Term-time Leave

Corri Wilson Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Corri Wilson (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the rest of this debate, Mr Hanson. I also thank the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) for introducing the debate; excellent points have been made throughout it.

The petition was brought about as a result of regulations that were first laid before Parliament on 4 April 2013. They went through Parliament on the nod, but fortunately constituents have a mechanism through which they can express concerns. Once again, we have to commend the e-petition process for bringing constituents closer to the workings of Parliament. It is a far cry from the modern processes in Holyrood—but I will leave the intricate details of modernising this House’s parliamentary procedures to more experienced Members.

Making sure pupils are included, engaged and involved in their education is fundamental to achievement and attainment in school, and ultimately to the economic prosperity of both the child and the nation. It is important that schools and parents continue to do all they can to ensure good attendance. We know that the impact of non-attendance at school and non-engagement with learning significantly increases the likelihood of young people leaving school and not going on to further education, employment or training.

I appreciate the concerns that many parents have about the rising costs of package holidays as soon as schools shut down for the summer. That is why the Scottish Government back the lowering and eventual scrapping of air passenger duty; it will benefit thousands of families across Scotland and allow cheaper holidays during school holidays. However, it is not only the tour operators who capitalise on the sudden demand created by a six-week window to spend time with our children; suddenly, we see the cost of car hire, holiday parks and recreational facilities all jump for the holiday. As we have heard, we must recognise that modern living is complex. The value of a family holiday should not be underestimated, whether taken at home or abroad.

In our busy modern world, families need to make a concerted effort to make time for one another. The days of workplaces closing down for trades fortnights are long gone, and many families shuffle shift patterns and annual leave to cover school runs and the various school holidays. Many mums and dads are like ships that pass in the night, juggling work commitments and childcare. Cost is not always the main factor when parents are making decisions about withdrawing their child from school for some family time. As has been mentioned, it should be noted that holidays can sometimes in themselves be a learning experience. The categorisation of most term-time holidays as unauthorised absence has been a contentious issue for some families. If we have no control over the pricing decisions of holiday companies or flight operators, our main focus must be to encourage parents and pupils to recognise the value of learning and the pitfalls of disrupting learning for the pupil, the rest of the class and the teacher.

It is for schools and education authorities to judge what sanctions, if any, they wish to apply to unauthorised absence due to holidays. I hope that common sense would prevail in those circumstances. Family holidays should not be recorded as authorised absence except in exceptional domestic circumstances, where a family needs time together to recover from distress or where the nature of a parent’s employment means that school holiday leave cannot be accommodated—for example, when parents are in the armed services or, indeed, when parents spend their weekdays here in Parliament, where English school holidays are accommodated but Scottish school holidays are not.

The Scottish Government are not keen on parents taking children out of school during term time. Their attendance guidelines say that schools will not normally give permission unless there are exceptional circumstances. In Scotland, local authorities hold the power to act against parents. As has been mentioned, regional variations can work. It should be for local authorities and schools to judge when those circumstances apply and authorise absence accordingly. It is a concern that in the last academic year alone, more than 50,000 penalty notices were issued in England because of children being taken out of lessons for trips. The areas with the highest number of penalty notices include some of the most deprived in the country. We need to ask ourselves this question: do we really want to be causing additional hardship to struggling families who merely seek a better work-life balance?