Parents fined for non school attendance ...

It doesn't help at all, does it? There clearly is a problem why the child refuses to go to school and everyone concerned needs to find that problem and do what they can to sort it out. Just common sense really rather then, as you say, fine them and saddle them with a conviction. I'm sure the courts must be annoyed at cases like this adding to their workload.

I am not convinced that parents do all they can to get children to school. Since Covid, school refusal has become an accepted thing, and 'she simply won't go' is not a good enough excuse.
I know three sets of grandchildren who refuse to attend school, two following in the wake of an a much older sister who walked out of school aged 11 and never returned. Support was/is offered but the family (mother, an agoraphobic except when a pop concert is in the offing)) simply refused to answer the door when various teams arrived. Then there is the boy who refused school aged 12, is now in his early 40s and rarely leaves the house, again a mother who refused to co operate with medical/school professionals.
Missing these precious school years is so important.
However , I know there will be a raft of parents, grandparents blaming the school, (the school did nothing to help: how could it when they had never even met the child?) and expecting very expensive home schooling which the child controls. Then tales of how brilliantly these children have done, yes, we all would with individually tailored tutoring, but with little awareness of how difficult these adult children find it to adjust to the workplace and how difficult they are to work with.

We had this with my own granddaughter.
Eventually she was expelled but little did we know that this was a blessing in disguise.
Fortunately one teacher at this school recognised what a brain she has and put her forward to one of the top schools in the county. They accepted her.
The school she is at now is rated outstanding.
She is now a prefect at her new school.

This is part of the ofsted report on the school she was expelled from.
Quality of education: inadequate.
Behaviour attitude: Inadequate
Personal development Inadequate

Leadership & management: inadequate.
Sixth form provision. Inadequate.

Posted too soon and won't be around to respond.

Why is it always the new year term and after Easter?
Is she going in the autumn?

This brings back memories for me Luckygirl. We were threatened with prosecution over 20 years ago for failing to persuade our son to accept school in any shape or form. Fortunately we got the LEA to back down (too long a story to bore everyone with) but my heart goes out to any parent in this situation. Having had two older children who went to school happily and thrived there, we were completely bewildered when faced with a child who simply could not cope from day one of Infant School. Hence he had virtually no formal education but thankfully is a happy and successful adult.

It was (or felt to us) to be unusual back then, but seems to be a growing phenomenon. Maybe there needs to be more understanding of why our schools are simply not right for some children.

eazybee

I am not convinced that parents do all they can to get children to school. Since Covid, school refusal has become an accepted thing, and 'she simply won't go' is not a good enough excuse.
I know three sets of grandchildren who refuse to attend school, two following in the wake of an a much older sister who walked out of school aged 11 and never returned. Support was/is offered but the family (mother, an agoraphobic except when a pop concert is in the offing)) simply refused to answer the door when various teams arrived. Then there is the boy who refused school aged 12, is now in his early 40s and rarely leaves the house, again a mother who refused to co operate with medical/school professionals.
Missing these precious school years is so important.
However , I know there will be a raft of parents, grandparents blaming the school, (the school did nothing to help: how could it when they had never even met the child?) and expecting very expensive home schooling which the child controls. Then tales of how brilliantly these children have done, yes, we all would with individually tailored tutoring, but with little awareness of how difficult these adult children find it to adjust to the workplace and how difficult they are to work with.

How does a child control the home schooling?

I worked in out of school tuition for many years. It could not have worked without full cooperation from families. Sometimes they went through hell.
Yes, some schools were excellent and supportive but some were not and liaising with all services (especially CAMHS) was sometimes very difficult.
The students had no control over any of it, and most were very keen to learn and very engaged, often it was a dlow process but most of the students I taught were eventually intergrated back into school and went on to college or started work.
They were all a joy to work with, even the ones who tried their best not to be...!

I had a real problem with one of my daughters .
A happy sociable well balanced child-she absolutely hated school from the first day to the last .
When young as she was asthmatic and could easily fake asthma attacks and stay at home .
As she grew older she played truant and was extremely confrontational over it .
By the time my daughter was 15 I thought that her future looked bleak.
She was attracted to exciting dangerous people.
I felt so powerless .
Expulsion was mooted on one occasion and suspension employed as a deterrent.
I worried myself sick over it .
Arguments over it compromised my relationship with her father who refused to accept that there was a problem .

My daughter stayed on for A levels and studied at University .
The irony -she's worked in education ever since she graduated !
And she's nearly 50 !

We have a step GD similarly to Esmay.
We knew she was bright but oh, such a problem child.
She also truanted, lied, hated school with all her being.
She ended up in a school for children with illness, difficulties of all types. I think they may be called Pupil Referral Units.
She actually flourished when she wasn’t expected to conform.
Now at 24 she is working towards a PhD.
She excelled at University.
She is still an “oddball” still doesn’t conform but is happy, works hard and is ok.

We are currently experiencing this with our two grandchildren. They and my DD live with us as their neighbours were not tolerant of DGS’s autistic outbursts. Both are autistic, one diagnosed, one on referral for diagnosis. Both are intelligent but highly anxious children. CAMHS are involved but nothing seems to be helping their anxiety. The school they should attend was the one DD went to. It has doubled in size since her day with no increase in space so feels claustrophobic especially corridors. Fortunately, staff there are sympathetic. Their absences are put down as authorised. They have a welfare check once a week and in the meantime my DD has enrolled them into an excellent online school. They can attend live lessons or the recorded one if they are overwhelmed. They can have camera on or off, though so far for them it is off. They have a one to one mentoring session every week.
DGS never wants to go back to the school. He was bullied there. DGD would love to as she has friends there, but has only managed a couple of half days this year and found them overwhelming.
I have just realised how long this post is so apologies.
Fines do not seem to be the answer in a case like the one mentioned. It certainly would not achieve anything in the case of my two DGC.

