Term time holidays court cases dropped

From the Guardian Education Section today: As many as 90,000 parents were fined an estimated total of £5.6m in the last full academic year for taking their children on holiday during term-time, according to research.

The fines need to be increased significantly, to stop this happening.

The ball is now in the Governments court because the only way the impasse will be resolved is for it to acquiesce or introduce more water tight rules and risk upsetting voters. They could go back to the old system wherby you were allowed to take children out of school for a maximum of two weeks each year. To avoid disruption they could also insist that there was a minimum notice period so at least the schools could plan their resources. Given that our years at school provide the foundation for the rest of our lives I am not sure what it says about parents that wish to put that at risk just for the sake of a cheaper holiday.

David

The fines need to be increased significantly, to stop this happening.

why is that Ian? serious question

are you concerned about children's education or more children on site during term time?

It's my veiw to that the old system was fine , yes it certainly needs to be controlled so parents don't take advantage but under no circumstances it should it be crimal , there are rules and regulations for those parents who avoid or don't care enough to bother sending there kids to school   

Great system for those who have plenty of spare money and can afford the inflated school holiday prices. For those who are less well off, no holiday is the answer. That is what happens with our grandchildren.

Take them out of school whenever you want - and as often as you want, I say!  However, it goes hand-in-hand with absolutely no comeback on the country, education system, schools, and individual teachers that these children end up inadequately educated to succeed in modern life. 

So, as this is in effect a self-inflicted injury, they should not expect any state support when they find they cannot get work. This would release funds to better support those who DO attend but need more support to get there.  And it would take a huge amount of stress away from the teaching profession who have nowadays to make it look like every child in the school has succeeded even though some are frequently not there.

It's up to parents when to take their children off school. In the late 70's in my early career when my sons were at school I had to take whatever dates were available as my employer had a holiday policy that gave priority to senior staff, regardless of whether they had school age kids or not. We were unable to afford school holiday season prices and most of the (older) senior staff took non school periods leaving us with no option.

We also had to take one week to bridge the Xmas/New Year period. That's one week of our annual two week entitlement, which increased to 3 weeks after 5 years' service, or with (rare) promotion.

Cuh! Parents today don't know the half of it. 

I don't recall my kids' education suffering due to being absent due to measles, tonsilitis, mumps or whatever.

Education is so important.  I never took my three out of school to go on holiday and never would have.  Having said that, it is difficult for parents these days and I blame all the holiday providers for putting prices up so much in the holiday period.  

A better solution to the problem would surely be staggering the school holidays?  Having said that, holiday companies could just put their prices up, to cover all holidays.  

The fines need to be increased significantly, to stop this happening.

why is that Ian? serious question

are you concerned about children's education or more children on site during term time?

Both.