"My daughter had meltdown after meltdown": Derbyshire mum calls for changes to ‘absolutely disgusting’ school absence fines

Natalie Elliott, 37, a mum of two from Marehay, near Ripley, has launched a petition to the Parliament to change newly introduced strict school absence rules.

The new legislation, which has been in place since September 2024, allows the local council to fine each parent up to £80 when their child is off school. Parents who get a second fine in three years will face a fine of £160 for the absence.

If a child is off school three or more times within the three years, parents will not be automatically fined but may be taken to court where they can be fined up to £2,500, receive a community order, a parenting order or a jail sentence of up to three months.

Natalie said: “My daughter is autistic and it is very difficult for us to go anywhere that is busy because she struggles with sensory overload.

“During October half term we went away to a caravan park with loads of activities for the children. But it was too busy and my daughter was having meltdown after meltdown.

"She didn’t have a nice time so we didn’t either. The whole holiday wasn't a holiday at all, it just made us very stressed and all our attention had to go to try to help her.

"We've tried but we can't do holidays when it’s busy. It's just too much. I am also disabled due to various chronic health conditions so we struggle as a family to have quality family time.

“Children’s wellbeings aren’t being looked after. If their mental health is not good, the likelihood of them actually learning and taking in the material is very low and a child is not coping well in school. We need to look after our children's mental health, because they're going into a quite scary world.”

Natalie set up Protest to fight school fines Facebook group for parents in July 2024 – and it now has around 18,000 members from all across the country.

The group later helped to get more signatures under Natalie’s government petition – which currently has almost 20,000 names under it.

Natalie said: “A lot of parents and carers out there are disgusted with how these fines are going. There are a lot of occasions where parents are being fined for situations out of their control.

"There are so many reasons why a family may need term time leave. For families with SEND this often means not being able to access quality family time.

"Parents and carers are being fined or prosecuted for visiting ill or dying relatives. I know of some parents that have been fined for visiting a poorly family member overseas.

"In situations like this, the new rules are completely overstepping the mark. It’s absolutely disgusting that we are in this situation. It’s 2025 so you would think that we would have more rights, but we don't seem to have any. It's too controlling.”

Natalie is also involved in organising a number of protests set to take place on Saturday, March 8 across six English cities including Nottingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Durham, South Hampton and Norwich.

She said: “We did our first protest in London on 18th of November last year. This one is going to be bigger because it will be across different cities.

“Before 2013, before the conservatives got involved, children used to be allowed up to 10 days term time leave, down to a head teacher's discretion. It was simple, it worked and there was no issues. Parents were happy, teachers were happy and most importantly kids were happy. This is what we would ultimately want to go back to.”

This comes after 2024 petition to allow pupils up to two weeks of absence a year, which gathered over 250,000 signatures and was discussed by Members of Parliament in November.

Minister Stephen Morgan has strongly defended the system of penalty notices for unauthorised pupil absence and said that the national framework for penalty notices helped to ensure pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) were supported.

Charlotte Toulson, a mum of two from Hasland who signed the 2024 petition, said: “£2.500 is an unreasonable amount of money not to mention the stress of a pending court hearing. I can't put into words how upsetting and stressful that is from a parent's point of view.

"It's significantly cheaper to take your children on holiday during the school term than during holidays. We are a family of four. I've got a three-year-old, and an 11-year-old. During school holidays we would have to pay £5,000 to go away whereas if you go off-peak, you can get the same holiday for about £1,500. It's not a small difference, it's it's huge.”

Charlotte who wanted to take her daughter on holiday during the school year, submitted a schedule of work to the school with the absence request to make sure she did not miss out on education.

She said: “The school said that if we went on holiday my child would miss out on education. So I submitted a schedule of learning we would do with her while away at least for two hours each day.

"I asked the school if they would want to amend the schedule or give her any work to do while away but they did not acknowledge the plans to mitigate any educational impact or consider the benefits for children spending time as a family in a new exciting location.

"I understand these rules were to stop people having frequent absences and truanting but, our school has a policy that if a child is struggling with attendance for any other reason, they'll work with the family on an attendance plan.

"These immediate fines only apply to children who go on holiday even where their attendance could be immaculate for the rest of the year. This is unfair and seems to be penalizing people having one holiday a year and not those who have lots of attendance issues.

"Other countries work with parents and take a more flexible and balanced approach, such as Finland, where teachers work with parents to manage absences and trust parents to make decisions on where absences are beneficial for their children.

"Whilst I admire and aspire to this level of collaboration, all I want is for parents to be able to take their children on an affordable family holiday once a year. The current system is really discriminating against this and that makes me very sad for our children.”

Outwood Academy Hasland did not wish to comment.