Parents in the UK could soon face fines of up to £120 (over $200 AUD) if their children are late to school.
The mornings are a time of madness for almost everyone. Even those of us who don’t have kids to wrangle and get to school on time, Murphy’s Law (whatever can go wrong will go wrong) rules the AM with an iron fist.
Now schools in the UK are introducing severe fines for parents if children are late.
The Sunday Times reported that the County Council of Warwickshire in the UK would penalise parents with fines of up to £60 (over $100 AUD) if children are 30 minutes after roll call has been taken.
The fines start at just £60, then jump to a whopping £120 if not paid in the first three weeks.
The controversial new penalties started with Winter Gardens Academy, a school in Essex, who were the first to warn parents wallets would suffer if their children arrived at school after 9 am.
Parents will also receive a fine if their kids fail to turn up at all.
Tardiness was raised as an issue for concern after Winter Gardens Academy’s most recent School Board Inspection found it was disrupting class when children came in late.
Should we be worried about similar fines starting over here in Australia?
Never say never, but it does seem the fines have brought to light a much larger issue, that being the growing disconnect of communication between schools and the families who attend them.
Eleanor is a former school governor in the UK; she told LBC radio that the fines were a prime example of this kind disconnect.
“Many parents and children didn’t get the school of their choice, so they’re juggling work, they’re juggling taking one child to one school and another child to a different school, and simply what with the traffic and everything else,” she said.
Previous studies have also found that school would be much more effective if it started later in the morning.
One study, conducted by the University of California indicated that delaying the first class by just 50 minutes can result in dramatic improvements in performance and the effects last for the rest of the school day.
“The most interesting finding was that the effect lingered throughout the day,” study leader Teny Maghakian said.
“It’s not just that you do poorly in your first-period class then wake up and do well in the rest of your classes; having an early-morning class negatively affects your performance throughout the day.”
