Record 350,000 parents in England fined for taking children on term-time holidays

A record 350,000 parents in England were fined for taking their children out of school on unauthorised holidays last year, in figures that highlight the struggle over attendance facing headteachers since the Covid crisis.

The statistics from the Department for Education (DfE) reveal that holidays accounted for almost 90% of the 399,000 parents given a penalty notice by local authorities for their children’s unauthorised school absences.

The sharp rise in fines underlines the ongoing concerns of a breakdown in relations between schools and parents over attendance and behaviour, including warnings by headteachers and Ofsted of increased “friction” from parents since the prolonged school closures during the pandemic.

The total number of fines issued in 2022-23 was 20% higher than in 2018-19, the last full year before the pandemic hit, and equates to a fine for one in every 20 pupils aged between five and 16 at state schools.

The rise in fines followed the continuing high levels of pupil absences last year, including those caused by illness or mental health problems. In 2019 and earlier, overall absence rates hovered around 4.5% of days missed but in 2022-23 it rose to 7.5%. In the current school year, since September, the absence rate is around 6%, concentrated in secondary schools.

A DfE spokesperson said: “Parents have a duty to make sure their child regularly attends school, and holidays should be around school breaks to avoid taking children out of school during term time.

“Our guidance is based on a support-first ethos, however, we support schools and local authorities to use punitive measures such as fines where it is deemed appropriate.”

The DfE’s statistics also revealed considerable variation between England’s councils in fines.

More than half of the total fines were issued by 28 of the 152 local authorities, with Essex handing out nearly 13,000 and Bradford 12,500. Doncaster, Rochdale and Wakefield councils issued fines to the equivalent of 15% of pupils taught within their local authorities, compared with 5% nationally.

Meanwhile, the DfE recorded no fines issued by Warrington council last year.

Regulations in England allows councils to issue fines of £60 per parent for unauthorised absences of five days or more during the school term, with some schools complaining that the sum is too small compared with the hundreds or even thousands of pounds that families can save by taking flights and accommodation out of peak holiday season.

The number of fines for unauthorised absences in England had been slowly rising even before the pandemic. Since 2013, headteachers are able to approve termtime absences only in “extraordinary” circumstances, such as funerals, but the numbers of unauthorised holidays have been creeping up.

Previously, heads had been able to grant up to two weeks holiday for pupils with good attendance records.

This year there were also record numbers of cases of students caught cheating or breaking rules while sitting A-level and GCSE exams this summer.

Data published by Ofqual, the exam regulator for England, showed the number of students breaking exam regulations increased by almost a fifth in 2023 and are now far higher than before the pandemic.

Ofqual said there were 4,895 cases of “malpractice” penalties out of 17m exam entries this summer, with more than 40% of cases involving a “mobile phone or other communication device”. In 2019 there were just 2,950 cases of malpractice, rising to 4,100 in 2022.

In 20% of cases, students were punished by losing their full marks for the exam, while 49% had marks subtracted and 30% were given a warning.

But cases involving cheating or maladministration by school staff fell, with 220 this year compared with 240 in 2022.