This was in the Sun today, thought it might be of interest:

A mum who took her six year old son on holiday during term time has been told she faces jail.

Mandy Hopwood, 32, asked Timothy Hackworth Primary School in Shildon, Co. Durham, if she could take Brad to Disneyland, Paris.

They said no but she had already paid £1,800 for the week-long trip and took him anyway.

She is due before Bishop Aukland magistrates on March 1.

Ooh I must keep an eye on this one

I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a lot of other unauthorised absences. There was another case a year or two ago (which was quoted to us by the investigating officer in our case) but we told him he couldn't use that because we'd checked it and it involved other absences, not just a parent taking a child on holiday. He dropped that try on :D

Will be interesting to see what happens with this one. :blink:

Here's a couple of links from other papers:

http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/mostpo...ime_holiday.php

http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/journal...-name_page.html

My hubs has added his comment to the first link comments section......... clap-ping

whats the first link comments section Sue? :blink:

sandra's first link - thisisthenortheast....

Down the bottom of the page

clap-ping Good for him :D

The trouble with this is that you don't have both sides of the story. Although the story may be true as it stands, no-one in their right minds would take this woman to court if the child has an otherwise good attendance record. It is very expensive to do, and they risk the judge being on her side, which is likely if they have kids.

I just have a sneaking doubt that the whole story is as it seems.

Our head teacher stated the other week that as parents, we are "entitled" to 10 school days off per year. That means that it cannot be against the law to take your kids out of school surely, as long as they haven't had time off at other times during the year.

Maybe I'm wrong, and I know people on this board have had problems with getting time off school, but I just have my doubts that this gives all the information. Papers will use the information they want to use to get maximum impact.

I think there's probably some misinformation - either there's other attendance problems, or else this is designed to frighten other parents off booking a holiday. It might be worth an LA doing something like this, then withdrawing just before it reaches the court. Whether something is true or right doesn't matter as long as people think it is IYKWIM. It changes behaviour. ;wall:

We've just got another policy issued from the school...... after all the hassle last year, and even though the HT and CoG sat in the panel hearing and heard the LA say their policy didn't comply with the law, they've issued another one saying pretty well the same thing. LA Puppets :rant: Threats, and more discrimination on the grounds of employment and children's ability to catch up the work, and their educational needs.

Ho hum - I'm obviously living in the wrong county :blink: