Term-time holidays more likely if children are not learning enough, says Katharine Birbalsingh

Parents are more likely to take their children out of school for term-time holidays if they aren’t learning enough, Britain’s strictest head teacher has said.

Katharine Birbalsingh, the head teacher of Michaela Community School in Brent, north-west London, said she sympathises with some parents who remove their children from the classroom in order to save money on a holiday.

“I’m often torn on this issue for families where they feel that the children will not miss out on much in the classroom because they’re just not learning that much,” she told The Telegraph’s Money Confidential podcast.

“If you miss a day at Michaela, you are missing a huge amount and the parents are well aware of that, and the children wouldn’t ever not want to be here because they know that they’re going to be really far behind if they’ve missed a day.

“If that isn’t the case in your school, I can understand why parents think, well, look, it doesn’t make much difference. I can take my child out,” she said.

Increasing numbers of parents are choosing to take their children out of school during term times for holidays, figures show, as the costs of flights and accommodation are lower outside of peak periods.

Ms Birbalsingh stressed, however, that it would be a “total disaster” for parents to take their child out of school in the months ahead of GCSE’s or A-levels, even in a school where they feel they “won’t be missing out on that much learning”.

“The fact is, you are teaching your child to drop out of stuff, and to not just persevere when it’s hard,” she said. “And that is never a good thing to teach a child”

She added: “If you’re disrupting the business of preparing for exams, learning about what it is to struggle with something and persevere with it, if that is undermined, then I do think you are harming your child.”

The socially acceptable norm

Her comments come as fines for parents who take their children out of school for term-time holidays have jumped by a quarter since the pandemic.

Parents currently face a £60 fine. If it is unpaid after 22 days, the fee rises to £120. If the fine is still not paid, the parent can be prosecuted.

Figures released by the Department for Education in December show that 356,181 penalty notices were issued for unauthorised family holiday absence in the past academic year, the highest number on record and up 24 per cent since 2019.

A study of parents’ attitudes towards school attendance by Public First also found that term-time holidays have become “entirely socially acceptable across all socioeconomic groups” since lockdown.

Almost all parents whose children had missed school in eight focus groups admitted they were taking term-time holidays, in a “radical shift” in attitudes since the pandemic and teachers’ strikes.

Ms Birbalsingh was dubbed Britain’s strictest head teacher following a student’s unsuccessful legal challenge over the school’s “prayer ban”.