00:00New figures suggest parents are increasingly weighing up the cost of fines against the
00:05savings of travelling outside the school holidays, and often deciding it's worth the risk.
00:10According to the Department for Education, parents can currently be fined when children
00:15miss school without authorisation.
00:16Well it's not so much that they're deprioritising education, it's families want to be able
00:20to do both things.
00:21Obviously you only get a very limited number of years where you're going to go away on
00:24holiday as a family, and with holidays being increasingly expensive, I think we are seeing
00:31a small number of families choosing to take the holidays during term time to cut those
00:34bills.
00:35So it's understandable, and while the government policy is against, last time we ran a survey
00:39on this, which was only a couple of years ago, we found that one in ten families said they
00:43had already taken holidays in term time, and that a third of families said they were thinking
00:48about it.
00:49While ministers argue regular attendance is vital for children's development, parents
00:53facing high travel costs, say the system leaves them little choice.
00:58One of the things to bear in mind is that obviously Scotland has a very different summer
01:01holiday schedule to England and Wales, that their school holidays are almost a month different
01:05to ours, and when we asked this question we asked it to Scottish parents as well as English
01:08and Welsh ones, and the Scottish parents were just as likely to take their kids out of school
01:12as anyone else, so it's not as if phasing the holidays out of what is usually considered
01:17a peak made any difference in that sense.
01:20That said, from my personal experience, my children's school runs a sort of slightly
01:25strange two week half term over October, and knowing that that's a bit cheaper than the
01:29rest of the year, that's when we tend to go away.
01:31So am I right in thinking that yous at Holiday Extras do have some data on how many people are
01:36taking children out of school to go on summer holidays?
01:40Yeah, we asked this question a couple of years ago, and we found that one in ten families
01:45said that they had taken already their family out of school in term time to get a cheaper
01:51holiday, and that a third of families said that they were considering it.
01:54So it's obviously already fairly commonplace, whatever the government is hoping to achieve
01:58its fines, people are fairly comfortable ignoring that rule and taking their kids out of school
02:03to get the holiday.
02:04The Department for Education says 89% of fines for unauthorised absence are issued for term
02:10time holidays, with parents across the UK paying at least £41 million in penalties since
02:162022.
02:19So just in the light of that then, if you consider the fact that we're in a post-Covid climate
02:25at the minute, do you think the pandemic itself has had an impact on people's outlook on holidays
02:32and time spent together? And as a result, this is why people are continuing to just go on
02:36holiday during term time, because they're like, oh, life's too short.
02:40I mean, I think post-pandemic, we certainly saw a lot more holidays because people have
02:43been locked inside for a couple of years, and we're still seeing a peak every year.
02:47I mean, last year was the largest number of flights out of the UK since records began,
02:51much recovered since the pre-Covid times. This year, we're probably going to see more people
02:55fly away again. So there's more holidays every year than ever.
02:59I mean, that's not necessarily just because of Covid, people love going away on holiday,
03:02people love spending time together. So that's only sensible. I think the thing to bear in
03:06mind is there's lots of other ways that people can cut the cost of their holiday. When we
03:10asked this question a couple of years ago, people said there were lots of things they
03:13were considering doing or had already done to reduce the cost of their holiday. One was
03:18to go away in term time, but others were to do better research and make better efforts
03:23to understand where they could go away more cheaply. Pick cheaper destinations, book in advance,
03:28book their holiday extras in advance and take advantage of the savings that creates.
03:31So there's lots of things that people can do to work around this problem without necessarily
03:35risking the fines or taking the kids out of school while the schools are going on.
03:40I think if you do the research, if you book in advance, if you book everything in good time,
03:45if you pick a destination according to your budget, there's lots of places you can go
03:49increasingly cheaply. If you go to the European periphery, for example, rather than the
03:54more popular European beach destinations, it's very much possible to get a cheaper holiday than
03:59you might have thought. And it's very much possible to do that if you book in advance
04:03and if you plan ahead. So we always recommend planning ahead, booking your holiday early
04:07if you can, and booking all your holiday extras like your parking, your lounge, your hotel in
04:11advance as well, if that's possible.
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