Catherine Scott: Absence of clear thinking on school holidays

This week MPs debated the issue after more than 100,000 people signed an online petition against changes by Education Secretary Michael Gove.

Last year Mr Gove removed the power of headteachers to use their discretion to allow up to ten days term-time holidays “in certain circumstances”.

Instead headteachers were told that pupils can only be absent in “exceptional circumstances” and not for holidays.

Confusion amongst headteachers and parents ensued. As a result thousands of parents have defied the ruling and have continued to take their children out of school, resulting in a £60 fine – which doubles if not paid promptly and then is followed by court action should parents continue to ignore it.

A petition was launched last year demanding a cap on the high cost of travel during school holidays. As a result of the number of signatures, MPs were forced to debate the issue this week.

While MPs rejected the call, some did support an idea to give headteachers more power to stagger half-term holidays.

This seems to be an extreme measure to solve a seemingly simple problem.

What happens if you have children at different schools with different holidays?

It isn’t as if every parent took their child out of school for ten days as if by right. Headteachers always had the discretion to decide whether the circumstances warranted a child being allowed out of school. I know at my children’s school, requests were turned down even under the old rules.

Some heads are defying the ruling. I recently went on a trip where a couple were on a skiing holiday with their two primary school children.

They had taken them out of school for a total of three days. However later in the year they were planning to take them out for three weeks to tour Vietnam.

Although this is clearly an extended holiday the head obviously felt it was a chance the children could not miss and so was prepared to ignore the Government’s rules.

So it looks like we are going back to the old postcode lottery of depending on where you live.

In some areas headteachers will allow the absence, in others they won’t. As a result parents are lying about children’s illnesses to even get a day off school, or flouting the law.

I don’t believe that every child should be allowed off school by right to go on a cheap holiday, but it seems madness that the Government is considering changing school term times for all, when only a few were affected by the old rules.