Parents urge others to take their kids on vacation throughout time period time

Parents have been using social media videos to urge others to take their children abroad during term time to avoid sky-high prices during the holidays.

Videos have appeared on TikTok of parents advising others on how to ‘navigate around the fines’, the minimum of which are due to rise from £60 per child to £80 from August.

But some families argue that they have saved thousands by going away during term time rather than the school holidays – saying it was worth paying the fines. 

Laura Melling said it was a ‘no brainer’ when she decided to take her daughters out of school during term time to save £3,000 on their family holiday to Egypt.

Mrs Melling and her husband Paul from Leyland, Lancashire, were each fined £120 by their council after taking their children out of primary school.

The nurse, who went viral on TikTok in a video about the fine which has been viewed 1.4 million times, said the term-time holiday ban was ‘ridiculous’. 

She claims she took her children out of school during term due to the ‘unbelievable price’ of holidays in the summer months.

The price of a holiday can be as much as 40 per cent higher during the school holidays, according to one travel agent.

The mother told the BBC: ‘It was £5,500 to go in the summer and to go in February it was £2,500, it’s a no brainer.

‘We know primary school age is important, but they’re just babies compared to GCSE age. 

‘I could understand if I was taking my children away every single year, but if it’s a one-off, I don’t see why I should get fined.’

She claimed she had been made to feel as though she had ‘done something wrong’ when in her eyes, she was trying to give her children a good life.

After her TikTok went viral, Mrs Melling said she received a lot of support from parents who told her they have always taken their children out of school and that their children are now lawyers – saying it did them ‘no harm’.

Mrs Melling said she and her husband had been working long in the run-up to Christmas and had hardly seen each other so they thought it was right to spend some time together on February half term.

The fine she received has not prevented her from currently planning another family trip to Disneyland Florida.

She told The Telegraph: ‘It’s all about weighing up, isn’t it? If it’s cheap to go, when it’s worth your while going when it’s in school time, then yes – it just all depends on the family circumstances.

‘Some people can afford and will be able to justify £5,500 for a holiday, but I can’t so it was right for me at the time.’

Some parents commented that the savings were so much that it was worth factoring in the price of the fine into the cost of the holiday.

Lancashire County Council, which issued the fine, said it always encouraged schools to work closely with parents to reduce unauthorised absences.

‘Evidence shows that attainment is linked to attendance, so supporting our schools with this issue is important,’ it added.

Headteacher Mark Lehain disagreed with Mrs Melling’s actions and said parents ‘sign a social contract’ when they choose to send their kids to school. 

He said on Good Morning Britain this morning: ‘When we as parents choose to send our kids to school, and that is a choice that we make, we are choosing to sign like a social contract. And that social contract is that you send your child to school everyday.

‘Although it might not feel like at the end of term things are not going on like in normal time, when I speak to my primary school they get upset because they are working those kids right to the final minute, right to the very end.’ 

Mrs Melling shot back and said she stood by her decision.

She said: ‘Going back to last year, teacher strike days means the social contract on the schools got broken. We got no say in that. Nothing got said about that. Why is it okay to have one rule for one and another rule for another?’

Meanwhile other TikTok users weighed in and gave their tips on dealing with the fines.

One mother and teacher called Samantha from Sussex, shared advice on how to exploit loopholes to avoid the fines by removing children for four days instead of five or feigning illness. 

Another mother suggested making use of the exemption for those missing school for religious observance.

She said: ‘I’m going to change my religion to a sun-worshipper, and obviously there’s no sun in England.

‘So for two weeks per year in term time, my kids are going to have to go and take part in religious observance abroad.’

But one teacher, who goes by Ashleigh Beedle on TikTok, made a video titled ‘School Fines from a teachers perspective’.

In the video she claimed that due to how children are taught now, which involves incremental learning and understanding instead of memorisation, if children miss school they can quickly fall behind. 

She said it can cause children to ‘completely struggle’ if they have missed school, which can make them want to ‘give up’.

The teacher then backed the government’s fine policy and said: ‘The government should be fining you for taking your kids out and I don’t understand how we are being aggy with the government about it. 

‘Why aren’t we being aggy with the travel companies who are charging a ridiculous amount for going on holiday in the summer holidays? That is who we should be like boycotting, not the government.’

The row over fines for parents who take their children out of school for term-time holidays has jumped by a quarter since the pandemic following a radical shift in attitudes towards attendance. 

Since Covid it has been harder for schools to hold the line that every day missed has an impact on education, because some families no longer believe it is that stark. 

Earlier this week research has confirmed that tests and exam results are showing the pandemic led to a widened gap between children from the highest and lowest income families. 

That suggests missing days at school will have a bigger impact on some children than others. 

But school attendance has struggled to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels, with almost 20 per cent of children in the autumn term of 2023, meaning they missed at least 10 per cent of term time.

Department for Education (DfE) figures published in December showed that 356,181 penalty notices were issued for unauthorised family holiday absence in the 2022/23 academic year – the highest number on record and up 24 per cent since 2019. 

The previous Education Secretary Gillian Keegan launched a new war on term-time holidays by introducing a 33 per cent rise in the penalty in February. Michael Gove originally brought in the fines in 2013. 

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told BBC Breakfast this morning that children should not be taken on term-time holidays.

She said: ‘I think parents have responsibilities and their children should be in school. Fines are an important part of that system. It is an important part of the social contract that we have that we honour our responsibilities.

‘Children not being in school doesn’t just have an impact on those individual children, it means that teachers often have to recover material because children have missed out.’

A DfE spokesman said in a statement: ‘High and rising school standards are at the heart of our mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life. Strong foundations of learning are grounded in attendance in the classroom.

‘We are committed to improving attendance with the support-first approach outlined in our guidance, helping parents to meet their responsibility to ensure their child attends school.

‘However, in cases of term-time holiday where support would be inappropriate in the first place legal intervention, including penalty notices, is available to change behaviour.’