Responding to new figures out this morning showing a 1% increase in fines issued to parents due to unauthorised absence of children from school - including a 4% rise in fines for unauthorised holidays - Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“Children benefit from attending school wherever possible – failure to do so can mean them missing important parts of their learning.

“However, the use of fines to manage absence increasingly appears to be an overly-simplistic solution to a more complex issue, and it is becoming clear that this approach is ineffective. The fact that unauthorised absence figures have continued to increase suggests that the current approach is simply not working.

“It is clear that for many families the threat of a fine is not acting as a significant deterrent. This is largely due to the exorbitant charges for holidays outside of term time. Perhaps now is the time for the government to try a different approach. While it may be challenging to do, that surely must involve working with travel companies to address the underlying cause of the problem.

“It is also important to consider the drivers of holidays taken during term time – cost is not the only consideration families are balancing. Schools do have discretion to grant leave in ‘exceptional circumstances’, but they are held to account for their levels of attendance.

“It's worth noting that not all unauthorised absence is because of holidays. When it comes to solving these underlying problems, fines are too crude a tool. Unless more is done to find out the reasons behind continual periods of absence - and invest in community services like mental health support, social care, education welfare officers, and support for children with special educational needs = fining families is unlikely to reduce absence or its impact on pupils’ education.”

For info:

There were 492,800 penalty notices issued for unauthorised absence in the 2024/25 academic year, an increase of 1% from 487,300 in the previous year. 

More than 9 in 10 (93%) of penalty notices were issued due to unauthorised family holidays – an increase of 4% (16,000) compared to the previous year.