Term time holidays

Front page of the JEP last night was the information that 11,000 school days have been missed by children taken on holiday, taken out of school by 2,500 parents - 1/5 of parents.

So, on average, each Jersey school child was away from school on holiday for less than one day last year. Wow, aren't we doing well! Not that anyone would know if form the tone of the article.

Looking at it that 2,500 parents had 2 children each, that's only slightly over 2 days off in a year for their children. Even if they only had one child each that is just over 4 days each, a lot less than the 10 days suggested as a maximum allowance without Education department approval.

I do not see why this is considered a problem.

It would be useful to know how many of the children taken away were in reception class and how many studying for exams this year. The impact of the time off is not going to be the same for both age groups.

Schools do value the benefits of travel, which is why there are such things as school trips. Travel is educational, particularly for Jersey children who may never have seen a train or a city except on TV. I have found that my children's teachers are enthusiastic about them travelling and ask the children to share their opinions on where they have been with the class. We all know that compared to the UK Jersey people have to travel for longer and more expensively to take the same holidays, so doesn't it make sense that we have slightly more flexibility in order to give our children the same advantages that they can give theirs?

Another consideration is that some people cannot take holidays in the school holidays as that is their most demanding work time - hoteliers must be included in this group, so we need to think about whether as a tourist island we make allowances for that.

All in all, I think it is amazing that the amount of holiday time off taken in term time is so little, and it shows that parents do take the education of their children seriously, as they should do - parents are legally responsible for ensuring that their children are educated, not the Education department.