Truant!

Has the Govt gone over the top in its anti truancy activities?  Why are they fining parents who want to take their annual holidays outside of the normal holiday period?

When I was a young PC with a young family I had real difficulties if I stuck to school holidays.  Being fairly junior I was a long way down the pecking order in the annual leave list. At the same time you could never exceed the maxim of "Only two on leave at any one time".

So I soon adopted the system of booking leave immediately AFTER August Bank Holiday.  That meant that each year my kids missed the first week or 10 days of the Autumn term.  Did it harm them?  No never, they all said that within a very short time they had caught up.

One is now a bank Manager, One Flies trooping Helicopters in the RAF, and the third is a Senior Flight attendant with an Airline and has her own beauty business. 

I would submit that despite my dreadful behaviour in taking them out of school for a family holiday each year they have not suffered too badly.   If they have it in them, Children will not suffer and may well benifit from better and less expensive holidays.

TF