The Fine That Costs Less Than the Flight
Last year councils in England fined parents nearly half a million times for taking their children on holiday in term time. The odd part is what the government's own research says about whether a week in the sun actually hurts a child's results - and who the fines keep missing.
The fine is £80. The saving on a family of four flying in June rather than August is usually several hundred pounds. Nearly half a million times last year, a parent in England did that sum and booked the holiday anyway.
Councils issued 492,825 penalty notices for unauthorised absence in 2024/25, the highest number since records began. Almost all of them, 93 per cent, were for family holidays. This was the first full year of the new national rules that came in during August 2024: £80 per parent per child if paid within 21 days, £160 if not, and £160 straight away for a second offence within three years. After that, a council can prosecute.
The numbers were supposed to fall. The fines went up, the rules were made the same everywhere, and the government's message was clear: every day counts. Instead the holiday fines rose by four per cent. Something about this policy is not working the way it was meant to, and it is worth asking what that something is.
In 2015 Jon Platt took his daughter out of her Isle of Wight primary school for a week at Disneyland Florida. Her attendance for the year was still 90.3 per cent. He refused to pay the £60 fine, arguing that a child who attends more than nine days in ten is attending regularly. The magistrates agreed with him. So did the High Court.
The Supreme Court did not. In April 2017 it ruled that "regularly" does not mean "often enough". It means in line with the school's rules. From that day, a child's good attendance record stopped being a defence. If the school says no and you go anyway, you have broken the law, whatever the rest of the year looks like.
That ruling is why the fines have kept climbing. It is also why a lot of parents feel the system is not really about attendance at all. Their child is in school 95 per cent of the time. The letter still arrives.
But the type of absence matters, and this is where the government's own evidence gets awkward. When the department looked at Key Stage 2 results, the detailed report behind the headline said that agreed family holiday absence had no statistically significant effect. Two physicists, Beccy Smith and Alan Barr, later went through the same data and found the same thing. Children who took a few days of authorised holiday did no worse in their Year 6 tests than children who took none. In the raw figures they did slightly better, which almost certainly says more about their families than about the holiday.
That is the point. The absence that really damages children is not the week in Cornwall. It is the child who is off every Monday, the one whose stomach hurts every morning, the one who has quietly stopped coming at all. Persistent absence, meaning missing at least a tenth of school, was 10.5 per cent before the pandemic. In 2024/25 it was 17.6 per cent. More than one child in fifty is now severely absent, missing half their lessons or more.
The Education Policy Institute put the mismatch in one line this spring. Family holidays make up 7.1 per cent of all absence. They attract 93 per cent of the fines. The policy is aimed at the easiest absence to see and count, not the absence that is hurting anyone.
Where you live still decides whether you pay it. The national framework was meant to end the postcode lottery, but the Education Policy Institute found that a year on, Yorkshire and the Humber fined 10.3 per cent of pupils while London fined 3.6 per cent. Just 33 councils issued half of all the fines in England. In the North East, 11 per cent of fines ended up in court, double the national rate. The families who cannot pay are the ones who end up prosecuted, which is an odd result for a policy about helping children.
There is a quieter cost too. Charlotte Haines Lyon, who has studied relationships between parents and schools for a decade, argues the fines are steadily wearing away trust. Parents who once felt they could ring the school and explain now assume they will be treated as a problem. Schools that once had some judgment to exercise now have a form to fill in. Neither side chose this, and both are worse off for it.
But a signal only works if people hear the message you think you are sending. What most parents hear now is a price list. And the children whose absence should worry us most, the anxious ones, the ones with unmet special needs, the ones whose parents have given up on the school ever helping, are not on a beach. They are at home, and no fine is going to bring them back.
The Education Policy Institute's recommendation is the plain one: support first, in every council, with the fines reviewed properly for whether they do anything at all. Until then, the country will keep issuing half a million letters a year to the families who are, by and large, the easiest to find and the least in need of finding.
So perhaps the question to sit with is not whether you would pay the £80. It is what the school would say if you rang and asked, and whether you would feel you could.
Councils issued 492,825 penalty notices for unauthorised absence in 2024/25, the highest number since records began. Almost all of them, 93 per cent, were for family holidays. This was the first full year of the new national rules that came in during August 2024: £80 per parent per child if paid within 21 days, £160 if not, and £160 straight away for a second offence within three years. After that, a council can prosecute.