I think that individual families and their individual problems with children regarding school attendance or truancy especially in the pre secondary phase should be dealt with on an individual basis by the education system.
And holidays also.
They should not be turned into a prospective income stream with across the board fines. What is the justification. Where does the money paid go to?

Don't forget that full time regular attendance at schools for everyone is still a relatively new concept.

It won't suit everyone.

eazybee, must confess to feeling the same. I don’t recall ever hearing about ‘school refusal’ a few decades ago. It would almost certainly have been a case of, ‘Of course you’ve got to go to school! I don’t want to hear another word.’

Am I misunderstanding NotSpaghetti?

I seem to remember that regular attendance at school was compulsory between the ages of five and fifteen when I was at school during the 1950s and 60s.*

Compulsory regular attendance between the ages five to ten years old was first introduced in the 1880s.

*There has also, of course, been the option of alternative or home schooling in certain circumstances.

Granmarderby10

I think that individual families and their individual problems with children regarding school attendance or truancy especially in the pre secondary phase should be dealt with on an individual basis by the education system.
And holidays also.
They should not be turned into a prospective income stream with across the board fines. What is the justification. Where does the money paid go to?

Money raised via fines is only used by the local authority to cover the costs of administering the system, and to fund attendance support. Any extra money is returned to the government.

We tried that approach Witzend as I’m sure did the parents and grandparents who have posted. The received wisdom was (probably still is) ‘just get them there they’ll be fine and soon get used to it’. Well when you’re still trying that approach with a 10/11/12 year old it gets very difficult and they become too strong for you to fight. You then (at last) start to question whether you should be manhandling your child like that. I’m really not proud that we didn’t listen to our son earlier.

I was offered lots of well meaning advice from friends/ work colleagues/ even family members but none of them had experienced it so none understood.

There are more questions than answers here and fines, prosecution are not the answers as the parents must be in despair.

"[The girl] was SEN registered," Ms Hill added. "The academy offered a minibus to collect her because she raised that she struggled to get there and she didn't like roll call.

Poor parents, poor girl. She obviously has problems which are not being properly addressed and how on earth is fining parents who are struggling to make ends meet and to find the £70 a week for a taxi to take their daughter to school going to help?

Stoke-on-Trent City Council are failing in their duty of care towards this child.

CAMHS was not mentioned in the report - had the school referred the girl for help?

I know a couple of adults who cannot leave the house since Covid lockdowns, they caused more psychological damage than we will ever realise.

Witzend I think school refusal is as old as school itself. It is just that the term only came to be used quite recently.

Years ago it was more likely to be called truanting. I remember "Bunking off school" on occasion though I did not do it regularly like some of my contemporaries.

The Truancy officer where I lived actually used to call at homes of persistent offenders and wander round the town looking for children who should be in school.

There is a huge number of home schooled children here since Covid. Not just because of that but also because many parents don’t think state school education is the best . Private schools are expensive but to home school requires a parent to be home, not working, so six of one, half a dozen of the other.

According t the report in the link, apparently the girl was fine once in school but it was the getting her to school which was the problem.

Why, I wonder?

Allira

According t the report in the link, apparently the girl was fine once in school but it was the getting her to school which was the problem.

Why, I wonder?

I’ve only come across that before with primary. Child screams, has a tantrum at the school door.
Parents leave, reassured that they will be contacted if child does or doesn’t settle.
I even resorted to peeping through the classroom window with one DD. Once I wasn’t there, she was fine.

Parents are easier to manipulate maybe.

Allira

CAMHS was not mentioned in the report - had the school referred the girl for help?

I know a couple of adults who cannot leave the house since Covid lockdowns, they caused more psychological damage than we will ever realise.

At the Covid enquiry it was stated that not one word was mentioned in the buildup to lockdown as to how this would affect children. 😡

This issue occured before Covid, but the way children were treated during Covid was terrible and just storing up future trouble.
Until people look at the impact in a thorough and in-depth way it will have a knock on effect probably for a whole generation.
I think there is a failure in the adult population to see this.

Having said that I want to draw attention to some terms being used here:
School refusal- in the authority I worked in for almost 15 years this term was never used in regard to student absence from school.
Home-schooling- there is a difference here between parents who choose to educate their children outside the LA. They have to take full responsibilty for the education of their children (or non-education as the case may be) but this can happen at anytime in the child's life and often before the child even starts school. This type of opting out of LA schooling has become more popular since Covid.
Parents who keep their children at home without CAMHS referral from a LA authority school that has educational responsibilty for the child may indeed be fined. In my experience it was extremly rare for this to occur.
Some LAs make very poor provision for children who are struggling to attend school, sometimes for very complex reasons. Luckily I worked in a LA which had an exemplary home tuition service but I think this is also probably increasingly more and more unusual.
Of course, the Academy system is making things very difficult for some students and often they fail due to a lack of appreciation that not all students will tow the party lines upheld by particular Academy groups.