Bridget Phillipson says term-time holiday fines 'here to stay'
Bridget Phillipson says term-time holiday fines 'here to stay'
In her first interview, the education secretary says parents should keep their children in school.
"punishable by a fine" just means "legal for the rich"
21Except it's also legal for the poor after that woman got a £240 fine while saving £3,000 booking a holiday out of school holiday times:
8Sorta underestimates how poor.
Few low income families get the oppertunity, to fund holidays where the saving is 250 or more.
Most poor have difficulty spending a few hundred on a holiday. So most out of term stuff gets to expensive. Sorta lucky if a UK campsite is affordable for some. (Also about 50% more expensive during school holidays. Than other warm season times.)
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She needs to clamp down on greedy holiday companies and what have you changing their prices by £1000 from one week to the next then.
10Not really sure how that's in the government remit. I would love it if they could do that but I'm not sure how they can do it legally.
6I think you'll find that the pricing is controlled by the airlines and hotels. The holiday companies are just aggregators. And if the prices are capped, you'll get a black market and a proliferation of hidden fees to work around the caps.
Anyway, not having small kids anymore, I like being able to travel at off-peak prices. And as an added minor benefit, there aren't so many confused families clogging up the security queues at the airports.
1OK, clamp down on airlines and hotels then.
I agree going off peak - I'm of an age where I can ;-) It's wonderful not having noisy kids around.
Don't fly anymore though - too much sodding about at airports and hidden charges. A van at a Haven site (Hopton) outside of school holidays does us nicely.
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People take their kids out of school to go on vacations? When did this start? When I was a kid the only time I ever missed 5 days of school was when they thought I had spinal meningitis lol even then they sent all my schoolwork to my house!
9Ever since it got expensive. It also used to be possible to get it pre approved but heads are reluctant to do so now even if it for something special.
However it was being used by schools to hide chronic persistent absence, just massage the figures for those kids who take a lot of time off by saying some of it was "approved" holidays.
In reality all it does it is protect the vastly inflated holiday prices out of term time as parents have to balance the cost of the fine vs. money saved on the holiday.
10Really? Kids missed school all the time around holidays when I was growing up. If there was a three day weekend there were going to be a ton of kids missing that next Monday or the previous Friday depending.
8Same, I think it was 2 weeks for me, right at the end of year 8, because my dad got cheap tickets to Barbados for me and my sister (we have family there). This was back in 97. He just told the teacher I'd be off school until after the summer holidays and that was all.
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My gran would regularly take me on holiday the last week or 2 of term while in primary school. My parents would get me work I would do during the break from my teacher.
The reasoning was that the second term ended the prices went through the roof
7We did in the 90s and 00s
4I was in school in the 80s and 90s and this was unheard of lol maybe it's just where I grew up
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You only get fined for unauthorised absence. If you can convince the headmaster to sign off on it your ok. I suspect it's an easier argument if your kids are doing well at school and there is some benefits to the trip other than it's cheaper.
5Ie the "posh" kids get it haha
Don't ever stop being a classist bedrock UK!
3Also, it's easier if your child already has good attendance. Miss every other Friday already, your holiday to manage is not being authorised, have 100% attendance, then your two days trip to visit Santa in Lapland is going to be approved
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Parents should not take their children on term-time holidays and have a responsibility to keep them in school, the new education secretary has told the BBC.In her first interview in the role with BBC News, Bridget Phillipson said there "will have to be consequences" for parents who fail to do so.She said punishments, like fines, are a "well-established practice" and are "here to stay".It comes as some parents say weighing a fine against the much larger cost of a trip during the school holidays makes the decision a "no-brainer".
Minimum fines, imposed by local authorities, for taking children out of class without permission for five school days will rise from £60 per child to £80 per child from August.Head teachers have some say over which cases they refer to the council for potential fines.Repeated failure to ensure school attendance can result in a court prosecution, a fine of up to £2,500, a community order and even a jail sentence of up to three months.But some parents have told the BBC they are saving thousands by going away during term time rather than the school holidays.Ms Phillipson said it was important that parents "honour our responsibilities".
The education secretary has also been setting out plans for a wide-ranging review of what is taught in schools in England.Launching the curriculum review on Friday, Ms Phillipson said all children should have a strong academic foundation in subjects like English and maths, but also have access to music, art, drama and sports.At Heworth Grange School in Gateshead, Erin Anderson is head of arts and culture, covering subjects like music and drama.
"They learn how to work together as team players, they get to stand on their own two feet, they can speak more confidently.
"Year nine pupil Lucy said she sometimes struggles in lessons like English and science because she is "really dramatic", but says she finds her creative subjects less stressful.
The Department for Education said that, after the review, all state schools will have to follow the national curriculum up to the age of 16, including academies which do not currently have to do so.Ms Phillipson also told the BBC she was committed to Labour's promise to deliver free breakfast clubs across all primary schools, but said it would "take time" to roll out.She said the clubs would contribute to tackling the "really big challenge" of widespread persistent absence in schools.She also promised to carry on the roll-out of the government-funded childcare hours promised by the previous government, but said it would be a "tough challenge" to ensure enough places were available and that the workforce was in place to deliver it.Additional reporting by Hope Rhodes.
The original article contains 528 words, the summary contains 444 words. Saved 16%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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