SCHOOL FINES FOR ABSENCE

The topic of fines issued to parents and guardians for a child’s non-attendance at school continues to rear its ugly head, and I fully expect that with the school holidays on the horizon we shall see and hear more of it.

Personally, although I think it is absolutely vital that we ensure our children take full advantage of all the opportunities that a free education can offer, I believe this ‘big stick’ approach is wrong, and there are a number of reasons for this.

Whilst I agree that in the past some, but by no means all, parents have had a rather lax attitude towards school attendance there are circumstances in which absence is not necessarily detrimental.

As a society we must look at education in a much rounder sense than that provided within a school environment with a fairly rigid approach to the curriculum. Learning and achievement can take many forms, and travel and exposure to new experiences is one of the most rewarding. With some ‘blue sky’ thinking schools should be able find ways in which learning can continue to take place no matter where the pupil is physically situated. We see this, for example, with child stars and young athletes who take advantage of a tutor or work downloaded on a memory stick when on location, or competing away from home.

Likewise, there are those parents who choose to home school or send their children to private school, where the inspection regime that so closely dictates the agenda of local authority educational provision is much more flexible in approach.

There is of course the argument that it is the responsibility of parents, in putting their offspring first, to manage their lives accordingly, but this is often easier said than done.

For many families, especially where perhaps one parent works away, or in the case of several children being at different schools with different term times, the dilemma of what to do with children during school holidays, and when to take any kind of affordable holiday, can be a challenging one to resolve. 

If I were still in a service family and my husband was returning home after a long period of active service abroad I would have little hesitation in keeping my children away from school that day to be sure they were there to greet him, and I can think of many other instances where this might be considered appropriate.

What we must do is to have meaningful dialogue at a local level, to look for ways in which we can find an appropriate solution.

We all lead increasingly complex lives, with many different demands on our time and money, and I do believe that a more flexible approach towards absenteeism can be found. If indeed this is an attempt to deal with issues of consistent absenteeism then I would suggest that wider social issues are the cause, which will not be solved by issuing fines. In doing so, it is likely that those families least able to afford to pay the fines will be penalised, whilst others, as we have already seen, take a cavalier attitude towards it.

In addition, I’ve seen very little about how and where the fines paid are to be spent by the schools in question; boosting ever-depleting funds I suspect. Surely not?