Cancer mum faces fine over term-time trip
... in her only week off from chemo
A SCHOOL refused to let a woman take her son on a term-time holiday even though she was fighting cancer.
Louise Hamilton, 40, asked for the sole week she had free during a gruelling six-month course of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
But staff at the school attended by her son James, 14, told her the break would be treated as unauthorised – for which she could be fined – despite the exceptional circumstances.
‘We all craved a family holiday so we took the chance to book a short break as a great way to chill after my gruelling regime,’ said the mother of three.
‘We had only one week between the end of my chemotherapy and the start of my radiotherapy.
‘I have gone through an operation, 15 weeks of chemotherapy and scans, but this was not “exceptional” enough. I am absolutely livid. It makes me feel that I have to be on my death bed to get a holiday authorised.’
The family told Ridgewood School in Doncaster of their plans but no reply was forthcoming before they went away on September 7. The refusal letter arrived a fortnight after they returned home.
Mrs Hamilton said: ‘The school have been fully aware of my treatment and I hoped they would show an ounce of compassion and let us have this week away. James needed this more than my other kids as he has suffered more with the emotional side of things.
‘ His emotional wellbeing far superseded his educational needs at this moment in time.’
Mrs Hamilton, who is a childminder, went on a short break in Lincolnshire with husband Andy, 44, James, his sister Brooke, three, and brother Jacob, five. She is in remission following four weeks of radiotherapy at Weston Park Hospital in Sheffield.
No one at Ridgewood School was available for comment but it is understood teachers have told Mrs Hamilton she is unlikely to be fined. Parents can be penalised by £60 a child for unauthorised absences under a Government crackdown started by Michael Gove when he was education secretary.
This is doubled for non-payment and those who refuse to settle have been prosecuted and left with bills of thousands of pounds.