Term-time Holidays

In recent years, there has been a great deal of media interest over whether parents should be permitted to take their children out of school for family holidays. Local authorities have been given the ability to fine parents for doing so, and even though one Isle of Wight parent won a case against his daughter’s school in 2016, he was ultimately defeated in the Supreme Court with judges ruling that such fines were legal. I understand that there are many reasons why parents might wish to take a holiday in school time, but in which cases can they be justified?

This issue has been on my mind as I have had half a dozen such holiday absence requests in the first half of Spring Term. Usually LGS parents ask for such absences because there is a family wedding or other celebration, perhaps overseas. Even though these may occasionally fall at inconvenient times (please avoid School Exam week in May!), I fully understand the importance of the whole family attending such an event; these celebrations are part of a shared family history, and are part of a child’s broader cultural education.

This is not to say, however, that there is no risk involved in missing an extended period of school – sometimes a week or more for travel across the globe. I am relatively unperturbed about boys’ absence when they are in Years 6-9. Although any pupil misses a considerable amount of work when he is away for several days, he will have the opportunity to be ‘retaught’ key concepts in subsequent years. However, once GCSE courses start in Year 10, it is a different matter. Year 9 marks the end of the first part of a child’s secondary education. We often say to boys at the start of Year 10 that what they are studying in Year 10 may well re-emerge in their GCSE exam twenty months later. I therefore take a very different view when parents request absence during these examination years.

Parental letters to the Headmaster always refer to their son being determined to ‘catch up’ on missed work. Of course, this is precisely what we would expect. Although, I should stress that the reality for most boys is that this is not as easy as one might think. Of course, teachers can provide resources and then mark the written response that comes in a little later. However, learning is not just about material – acquiring knowledge through reading a textbook and answering a worksheet. The most important parts of lessons concern the skilful explanation of difficult concepts, the testing of pupils’ understanding and correcting of misconceptions through the teachers’ questioning, and the pupil having the ability to seek assistance when he has trouble grasping the material. Indeed, if it were so simple to catch up when working alone, this would indicate that lessons aren’t really necessary in the first place! We could theoretically teach ourselves using traditional and online resources but experience shows that we frequently come up against conceptual hurdles that require the intervention of an expert. Parents should therefore not underestimate the difficult that boys will experience in ‘catching up’ on work missed due to avoidable absences.

Parents are likely to have noted that Leicestershire County Council sets term dates that are often out of kilter with those of other local authorities. The Loughborough Endowed Schools have decided to follow Leicestershire in our structure of the school year, because 80% of our families live in the county (13% in Notts with the remaining families split between Derbyshire and … China), and we understand that many boys will have siblings in different schools within the county, whether private or maintained. Nevertheless, we do acknowledge the inconvenience caused to parents who live in Nottinghamshire, where half-term breaks in particular are often different. To me, Leicestershire’s holidays are decidedly odd, especially half-term breaks which seem often to be a week too early. As a result, the second half of our terms tends to be longer than the first. In theory, I prefer the opposite in order to counter the tiredness that boys feel the longer that term wears on. I hope that Leicestershire might review its dates, but it seems to like being different; in finishing earlier than most schools in July, parents may benefit for example from a marginally cheaper summer holiday. I do, however, feel strongly that we should seek to mirror the holidays of maintained schools in the county as far as possible so as not to inconvenience parents.

In conclusion, I do agree with the premise that parents should not seek to withdraw their children from school during term-time, particularly once they have arrived in Year 10. However, I don’t like the inflexibility applied by many local authorities, which do not seem to acknowledge the benefits gained from unique cultural experiences. In many respects, I think that the local authorities are fighting the wrong battle. In deprived areas, it seems often that parents can adopt a cavalier approach to their child’s routine attendance. However, the issue here is more about spurious days off for ‘illness’ than about holidays. Many of the ‘victims’ of this legislation that have made the news are supportive parents who have the financial wherewithal to offer foreign travel to their children. Yes, we should all think very carefully about the ramifications of requesting holiday time, but there should not be a ‘one size fits all’ approach.