Parents who take their children out of school without permission will see fines go up 33 percent from September. As part of a Government drive to get attendance back to pre-pandemic levels, the minimum fine in England will go up from £60 to £80.
One school told the BBC that one in three students who are absent without permission have gone on a family holiday during term time.
And a head teachers’ union has said that the increased fines are needed to avoid “chaos” in England’s schools.
When to issue fines is currently handled by local authorities, so penalties are often dealt with very differently based on location. In 2022, some local authorities issued no penalties for unauthorised absences, while others issued thousands.
But new guidelines are telling schools to consider a fine if a child has been absent without permission for five days, in order to create consistency across the country.
The now minimum £80 fine must be paid within 21 days, or it triples to £240. The fines were first introduced in 2013, and the amount has not increased since.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: “If it’s a deliberate decision to take your child out of school for unauthorised absence, then that’s something we do not want to encourage. We have to get children back in school, otherwise they can’t get access to a fantastic education.”
The choice has angered parents who struggle to afford holidays out of term time and feel let down by their schools.
Headteacher at Willows Academy in Grimsby, Sarah Cox, said her school has better than average attendance and almost half of pupils qualify for free school meals, twice the national average.
She said: “We feel that doesn’t have an impact. Fining is a last resort. The thing that most supports our parents in understanding the importance of children being in school is the relationships.”
Persistently absent pupils are defined in England as those who miss at least 10 percent of school, about one month across a school year. In autumn 2023, 24 percent of secondary and 16 percent of primary pupils were persistently absent.
