Term Dates 

OUR LADY’S CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL 

TERM DATES

Academic Year 2025/2026 

LEAVE OF ABSENCE REQUESTS DURING TERM TIME NOTICE

Requests for Leave of Absence

Parents must request permission in advance from school for leave of absence for any reason, including holidays. Head Teachers cannot grant leave during term time unless there are exceptional circumstances and cannot grant permission retrospectively. Generally, a need or desire for a holiday or other absence for the purpose of leisure and recreation would not be an exceptional circumstance. The ‘H’ code (authorised holiday) will no longer exist in the new absence codes, to reflect the change in policy. If you take your child out of school without permission this may lead to enforcement action (penalty notice or prosecution). If it is believed that a term time holiday has been taken and another reason has been given for the absence then this will be followed up and any necessary action taken.

National Framework for Attendance Penalty Notices

Under the new national framework, Fixed Penalty Notices will be considered when a child has missed ten or more sessions (five days) due to unauthorised absence in a period of ten school weeks.

The new Penalty Notice regulations are:

• Each parent will be issued a separate penalty notice, for each child who is absent.

For example, 2 parents and 3 children, each parent will receive 3 penalty notices for £160 each, with a family total of £960 in fines.

• The fine amount will be £160 per parent, per child paid within 28 days, reduced to £80 per parent, per child if paid within 21 days.
• This will be considered your first offence.
• The next time an offence occurs, within 3 years of the date the first penalty notice is issued, the fine amount will be £160 per parent, per child paid within 28 days, with no reduction.
• The third time an offence occurs this will be presented to Magistrate’s court with no penalty notice issued.

We greatly appreciate parental support to reduce the total amount of days lost due to holidays.  We are committed to working in partnership with you to enable your child to reach their academic targets and to support their social development. For this to happen we need to keep individual attendance as high as possible - we all need to play our part.