Term break rules ‘penalise ballet pupils’

 Term-time holiday rules are preventing children from taking ballet exams, the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) has complained.

Schools are increasingly turning down requests for pupils to miss lessons in order to take a ballet exam as they worry it will count as an “unauthorised absence”, said Andrew Mcbirnie, the RAD exams director.

Following a court ruling in 2013, official guidance on term-time leave said that unauthorised absences should only be granted in “exceptional circumstances”. The RAD is urging the Government to clarify what counts as “exceptional” to prevent overzealous teachers citing the guidance to prevent pupils from taking arts exams.

Mr Mcbirnie said: “When you look at the guidelines, it doesn’t specifically say holiday. Some kind of clarification would be helpful.”

Damian Hinds, the Education Secretary, said schools should be “sympathetic” to requests for pupils to miss lessons as long as it “didn’t have a negative effect on a child’s education”.