly risk the penalty to save more on the price of their holiday.

From this term, once parents reach a limit of two school fines within any three-year period, warns the Department for Education, other action like a parenting order or criminal prosecution involving a £2,500 fine and/or up to three months in prison will be considered.

For children who face ‘complex barriers to attendance’, schools and councils should work together with families sensitively, assures the government, to put additional help and support in place.

Yet close to 900 parents in one part of Kent, according to data obtained by KentOnline under the Freedom of Information Act, have incurred multiple fines in the last three years for the same child.

Medway Council says among the more than 4,000 fines it has issued since the pandemic, 898 of those adults given a penalty - say council records - have more than one fine to their name for an unauthorised absence involving the same pupil.

Across the county - the number of penalty notices issued in Kent and Medway combined for the academic year 2022/23 was 13,126 but Kent County Council has been unable to specify exactly how many of its parents have received multiple fines in the last three to four years.

The same rules for all

Since classroom doors opened for the start of the new term, all schools have been bound by the new national framework.

This means everyone must follow the same government guidelines when considering a fine for 10 or more missed half day sessions for unauthorised reasons, in order to stop the process varying from school to school or council to council, as sometimes used to happen.

Medway Council, which welcomes the changes, says school leaders are being supported in implementing the tougher guidelines.

In a statement, a spokesman said: “Schools are being both supported and challenged to adhere to the Department for Education (DfE) guidance, the Working Together to Improve School Attendance document, which became statutory in August 2024.

“The DfE guidance is welcomed – it is written for all schools, trusts, governing bodies and local authorities, striving to improve and maintain high levels of school attendance.”

The lure of cheaper holidays

David Jones, head teacher of Valley Park School in Maidstone, said earlier this year that he felt fines for unauthorised absences had become ‘part of the cost of the holiday’.

Speaking to KentOnline in July shortly before schools broke for summer, Mr Jones said he had noticed more parents taking children out for unauthorised holidays in recent years and just accepting the fine as part and parcel of the trip.

“What you find is people who take their kids out of school have often factored the fine into the cost of what they’re doing anyway” he explained.

According to the latest Department for Education absence data - more pupils in England were off school without permission during the last week of the summer term than at any other point in the academic year.

A record 5% of pupils skipped lessons in the week ending July 19 when they should have been at school for the final few days of term - equating to around 450,000 pupils.

In April, price comparison website TravelSupermarket data also found a third of internet searches for 2024 summer breaks were for trips departing one week before the official start of the school holidays - something CEO Richard Singer attributed to the cost of living, rises in passenger duty and impending tougher fines.

The high price of family holidays in the height of summer has also become front page news following the furore over Oasis concert tickets.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson joined the debate over dynamic pricing structures, which saw gig tickets climb as popularity soared, saying that she would like to see airlines stopped from raising their prices too during the holidays.

Rosie Gill-Moss from Kent is a mother to four children in both primary and secondary school.

She says the rising cost of travel both abroad and at home means families are increasingly priced out of giving their children valuable life experiences, which can force them to explore term-time holidays that are easily ‘two to three times cheaper’.

She said: “No one disputes the importance of school attendance, but what about the wider view, one family holiday per year is absolutely not going to adversely impact a child’s learning, it may even enhance it.

”I don’t for one moment suggest that parents take their children out of school frequently or during exam time but penalising parents for making a choice to enhance their own child’s life, is at best unfair and at worst discriminatory.”

Rosie, who hosts the podcast Extra-Ordinary People and is an advocate for better understanding of neurodiversity, also has concerns about families who have a child with additional needs or a disability who benefit from off peak holidays when travel is quieter and facilities more accessible, but who will receive little allowance under the new blanket rules.

She explained: “A group adversely affected by this new ruling are those with neurodivergent children.

“Children with special educational needs (SEN) should be able to access all the world has to offer, just like their peers.

“However, by insisting that this travel be undertaken in high season they are forced to choose between huge discomfort, even trauma, or by simply not having a family holiday.”

The risk of a criminal record?

Solicitor Graham Jones from Kent firm Whitehead Monkton said while he had every sympathy with the ‘eye watering’ price of family holidays now, the addition of the cap and risk of a criminal record has become a very serious addition to the new laws that cannot be ignored.

He explained: “I have every sympathy with the costs of holidays for parents but you have to balance that with the legal requirement to be in school.

“The issue is that you will have a criminal record. That’s very serious. You are being charged with an offence for not putting your child in school.

“They are trying to hammer home the seriousness of this now.”

Mr Jones said he will ‘watch with interest’ as to what happens in the months and years ahead but expects repeat offenders to soon face the full force of the law - which at its very worst could signal a huge fine and even some time in prison.

He added: “I think they will tackle those parents.

“The schools and the authorities will be forced to do it.”

A cultural shift and a ‘lifestyle choice’

Sending children to school post-Covid has become ‘optional’ alleges one former head teacher and Kent education expert.

Peter Read, former head of Gravesend Grammar School, says the massive cultural shift since the pandemic is primarily to blame with many families no longer viewing regular attendance as ‘imperative’.

He said: “It’s cultural, I’m convinced of it.

“There used to be an imperative to go to school and pre Covid that was the culture of this country. But the imperative has been lost.

“It has become optional to go to school.”

Mr Read said different pupils frequently dropping in and out of lessons makes it exceptionally difficult for a member of staff to progress a whole class’ learning and the threat of the £60 fine has done little to improve things over the last few years.

The former teacher said it remains to be seen whether the addition of a fine limit will be enough to clamp down on those who have been regularly opting to holiday in term time.

“People aren’t going to follow the rules unless the punishment is severe enough to dissuade them” he added.