The numbers were supposed to fall. The fines went up, the rules were made the same everywhere, and the government's message was clear: every day counts. Instead the holiday fines rose by four per cent. Something about this policy is not working the way it was meant to, and it is worth asking what that something is.
How a Trip to Disneyland Changed the Law
Until 2013, a headteacher could authorise up to ten days of holiday a year in special circumstances. Then Michael Gove removed that discretion. Holidays could only be approved in exceptional cases, and "we can only afford it in term time" was not one of them.In 2015 Jon Platt took his daughter out of her Isle of Wight primary school for a week at Disneyland Florida. Her attendance for the year was still 90.3 per cent. He refused to pay the £60 fine, arguing that a child who attends more than nine days in ten is attending regularly. The magistrates agreed with him. So did the High Court.
The Supreme Court did not. In April 2017 it ruled that "regularly" does not mean "often enough". It means in line with the school's rules. From that day, a child's good attendance record stopped being a defence. If the school says no and you go anyway, you have broken the law, whatever the rest of the year looks like.
That ruling is why the fines have kept climbing. It is also why a lot of parents feel the system is not really about attendance at all. Their child is in school 95 per cent of the time. The letter still arrives.
Does the Missed Week Actually Matter?
The Department for Education's position is that it does. Its published analysis shows children with higher attendance get better results, and a 2025 report from the department estimated the cost of missed days in lifetime earnings. Nobody sensible disputes that a child who misses a lot of school does worse.But the type of absence matters, and this is where the government's own evidence gets awkward. When the department looked at Key Stage 2 results, the detailed report behind the headline said that agreed family holiday absence had no statistically significant effect. Two physicists, Beccy Smith and Alan Barr, later went through the same data and found the same thing. Children who took a few days of authorised holiday did no worse in their Year 6 tests than children who took none. In the raw figures they did slightly better, which almost certainly says more about their families than about the holiday.
That is the point. The absence that really damages children is not the week in Cornwall. It is the child who is off every Monday, the one whose stomach hurts every morning, the one who has quietly stopped coming at all. Persistent absence, meaning missing at least a tenth of school, was 10.5 per cent before the pandemic. In 2024/25 it was 17.6 per cent. More than one child in fifty is now severely absent, missing half their lessons or more.
The Education Policy Institute put the mismatch in one line this spring. Family holidays make up 7.1 per cent of all absence. They attract 93 per cent of the fines. The policy is aimed at the easiest absence to see and count, not the absence that is hurting anyone.
A Fine That Has Become a Price
If the fines were changing behaviour, the totals would be dropping. They are not. A survey of 1,100 parents by Confused.com found the average family saved £567 by travelling in term time, well over what two parents would pay in fines. Many parents told the researchers they treated the penalty as part of the cost of the trip. When a punishment is cheaper than the alternative, it stops being a punishment. It is a booking fee.Where you live still decides whether you pay it. The national framework was meant to end the postcode lottery, but the Education Policy Institute found that a year on, Yorkshire and the Humber fined 10.3 per cent of pupils while London fined 3.6 per cent. Just 33 councils issued half of all the fines in England. In the North East, 11 per cent of fines ended up in court, double the national rate. The families who cannot pay are the ones who end up prosecuted, which is an odd result for a policy about helping children.
There is a quieter cost too. Charlotte Haines Lyon, who has studied relationships between parents and schools for a decade, argues the fines are steadily wearing away trust. Parents who once felt they could ring the school and explain now assume they will be treated as a problem. Schools that once had some judgment to exercise now have a form to fill in. Neither side chose this, and both are worse off for it.
What the Letter Was Meant to Say
The honest case for fines was never really about a week in Tenerife. It was about a signal. If schools authorised holidays freely, the argument went, it would tell every family that school is optional when something better comes along. That worry is not silly. Teachers do notice when a third of a class has a different missing week.But a signal only works if people hear the message you think you are sending. What most parents hear now is a price list. And the children whose absence should worry us most, the anxious ones, the ones with unmet special needs, the ones whose parents have given up on the school ever helping, are not on a beach. They are at home, and no fine is going to bring them back.
The Education Policy Institute's recommendation is the plain one: support first, in every council, with the fines reviewed properly for whether they do anything at all. Until then, the country will keep issuing half a million letters a year to the families who are, by and large, the easiest to find and the least in need of finding.
So perhaps the question to sit with is not whether you would pay the £80. It is what the school would say if you rang and asked, and whether you would feel you could.
Sources & Further Reading