It appears as though local authorities are raking in £8 million per year in fines given to parents for their children term time holidays. Has there ever been a more iniquitous, unfair, system?  Many of the current Government may well enjoy a return to Victorian values, where aristocratic wrong doing could be hidden behind a veil of respectability, and the working class did as they were told, but this system of imposing fines when parents of children taking term time holidays smacks of the worst kind of prejudice. Let us start by taking a look at the reason parents make the choice to take their children out of for term time holidays.  In the overwhelming majority of cases, it comes down to one thing.  Cost. A simple search of the Thomas Cook website (other package holiday companies are available to exploit poor parents.)   I looked at a holiday to Lanzarote for two adults and two children in an average hostelry.  Let us call it Halcyon Hotel, ranked three and a half owls by TripAdvisor. Exploitation By The Travel Industry To enjoy the warm sunshine and oddly coloured beaches of the Canaries in this resort in mid-June costs the above family a total of £1968 for flights, transfers and accommodation on an all-inclusive basis.  Plus, presumably, £120 in fines from the local authority.  To enjoy the same holiday in early August sees the price rise to £3196, or over £1200 more.  Now, in no way would I be as bold as to suggest that there are any particular reasons for successive Governments to allow this complete exploitation of young families by the travel industry, but it is certainly odd that pressure has not been applied to either widen the peak period and hence spread prices, or impose some kind of pressure on the travel companies to stop taking advantage of the financially vulnerable. More Likely To Be Fined If You Really Need A Term Time Holidays The second reason that the fines imposed are so unfair is that there is considerable inequality between the way they are issued over different parts of the country.  In fact, it seems as though (perish the thought) some local authorities see these charges, like parking fines, as a way of raising revenue.  The areas where the charges are most likely to be applied, according to some research carried out by the BBC, are in: Suffolk, Sussex, The Isle of Wight, Lancashire and the Humber regions.  All of which are, of course, have a coastline and are more likely to have people dependent on the summer trade, meaning that this is a time when they cannot get away from work.  In these cases, the only way to take a family out when the sun is shining is to take term time holidays. Are We So Good That No Lessons Can Be Missed? I know that it is hard to put a price on a week of education.  But if we are really honest as teachers, does being away for a short time really make that much difference to a child’s progress?  Are our lessons so splendiferously wonderful and consistently brilliant that missing them for a week is really going to hamper that sun-tanned youngster throughout their life?  And for those that piously state that absence impacts on others in the class – is it really true?  Or are we blowing ourselves up to be a little more important than we actually are?  For those who disagree, I suggest we take ourselves back to our understanding of what really makes an effective learner.  Yes, the teacher is highly significant, but so are the well being of the child, their home support, the experiences they have.  All of these benefit from a week away with the family.  If we peek behind the Government’s self-righteous hyperbole, it is hard to argue otherwise.  And let us be really honest, children are away from school all of the time for many legitimate reasons – illness, visits to other schools, music lessons and so forth - does a week really make that much difference? One Law for the Rich But the biggest reason that these fines are so completely, despicably unfair is that they only apply to a certain sector of society.  If a family has enough money to pay for their child’s education, then they will not face the said charges.  To some extent, although it is duplicitous, it is understandable that independent school heads lack the courage to issue fines (perhaps the odd school does, but I have never heard of one).  After all, running an independent school is about keeping the customer happy, and fining the fee payers for taking their child on holiday hardly meets that criteria.  What would happen to the money is also a moot point.  Strengthening the coffers of an already burgeoning bank balance might be seen as just not cricket. Cursory Checks I have worked in schools, in the independent sector, where attendance for many pupils can be well under 80%.  Nothing is done.  The local authorities are not interested, and nor is the highly suspect ISI inspection routine.  Certainly, although it is anecdotal, I have always been discouraged from marking any absence as unauthorised.  I inspected attendance many times in independent schools, but it was made clear that the check should only be of the most surface kind.  Already longer than maintained school holidays are extended at either end to ensure cheap flights and accommodation; ‘educational’ experiences such as a week on a yacht could only possibly happen when everybody else is at school.  Day trips to racing festivals or a couple of days to follow a favourite football team on a European adventure are commonplace.  But, actually, the impact of such absences on both that child’s education, and that of their classmates, seems completely non-existent. We live in a society full of inequality, but even so it is hard to think these days of many pieces of actual legislation that apply to all but the richest, yet the right to fine parents for term time holidays.  It needs to be addressed, quickly.