Travelling During Term Time: A Risk Too High?
Whilst a child bunking off school has always been a problem schools have had to face, the number of children leaving education in order to enjoy a holiday during school time has risen during the past year. It has been documented that the number of children taking holidays during term has increased to over 1.37 million day of school, with 334, 735 of these being without permission.
As the current financial climate has resulted in family’s budget’s tightening and extra luxuries disappearing, people are always looking to cut costs and save their pounds wherever possible. As holiday companies and airlines can add many hundreds of pounds to a vacation in the school holidays, the determination to look for a cheaper alternative has resulted in the rise of vacations being taken during term time. This is notoriously one of the cheapest times to holiday due to the lack of people being able to travel abroad. The costs can be as staggeringly less as 86% so it is no wonder that people are taking risks and removing their children from education.
Despite this cheap alternative to family travelling, a new revival of existing legislation could mean that parents are faced with a small fortune on their return from holiday. There can be up to a £50 to £100 fine if parents choose to let their child skip school without permission. Due to the rise in term time holidays, the number of fines handed to parents have risen by over 50 per cent as education initiations attempt to crackdown on school-time breaks.
Despite this, Russell Hobby, general secretary designate of the National Association of Head Teachers states that “there continues to be a small minority who see term times and school timetables as guidelines only and think that it is acceptable to remove children from the learning opportunities provided.”
It seems that parents are faced with a dilemma when it comes to travelling abroad with a large family. At each turn there are financial or educational stings which cannot be ignored. Either taking your child out of education, paying 86% more for holidays during school holidays or receiving fines for your cheaply bought break means there can be very little options open for travelling a whole family abroad at a low price.
