Just going to copy and paste what I have written for the "feedback" page Pete mentioned in the show...
Hi Pete,
As per your request, I'd like to provide some feedback on taking kids out of school, particularly in the U.K.
With regards to "why" parents take their children out of school in the U.K.- the answer is very simple, the same holiday could literally cost half as much if you go during school time.
The U.K. Education system typically has the same holidays across the board:
Christmas break runs for two weeks, from the Friday before Christmas to a day or two after New Years.
"Half term" is then a week in the middle of February.
Easter holidays are typically the two weeks either side of Easter Sunday.
"Half term" - another week off that always starts with the last Monday in May.
"Summer holidays" - from the middle/end of July to the start of September
"Half term" - the last week of October.
So with these school dates pretty much set in stone, it's pretty easy to predict when most people with a family will want to take a vacation, and the law of supply and demand kicks in: if a flight from London to Orlando costs £500 in June, it costs £1000 in August (I'm not kidding! The prices are crazy!).
So you can understand why, from a cost perspective, many people would want to do it: for a family of four (2 adults and 2 teenagers), the cost of just getting to Disney can double; and it wasn't cheap to begin with.
But here is the problem (and my experience here is that my wife is a teacher): a classroom environment works best when all of the children are present.
The more time the child spends in school the better. So when a child misses even a day of school, they return behind the rest of the class, and the teacher now has to disrupt the flow of the next lesson because 1 child doesn't know what they're talking about. It removes the ability to focus on the class as a whole. The longer that child misses, the harder it is for them to catch up, and the more time the teacher has to spend with them going over stuff they missed, meaning the less time they spend with the class as a whole.
My wife explains teaching as giving six one hour presentations a day. To prepare each of those presentations can take at least 20-30 minutes outside of school, and marking books also takes time, again done away from the classroom. A "good" teacher in the U.K. Currently works in the region of 50-60 hours per week, works weekends, and during the holiday periods simply uses the time to catch up on marking, or get a head start on planning some lessons when school starts back up.
So, as I'm sure you can appreciate, students missing class is a teachers worst nightmare. It is bad enough when 1 child misses a week- but could you imagine the chaos if 1 child had a week off, then when that child returned, another child had a week off!? The teacher could effectively be attempting to teach 3 different things every lesson.
So, to discourage this, the government has given local education authorities the power to fine parents for taking their children out of school during term times. If you wish to take a child out of school, 99% of the time the school will not authorize it; then fine you if you take them anyway.
John made a point during the podcast: "if I want to take my child out of school, that's on me"....
That is a view many take, but they are not considering that they are not just taking their child out of school: they are disrupting the classroom environment for potentially weeks on end. The remaining children notice that someone is missing from their group. When the child returns, the teacher is then trying to bring them up to speed; so not giving the class as a whole the attention they need.
The bottom line from an education point of view, is that children missing time from their free education is terrible for their and their classmates education; and should be discouraged. That is why the fines exist.
Sadly, the fines are often not deterrent enough: most families take the vacation anyway, and pay the fine; as a £3000 vacation plus a £160 fine is cheaper than a £6000 holiday.
I will admit, I am biased: as the husband of a teacher, I wish the penalty for taking children out of school was worse than it is now. The education is free, and incredibly good. Parents in many other countries would give anything to have an education system like ours; yet many over here abuse and mistreat it. All to (more often than not) save £200 on a cheap holiday to Europe.