Dad loses term-time holiday fight after landmark ruling
PARENTS could face a fine or prosecution if they take their children out of school for even half a day without permission following a landmark ruling by the UK’s highest court.
The Supreme Court yesterday ruled against Isle of Wight father Jon Platt, who was given a fine of £120 when he took his then seven-year-old daughter to Florida for seven school days.
Mr Platt fought the £120 fine, claiming he didn’t need a head teacher’s permission because his daughter regularly went to school and had an attendance rate of more than 92%.
He launched a legal battle arguing education law only said parents were guilty of an offence if a child “fails to attend school regularly”.
But the Supreme Court ordered he must pay his fine, saying “regularly” means “in accordance with the rules prescribed by the school”.
The ruling is in accordance with the Welsh Government’s guidance that parents can take their children out of school for up to 10 days but only with permission from a head teacher.
Mr Platt initially won his argument in his local magistrates’ court, and in the High Court, which found this holiday absence did not constitute regularly
missing school. But the Westminster government supported the Isle of Wight Council’s appeal to the UK’s top court.
The Supreme Court has now sent the case back to the magistrates – ordering them to deal with Mr Platt’s non-payment of his fine.
In her judgment, Lady Hale ruled that a parent couldn’t just decide if their child had attended enough school.
Mr Platt had not been granted permission when he took his daughter on a week’s holiday to Disney World in Florida two years ago. He was fined £60, which with non-payment increased to £120 – after which he faced prosecution for failing to ensure his daughter’s regular attendance at school.
When the case was heard at the Supreme Court earlier this year, the local authority argued an unauthorised absence “for even a single day, or even half a day” could be unlawful. But Mr Platt’s representatives argued that it was unacceptable to interpret the rules in a way that would criminalise so many parents.
Speaking outside court, Mr Platt said: “Here I stand... having been told I was wrong to rely on the decisions of those High Court judges to guide me on the law. With this judgment, those precedents have been swept away and the consequences can only be described as shocking.
“To attend regularly no longer means to attend frequently, it now means to attend on all the days and at all the times that the school requires it. Every unauthorised absence, including being a minute late to school, is now a criminal offence.
“If you share custody of your child – as I do – with a former partner, and they are late to school on a day you don’t have them, you have committed a criminal offence under this judgment.
“If you decide to keep your child off school for a day because they’ve woken up and they look tired and you decide to keep them off because you’re their parent, you can no longer do that, because if the head teacher second-guesses you and marks it as unauthorised, you’ve committed a criminal offence.
“The issue is no longer, if it ever was, about term-time holidays, it is about the State taking the rights of parents away when it comes to making decisions about their children.”
Ministers argue that allowing parents to take children out of school in term-time disrupts learning.
Commenting on the ruling Kevin Courtney, general secretary of the NUT, said: “Parents generally do all they can to keep children in school and teachers want them to do that.
“However, there will be occasions when families will have a planned holiday in term-time. This can be for many reasons, such as family commitments or parents unable to take leave in the school holidays.
“Fining parents is entirely the wrong route to be going down. Many parents will be able to afford the fine and it will not be a deterrent.
“This is yet another example of topdown measures being imposed on schools causing unnecessary tensions between head teachers and families.”
Mother-of-three Dr Sharon Parry, from Cardiff, said she had taken her eldest child out of school for a holiday, with permission from the head, when she was in infant classes.
“Some families cannot afford holidays during peak season.
“On the other hand it is hard for schools organising education if pupils are away at different times. There was a lot of confusion and people did not know where they stood so at least this ruling makes it clear.”
Term-time holiday campaigner Bethany Walpole-Wroe, from Ceredigion, said the ruling amounted to “fining the less well-off” who could not afford family holidays in highprice, peak season.
The mother of three said it was also bad news for parents who work in tourism and find it hard to take summer-holiday time off.
“The value of family holidays is immense. This amounts to fining people who are less well-off. You will get a whole generation of less welloff children who can’t go on a family holiday. With more parents working long hours it is hard for children to spend time with their parents together. Head teachers should be left to get on with their job and decide, at their discretion, whether to permit pupils holiday in termtime, without interference.”
Prime Minister Theresa May said it was for schools to decide on absences.
“It’s right that the individual head teacher has that flexibility to make that decision,” she said.
Family holidays are more than a luxury, they provide vital bonding for parents and children in increasingly busy times.
Those who can afford to book them at peak prices out of term time are lucky.
For others the only way they can afford to go away together is by taking their children out of school for term-time breaks.
And there will be parents who work in seasonal industries, such as tourism, who simply cannot get away during school holidays.
This is a problem for schools and parents who, in the main, are responsible people who understand the importance of education.
Teachers are understandably frustrated if pupils are off at different times. Their education and that of the whole class is disrupted.
Lessons follow a plan and teachers have little enough time as it is in a busy curriculum.
The needs of schools and parents must somehow be balanced.
Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling that parents cannot take their children out of school in term-time without a head teacher’s permission has caused understandable anger in some quarters.
The court’s ruling that parents can face fines for taking their children out of school for holidays has been questioned even by the National Union of Teachers, but at least it provides welcome clarity in what has been a grey area.
The ruling accords with Welsh Government guidance that parents can take their children out of school for up to 10 days but only with permission from the head teacher.
The Welsh Government, rightly, trusts head teachers to make the best decisions in these matters.
Some parents may not have been aware of this guidance, or may not have cared.
That the UK’s highest court has now ruled on the matter, and parents know they will face fines if they don’t get permission, at least makes the situation clear.
Head teachers will not wish to be at odds with parents, who are vital to their children’s success at school, but their job is also to give pupils the highest standard of education. That may be compromised by term-time holidays.
Schools and parents both need to approach this with calm compromise.
Only those families who would really miss out should be given permission – and let’s trust head teachers to assess that.
Parents must not take their children out of school in the lead-up to or during exams, and should help them catch up on work missed. Such a move could prove a body blow for a child’s education.
Only by working together in a reasonable way can schools and parents do the best for children.
Setting them at loggerheads with inflexible laws and fines helps no one, and parents and head teachers are best aware of the nuances of a particular child’s situation.
Kevin Courtney, general secretary of the NUT, says fining parents is the wrong route to go down and will cause tensions between head teachers and families.
To avoid tensions and fines both need to strike a careful balance. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2014 was 78.5%