Is it fair to allow your child to miss lessons?

We are approaching that time of year where we look forward to balmy summer evenings. The evenings are long. It’s time to enjoy the outdoors.

It’s about this time of year where parents are thinking about holidays. The frustration of course is that holidays are expensive and airline and hotel prices spike during the school holiday season.

Money is scarce enough and the temptation is overwhelming to book your family holiday just outside the holiday break, say the last week of term, when prices are much cheaper. After all, just one week of missed classes can’t make that much difference.

Oh yes it can. On page 11 we run a story about Hampshire County Council collecting just under £190,000 from school penalty notices due to unauthorised absences from school during the academic year 21/22. This is not an insignificant amount.

Parents with two or three children taken out of school builds up to a lot of missed class time.

Education should be the paramount priority for any parent to impress on their children.

It decides their offspring’s entire future, whether they go to university or take up a trade, or be left with no qualifications.

As a country, the number of skills available within the economy determines where we place ourselves in this competitive world.

Of course, taking a holiday break in term time is not the only reason for a child missing out on lessons. There may be unavoidable circumstances that justify the child’s absence. But every year the issue of holiday breaks during term crops up.

In the UK we enjoy the advantage of education for all children. There are some countries that don’t have this, particularly in the Third World.

There are children who would give their all to have the education we have in the UK.

Parents should think very carefully before they take their children out of class.