Additional reporting by Jasmine Sandhar

A head teacher says fines for unauthorised absences are becoming part of the cost of the holiday, rather than acting as a deterrent.

David Jones, who runs Valley Park School in Maidstone, was reacting to statistics which revealed the number of fines issued to parents has nearly doubled.

According to data from the Department for Education, the number of penalty notices issued in Kent and Medway was 13,126 between 2022-2023.

In the previous year between 2021-2022, 7,690 were given out in the county.

In more than three-quarters of cases, the reason was due to holidays.

Mr Jones says pupil attendance at the school, in Huntsman Lane, has dropped since before Covid hit in 2020.

He explained: “Parents are perhaps not valuing school in the way that they were pre-Covid. Students aren’t valuing it in the same way either.

“There needs to be a deterrent for students being absent from school, because it’s the place where they’re the safest and their education is most secure.

“We’ve certainly noticed a downturn in attendance since pre-Covid.

“We as a school sit above national average which is good and talks to the type of school we are and what we offer to our young people.

“But we’re seeing more parents trying to take kids out for unauthorised holidays during the course of the year.

“They are finding opportunities for students not to be in school and feel they have other legitimate things for them to be doing.

“The curriculum is so densely packed these days and is built in such a way that if a student misses a portion of it, they are missing out on a section of learning that they might not return to for another academic year.

He says while many parents use the excuse that holidays can be educational, “most of the time people are enjoying themselves and taking a break.”

“That is the nature of a holiday, that’s what holidays are for”, he added.

“Few and far between you find people who are going to look at the Pyramids for purely academic reasons.

“What you find is people who take their kids out of school have often factored the fine into the cost of what they’re doing anyway.

“I understand that fines are necessary, there needs to be a deterrent and a way to persuade parents not to make that decision.

“But for some parents, it just becomes another thing to pay and therefore it's not the deterrent I think some people would hope it would be.”

Instead, he is calling on the government to invest more money into schools so they are able to offer more things to make children want to come in.

He added: “We want students to feel invited into a space where they feel safe, and give parents the compulsion to say ‘that’s the place you should be because you get so many opportunities’.

“It isn’t as straightforward as saying mainstream education needs to do more, we’re doing as much as we can with diminishing funds and it’s still not enough.”

From August the government is introducing new rules that will increase the amount of money parents will need to pay if they are fined for taking their children out of school.

Under the current rules, it is the responsibility of the local authority to decide when to issue fines to parents - which means the process can vary from council to council across the country.

But a new national policy - being introduced in time for the start of the new school year in September - will insist that all schools will be required to consider a fine when a child has missed a set number of school days for unauthorised reasons, such as a family holiday.

The current penalty is £60 per parent, which rises to £120 if not paid within 21 days.

From August 2024 when the new policy is introduced, the fine for school absences across the country will rise to £80 - per parent - if paid within 21 days, or £160 if paid within 28 days.

This rate rise, says the Department for Education, is in line with inflation and is the first increase since 2012.

Read more:

The Kent parents hauled before court because their children won’t go to school

Kent school bosses reveal the struggles to improve children’s attendance post-pandemic following government drive

Opinion: A radical plan is needed to tackle school absences starting with giving families one authorised holiday

Mr Jones added: “Schools aren’t just a place of education, they’re places of safety and places to socialise.

“They're the place that instills values and creates the people that are going to go out and be citizens and leaders of our communities for tomorrow.

“Schools offer that hub for young people for young people to go off and really develop themselves in a way that offers them the safety to do that.

“Without a solid school environment and without a decent attendance, students are missing out on a lot of opportunities to establish the adults they’re going to be in the future.”