The supreme court will rule on Thursday morning whether a father should have been fined for taking his daughter out of school for a family holiday during term time.
The dispute between Jon Platt and his local education authority, the Isle of Wight Council, has been watched carefully by teachers and parents across the UK.
Parents will be criminalised on an unprecedented scale if judges reverse an earlier ruling that overturned a ban on term-time holidays.
Platt successfully challenged the council’s original £60 fine last year. The judgment will have far-reaching implications for the government’s efforts to crack down on unauthorised absences.
Regulations introduced in 2013 curtailed the ability of headteachers at state schools in England to grant up to two weeks term-time holiday for pupils with good attendance.
That led to a surge in fines for unauthorised absences imposed on parents by local authorities, and complaints from families seeking to avoid the higher cost of school holiday travel.
The appeal by the Isle of Wight council was heard by five justices at the supreme court in January this year.
Platt took his daughter out of school on holiday for 7 days in April 2015. He has refused to pay the fine.
His lawyers argued that there was no case to answer since Platt’s daughter had attended school regularly. The school register recorded her attendance at 92.3%.
At issue is the meaning of the words ‘fails to attend regularly’ in section 444(1) of the Education Act 1996.
