Why parents shouldn’t be penalised for taking children on holidays during term time - Yorkshire Post Letters

The Yorkshire Post (November 2) has reported Rotherham Councillor Tracey Wilson's sensible comments on the daftness whereby criminal action is taken against parents who take their children on holiday during term-time whilst others in growing numbers opt for home-schooling (over which there is almost no quality control and from which families can absent themselves at will for holidays - and even argue, often genuinely I dare say, that they maintain the educational routines during holidays).

The only way to hit back against the price-gouging of the tourism industry and its inflated prices during school holidays is to allow people to go on holiday whenever they want.

Why could we not allow a maximum of, say, seven school days missed per term (to include all absences whether for illness or holiday)?

By now, since we all had to run the schools online during lockdowns, a summary of the key points of each lesson (and work to be done) should be being routinely uploaded onto something like Microsoft Teams thereby enabling students to catch up.

Some might criticise this for discriminating against those students who do have regular bouts of illness (because their allowance of days off would be all or mostly used up because of their condition) but in many cases it would help encourage into school many of those students who otherwise all-too-easily give up at the first sniffle of a cold.

If the seven days limit is exceeded then the right response is for a school manager to call in the parents for interrogation - not criminal proceedings.