A MUM-OF-THREE was left fuming after being fined an eye-watering £320 for taking her children on a fun winter holiday to Lapland.
Mum Danielle, who jetted off to the tourist hotspot earlier this month, dubbed the hefty fine ”absolutely ridiculous”.
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Taking kids out of school for holidays is frowned upon as it can disrupt their education.
Last year, Labour’s Bridget Phillipson slammed “disrespectful” parents who do so.
As of August 2024, the fine for school absences across the country rose from £60 to £80 if paid within 21 days.
If parents fail to pay a fine issued within 21 days, they will have to pay double – £160, to be precise, up from the previous £120.
The Department for Education said this rate tallies with inflation, and is the first time the amount has gone up since 2012.
Parents can only accrue two fines within a three-year period – however, once this limit has been reached, additional actions such as parenting order, or prosecution will be implemented.
However, this hasn’t stopped some families from going abroad during term time, especially as they can often find cheaper holiday deals when it’s off-season.
Raging about the fine, Danielle said her family were in Lapland, Finland, for a week and she viewed the time-off as an ”educational trip”.
”I actually wrote a letter of every single thing that we were gonna be doing in Lapland and how education this trip was gonna be,” she was fuming in the video.
”We weren’t sitting on a beach or random pool laying down for seven days – we actually had activities that we were doing every single day.
”It’s stuff that my children were never ever gonna gain by sitting in a classroom.”
Some of the things she had noted down in the list included ”seeing and learning all about the Northern lights” along with a special ”tool book” that explained the phenomenon and visiting ”a husky safari” where they’d be ”learning about the history of dog sledding”.
She went on in the video: ”Reindeer tour – learning about the culture of reindeer and reindeer herding, getting to meet and feed the reindeer and experience a reindeer sleigh ride.
”Snowmobiles – learning about different means of travel in Finland, learning how to drive a snowmobile and we got to drive over a frozen lake and to experience the wilderness of the Finnish Lapland.
”We also crossed the Arctic Circle and there’s basically so much more.
”We got to meet the real Father Christmas, of course, we got to experience skiing,” she listed the fun activities the family got up to.
In the video, Danielle said she was ”gutted” the school couldn’t see the seven-day holiday ”as an education trip”.
How do the fines work?
According to the GOV website, it’s the responsibility of the local authority to decide when to issue fines to parents, meaning the process varies from council to council.
The Gov website states: “Under the new national framework, all schools will be required to consider a fine when a child has missed 10 or more sessions (5 days) for unauthorised reasons.
“From August 2024, the fine for school absences across the country will be £80 if paid within 21 days, or £160 if paid within 28 days.
“Fines are a last resort, and parents will be offered support to help improve their child’s attendance first. The vast majority of fines for unauthorised absence (89%) are issued for term time holidays.”
Fines per parent will be capped to two fines within any three-year period.
If that limit is reached, prosecution will be considered. If you’re prosecuted and attend court because your child hasn’t been attending school, you could get a fine of up to £2,500.
Read more on school fines here
Slamming the system, the mother-of-three shared her confusion about her daughter’s Year 6 upcoming ”residential trip” that’s booked in the UK.
”They’re going for three, four nights – and that’s acceptable?”
Although Danielle was fuming, she didn’t blame the school – and instead, was furious at ”the government, the corruption, the council”.
In her eyes, schools should finally stand with the parents and mark the educational trips as ”authorised absence”.
According to the mum, who said they’d ”play the game” from now on, explained the same holiday would set the family back a whopping £6,000 to £7,000.
”But if I take them out during September when there’s a couple of inset days, it’s like £1,000 cheaper.
”I understand why they have things set in place – but we should be allowed to have at least one holiday with our children a year,” said Danielle, adding her partner works long hours and ”doesn’t get to see his children”.
”Nine times out of then, he’s home when the children are in bed. On the weekends sometimes he does private work or we’re busy catching up on things we can’t do during the week.”
‘It’s all about the money’
Hundreds of social media users flooded to the comments – where a fierce debate took place.
Whilst many agreed with Danielle and her frustration, others thought the implemented fine was essential for education.
One said: ”Could you imagine all 30 children in a class taking 1-2 weeks off school during term time? You could have a child missing every week of the year.”
Someone else chimed in: ”I think schools should now double the fines, it’s quite clear the current levels are not being respected by middle class parents.”
A third wrote: ”As a teacher I’m totally against these fines. The only thing I would say is that the teacher shouldn’t be expected to have to repeat anything that the kid has missed, exams or anything.”
”It’s all about the money. They don’t care about the kids,” is how another person felt.
