Parents are under more and more pressure to take holidays while the children should still be at school in an attempt to mitigate the high cost of school holiday breaks. However, the rise in fines by almost 70% in the last year has highlighted the danger to parents in doing so.
Parents in England and Wales have a legal responsibility to ensure their child attends school, unless they have opted to home-educate them. If they fail to do so, they are committing an offence under Section 444 of the Education Act 1996. It is because of this that the Government toughened these laws last year and in the Autumn term alone, almost 5300 fines were imposed in England.
In the attempt to save money by taking term time holidays, parents risk fines that will completely wipe out any savings made and run the risk of damaging the child's education.
Schools have been given more power to tackle poor attendance, allowing them to intervene much earlier, but they have also been given the autonomy to set their own term dates in order that more parents can ask schools to consider changes to term and holiday dates that will work for pupils and their families.
As the summer holidays and Easter breaks loom closer, we are likely to see more and more press coverage surrounding the escalating costs of holiday breaks for families, but the Government look unlikely to change their stance.
We, at Holsure have previously considered the high cost of school holiday vacations HERE and you can take a look at our website HERE or continue to explore this blog for further information regarding your holidays and affordable travel insurance.
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