POSTED BY: Mark Ling, Ipswich
This Government’s ceaseless hostility towards families has lead to an explosive rise in divorce and broken homes. The Government looks on gormlessly as social breakdown occurs, then shamefully blames parents, teachers and children for the consequences. On the face of it their latest assault on families taking a single, term time holiday looks impossible to defend. After all, children have twelve weeks a year holiday, so why should parents believe it necessary to take them out during school time ? The truth is, however, that this problem actually provides more proof that the Local Education Authority (LEA) and government simply have no clue about life in the real world. After years of government policy neglecting and failing to support families, many are now either broken homes; or only survive with both parents working. The kids may get twelve weeks school holidays, but working parents get an average of just four weeks. Their employers also need to manage holiday periods to ensure they have adequate staff cover. The LEA, which claims that even a single, two week term time family holiday will “disrupt a child’s learning”, has no compunction about closing the school during term time for 3-5 days per year for “Teacher Development Training”. While they chastise parents, they see no need to schedule training during the twelve weeks when kids are on holiday. Instead, parents are forced to take more precious work holidays; or pay expensive child care to cover these development days ! The key problem of course is that families are forced to pay higher cost for holidays. The travel companies are NOT to blame. Like any business or commodity, prices are dictated by supply and demand. Forcing parents to book in a six week summer window means that families pay 30-50% more for the same holiday. For modest overseas “sun” holidays (like Spain, Portugal, Greece) families are also forced to travel during unhealthy, maximum summer temperatures. A family holiday provides so many positives and benefits for a modern family, and for our society. It is possibly the only two weeks of quality time that a family will spend together during the year. It is a time to bond, make new friends, experience new cultures and countries, and to simply take a break from modern living ! The previous system of turning a blind eye to a single family holiday during term time may have been abused by a minority, but it was a reasonable compromise. The Government & LEA’s current draconian and unfair policy is discriminatory against families and must be rethought.