UPDATED 11:47*

JON Platt has lost his Supreme Court Battle against fines for parents who take their children on holiday during term time.

The Isle of Wight dad and his legal team, who had won cases at the magistrates court and High Court, had argued that the law required regular attendance, not attendance every day.

But the Isle of Wight Council, backed by the Department for Education, argued children should attend school each day unless authorised to be absent by the headteacher.

The Supreme Court considered several meanings of the word regular, but has today ruled that in this context it meant in line with the rules, which requires attendance as set out by schools and local authorities.

It rejected an argument that the intention of the term 'regular' was to mean sufficiently frequently, as this would be too unclear for students and parents.

It highlighted that headteachers continued to have the authority to authorise absences.

Sickness, religious observance and in some cases a failure by the school to provide transport, remain statutory circumstances when absence should be authorised. 


Mr Platt will now have to face the original prosecution brought against him at magistrates court. Maistrates originally ruled he had no case to answer as his child had above 90 per cent attendance, even after the holiday.


Speaking to the County Press ahead of the ruling, Mr Platt said he had written to Secretary of State for Education Justine Greening after the hearing, to raise his concerns about the impact of a victory for the Isle of Wight Council and the DfE.


Mr Platt, who did not receive a response, said he believed the DfE needed to issue guidance to local authorities quickly to acknowledge that this legislation was originally established to tackle truancy, not to punish families for taking holidays.


"The DfE needs to issue guidance as soon as possible to say prosecutions should not be brought unless attendance falls below 90 per cent, which is the threshold they set for truancy prosecutions," said Mr Platt.


He said he would be encouraging parents across the country to vote for Green Party candidates in May's local elections, as the party had supported the case that parents whose children had good attendance at school should not be fined.


"The government needs to see that there are political consequences for their actions," said Mr Platt, who said the ruling would criminalise parents on an unprecedented scale.


Lady Hale, deputy president of the Supreme Court, said: "The case depends on the meaning of the word regularly. There are at least three possible meanings: evenly spaced, as in 'he attends church regularly every Sunday'; sufficiently often, as in he 'attends church regularly, almost every Sunday or, thirdly, when he attends church when he is required to do so.


"It cannot mean 'evenly spaced' because this would enable attendance every Monday  to count as regularly, even though attendance at school every day is required by the school rules.


"Many might think that it means 'sufficiently often' as did the High Court  this case an in the earlier case which it followed. But there are many reasons to think this was not what parliament intended."


She said this interpretation did not give the clarity required by law on what would be an offence.
On the issue of criminalising many parents, she said the law made provision for a 'sensible prosecution policy' - including the issuing of fines - to avoid cases coming to court.


National Green Party education representative and Isle of Wight Green Party leader Vix Lowthion said the ruling would result in thousands of parents living under the threat of fine, prosecution and even imprisonment for a single day of unauthorised absence.


She added: "We all want our children to have excellence attendance in our schools, but fines and prosecution is not the best way to go. 


&am p;lt;div> "This Conservative Government are obsessed with formal, high stakes testing and believe that education can only take place in the classroom. Now they are set to criminalise parents for not only family holidays but one off absences such as weddings and funerals - there is no flexibility allowed whatsoever. 

"We call upon our government to bring this policy to Parliament for debate, as is fair and right within a democracy, because for too long they have refused to have these fines up for debate. 

"Instead of attacking parents' choices, this government should be enacting legislation against holiday companies who ramp up prices in school holidays well beyond the reach of ordinary families. 
"They should be seriously looking at regional, flexible term times to spread holidays across a wider variety of weeks. And they should be welcoming opportunities for our young people to get out of the confines of the classroom and learn from exciting experiences they get when away from home."


*Former Isle of Wight Council leader Cllr Jonathan Bacon, who led the authority at the start of the case, said: "The case was fundamentally about seeking certainty in an area of law that was uncertain and I am glad that this has now been resolved with a clear ruling on what 'regular attendance' means having now been given.


"In handing down this ruling the Supreme Court has recognised that attendance at school is fundamental to education and also recognised the importance of attendance to a school's ability to teach all the pupils in the classroom as well as to the education of the individual child.
"It would be ridiculous if the contention being advance in some quarters that parents should have the unchecked ability to remove their child from school for up to ten per cent of the school year had been accepted by the Court.


"In my view there are two underlying problems that remain with the current system that need to be dealt with and which were never going to be dealt with by this case, but which the Government needs to address. I have never supported fines as the best means to coerce attendance.
"Their existence seems to be at the core of parents concern about the current system. They may be appropriate in extreme cases but it would surely be better to have good attendance supported and encouraged by a reward based system.
 
"Secondly, and perhaps more easy to deal with, is the fact that a few years ago head teachers had pretty much any discretion to authorise an absence from school taken away from them. This needs to be reversed. It is plain, and I have always said, that there are situations in which it will be beneficial for a child to be able to take part in events or activities outside school but during term time. Given the ability to exercise appropriate discretion head teachers can recognise this and ensure that absences do not disrupt the education process."

*An Isle of Wight Council spokesman said: "The Supreme Court's judgement provides much needed clarity about what constitutes regular attendance at school, to schools, parents and local education authorities.

"The Isle of Wight Council will ensure it continues to apply its code of conduct in relation to school absence and in accordance with this judgement."