Letters, October 28: Double standards on term-time holidays

From: Alec Denton, Oxford Road, Guiseley.

THE practice of fining those parents who have no alternative but to take their children out of school for a potentially beneficial term-time holiday has been much in the news.

The sheer hypocrisy of the fines was brought home to my wife and I recently when we went to Scotland for three weeks to look after our youngest grandson because, on starting the “big” school, he was allowed to attend mornings only with just half the Reception Class for the first three weeks. Since for the first week “mornings” lasted just two hours, the school has deprived our grandson and his classmates of nearly two weeks of schooling without suffering any punitive action whatsoever.

We also noticed that from day one all pupils are encouraged to improve their computer skills and, since in this digital age nobody is ever far from access to the internet, older pupils on holiday in most parts of the world can easily keep in touch with their schools and not miss important studies. So what is the problem with a planned absence such as a two-week holiday? If it is the handful of parents who in the past abused the system by taking their children abroad for excessive periods, then action should be taken against the guilty and not the innocent who co-operate with schools.