Holidays in term time can affect your child's education and future life prospects, particularly for those children and young people with existing attendance problems, struggling with education or being absent at crucial times in the school year.
Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council is committed to working in partnership with families and schools to manage and reduce school absence due to term time holidays.
Amendments to the 2006 regulations remove references to family holidays and extended leave as well as the statutory threshold of ten school days.
The amendments make clear that headteachers/principles may not grant leave of absence during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Headteachers/principles should determine the number of days that a child can be away from school if the leave is granted. These regulations came into effect from the 1st September 2013.
The government, our local authority and our schools acknowledge the financial and work pressures some families are subject to and in exceptional circumstances are prepared to authorise term time leave of absence.
Most parents acknowledge the need for these absences to be managed carefully to avoid having a detrimental impact on their child's education and do co-operate with their child's school, however, a number of parents continue to take their children out of school without the authorisation of the Headteacher/principle.
The government has introduced legislation allowing our local authority to issue penalty notices to parents who fail to ensure their children attend school and this is incorporated within our school attendance procedures.
All schools within Redcar and Cleveland are encouraged to adopt a common leave of absence policy to ensure legal compliance.
Parents should provide at least one month advance notice in writing of any planned absence, the Headteacher/principle has the discretion to authorise leave of absence in exceptional circumstances.
The government made changes to the legislation in August 2024.
These changes mean that there is now a single consistent national threshold for when a penalty notice must be considered of 10 sessions (usually equivalent to 5 school days) of unauthorised absence within a rolling 10 school week period.
The amount payable under the first Penalty Notice is £160 if paid within 28 days beginning on the date which the notice is received. This will be reduced to £80 if paid within 21 days ,beginning on the date which the notice is received.
Any second penalty notice issued to the same parent for the same child within a rolling 3-year period will be charged at a higher rate of £160 with no option for this second offence to be discharged at the lower rate of £80.
No one parent will receive more than 2 penalty notices for the same child within a rolling 3-year period, so at the 3rd (or subsequent) offence(s) other options will be considered (such as prosecution or one of the other attendance legal interventions).
A penalty notice issued for any offence that begins prior to the 19th August will be issued under the existing rules. Therefore, it will (a) be charged at £60/£120, (b) not count towards the escalation whereby a second penalty notice within 3 years is charged at a flat rate of £160 and there is a limit of 2 penalty notices within 3 years and (c) should be issued in line with existing LA thresholds for the 2023-24 academic year. This is regardless of whether the penalty notice is issued before or after the 19th August.
For example, if a parent takes a pupil out of school without leave in term time for 2 weeks in July 2024 but the penalty notice is not issued until September the old rules will be followed, including being charged at the old rates. The penalty notice will not count towards the escalation.
Or, for example, a parent takes a pupil out of school in late July without permission and does not return until September and the penalty notice is issued at the beginning of October, the old rules will be followed, including being charged at the old rates of £60/£120. The penalty notice will not count towards the escalation.
For further information or advice, please contact the team by emailing: AWS@redcar-cleveland.gov.uk
All schools should publish their formal holiday policy on an annual basis. Any leave of absence taken without approval will be recorded as an unauthorised holiday absence (Code G).
The Local Authority Policies and Code of Conduct are available below:
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