Good Character and School Absent Fines

Hi all,

A new chapter of our parenthood has hit us hard where we are now bound by school holidays with our eldest starting school.

However, we will be taking time out of school in May as we have a family wedding to attend in the US and a natural visit for the family to see our daughter. She'll miss 6-7 days of school. She's in FS2 (reception).

Naturally this is likely to be unauthorised absence and likely followed by a fine. My question is regarding citizenship if this is something that could be seen as a blemish on the 'good character' criteria and need for submission?

TIA

When does your daughter turn 5?  That determines statutory school age and whether you can be fined or not.

But yes, any fines (parking tickets, school fines) need to be declared. I would suspect unless a habitual offender, there won’t be any issue.

Of course, try to have the absence authorised, that’s the easiest way forward!

The bigger fear is the local authority skipping a fine and taking you straight to court.  Not as uncommon as you might think…. 

She turns 5 after our vacation. Does that change things?

So she’s statutory school age the term AFTER she turns five.  So no fines possible until September 2022.

That being said, fill out the form.  It’ll be marked as authorised as she not CSA.

In the parents group that we're in the head is extremely strict on time out of school, i discovered to hear last night. Other kids who are under 5 and have had vacation has gone down as unauthorised but the LEA haven't fined them due to what you said.