Are term-time holidays justifiable?

MOLLY GUNN’S article about taking her three children out of school for ten weeks during term time made my blood boil — and by the time I’d read about her giving them ‘duvet days off, trips to the beach, long weekends in Cornwall and weeks in Ibiza and Paxos’, I had gone into orbit. The old canard about a ‘school of life’ cuts no ice with me. Learning to convert from local currencies and a bit of time on Duolingo cannot compensate for missing more than a quarter of their school year (ten of the 39 weeks). Ms Gunn says a rigid five days a week at school will not equip youngsters for ‘a working life in which the jobscape is AI-friendly and most probably freelance’. Really? If her children swallow that, she is doing them no favours. How would teachers structure their classes if, at any time, a quarter of their charges were taking a break in Ibiza? Some children might pick up where they left off but most would struggle. I suspect this is all about Ms Gunn’s needs, really.

ERIc MclAcHlAN, Epsom, Surrey. THE children of those who follow Molly Gunn’s example will learn that rules apply only to other people.

Mrs NIckY MATTHEWS,

Taunton, Somerset.

I AGREE wholeheartedly with Molly Gunn that ‘the school of life’ is vital in education.

In my very early school years, my mother took me away to join my father, who was working in Ghana, West Africa, as a deep-sea diver. In 1962, formal schooling in Africa was more or less non-existent. It was more than two years before I returned to the UK but it took me very little time to catch up. I somehow felt older and wiser than the children around me, as I had learned about life, being creative, responsibilities and other people’s suffering. kEN RoSS, Eastbourne, E. Sussex.