Huddersfield schools fine parents over holidays

Jun 11 2009 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

PARENTS in Huddersfield have been taken to court for taking their kids on holiday in term time.

Sixteen were taken before magistrates in the past 12 months after refusing to pay “penalty fines” imposed by Kirklees Council.

Many others paid fixed £50 fines for booking early holidays – but many regarded it as money well spent, with the costs of holidays varying by up to a staggering £2,000 per family.

The parents had taken advantage of cut-price holidays by taking their children away when they should be at school.

A spokesman from Kirklees Council said: “A prosecution for this type of offence is never the first course of action. It only results from parents failing to pay a penalty notice.”

A fixed penalty notice of £50 is the first course of direct action if parents take their children out of school on holiday without gaining permission from the headteacher.

This should be paid within 28 days. It then goes up to £100 if paid within 42 days.

If it remains unpaid after 42 days parents are prosecuted under the Education Act 1996 and could even face jail or fines of up to £2,500.

Most end up with fines of hundreds of pounds.

Kirklees Council education spokesman Clr Ken Smith said: “An odd day or two may not matter but if it runs to week after week, it is the children who suffer.

“Parents may be the ones who are fined but it is the kids who are the victims. They miss out on their education and that is given to them only once.

“If people have to make cutbacks, then cut back on the length of a holiday rather than the time and don’t let the children be victims.”

A survey of families shows that a quarter admit to having taken their children out of school already this year with a third considering doing so before the end of the summer term.

Parents in the North East region are most likely to take their child out of school for a holiday with 60% having done so in the past.