By Julia Lo Bue-Said, managing director of Advantage Travel Partnership
There are not many things in life that I hold sacrosanct, but as a working mother with two young children my holidays are.
Where we go is irrelevant; the only criteria is that we get to spend quality time together, something many families do not accomplish throughout the year other than during those two weeks of bliss.
The fine imposed recently on Stewart and Natasha Sutherland, a couple penalised for taking their children out of school, seems extremely disproportionate. What was their crime? Many parents simply cannot afford to take their children on holiday during the traditional school holidays.
Term-time challenges
There are also many other factors, such as work commitments, that mean families have little choice but to take their children out of school or forgo a holiday.
While local authorities now have the power to stagger holiday term dates, I’m not convinced this is the solution. How do you cope with children in different schools with different term times, as mine are?
What if we looked at the academic impact versus the social benefits of taking children out of school? As a responsible parent I would always speak to the school (under the previous 10-day rule) and ask the school to provide me with homework for us to take on holiday.
I cannot find any research that suggests that taking a child out of school has a negative impact on their attainment. In fact, all the research I came across clearly demonstrated the opposite.
Last year the Daily Mail published a report commissioned by a hotel. It suggested that 95% of parents among the 1,000 respondents felt that spending quality family time together was a key to happiness.
Family matters
In an era when we are desperately fighting to hold on to core family values, we find ourselves in a situation whereby responsible parents are being penalised for not being able to take their children on holiday when they wish.
We all need to abide by rules, but this zero tolerance approach appears to be destroying families’ ability to make decisions that are right for their circumstances.
As an industry we need to educate the consumer that we are not exploiting families, and the principles of supply and demand are apparent in every industry. Our industry works on exceptionally low margins and most companies only make profitable sales during the peak school holiday period.
As a parent I believe the decision to grant leave should be left to the head teacher. They know the child and the family and are more appropriately qualified to approve absences.
Should we be criminalising parents who simply want to treat their family? Or should we be working with the schools to look at ways in which they can work with families to provide solutions on how they can achieve the best possible outcome for the family?
I believe my children are better people for their holiday experiences. I want to help my children experience different cultures as well as build them a bank of memories that they can reflect on throughout their lives. A holiday is one of the few ways that as a family we can achieve this.