Parents are calling for Brighton and Hove schools to combine inset (in-service training) days to help families beat the high cost of travel and accommodation during the school holidays.
Council project manager and parent Annie Heath presented a petition to councillors yesterday (Monday 12 October).
She addressed Brighton and Hove City Council’s Children, Young People and Skills Committee and said: “This petition asks you to discuss with schools the potential for them to take all their inset days together, giving families the opportunity to go on holiday in term time, making it affordable for many more families to do so.
“Many schools in other areas have already done this. A corresponding poll I created shows that 80 per cent of respondents are in favour of schools combining inset days together and that 60 per cent who cannot afford a holiday would then be able to.
“I see this petition as the beginning of a conversation which I am asking you to continue with schools.
“This would take no new laws. It requires no funding. All it requires is the willingness of schools to rearrange some training days.
“The petition asks that schools understand the difference they can make by adopting this approach and enthusiastically work with teachers and governors to overcome any obstacles they may have in achieving this.
“For example, in August flights to Spain for my family cost £920. In November the same flights cost £150.
“In the UK, accommodation prices change in the same way. Even local family days out have peak and off-peak prices.
“So, in the current situation, I am one of the majority who either take their children out of school in term time or never afford a holiday.
“Schools might feel that it is not their job to rearrange training so that we can afford a holiday and that it is not ideal for them to do so.
“Well, as a community we help each other. It is not our job to organise and deliver school fairs, to fundraise and it is far from ideal that any appointment to do with school is in the day for working parents.
“This is something that requires community collaboration – something which in a time of cuts this council is focusing on more and more. Well, it works both ways.
“It isn’t the fines that stop me. They are not a disincentive. It is because I know that schools find it disruptive to have children absent.
“But the longer this situation is in place, the more our choice becomes pay a fine and still be at least £1,000 up or never afford a holiday.
“If schools can only put two or three days out of the total five together, that’s a fine compromise.”
She said an authorised long weekend would be better than an unauthorised week as long as it was not tacked on to the end of the summer holidays when prices were still expensive.
She added: “This is an incredibly positive difference that schools can choose to make for their community.”
Councillor Tom Bewick, who chairs the committee and is also a parent, said that councils did not have the power to instruct schools when to take their inset days.
In Brighton and Hove, he said, all schools took the first day of term in September for staff training.
But the autonomy designed to enable schools to best meet their own needs meant that the council could not tell them what to do.
Councillor Alex Phillips said that she was broadly in favour of combining inset days but as an ex-teacher she also understood the importance of being able to spread training over a year.
She said that it was important for schools to be able to update teachers on changes to legislation and procedures.
Councillor Andrew Wealls asked if the council was responsible for setting term dates and whether they could be moved slightly.
The executive director of children’s services Pinaki Ghoshal said that the council set term dates for community schools – not for academies and church schools. It also had to consult neighbouring areas. The process was set out in law and dates had to be set two years in advance.
Councillor Maggie Barradell proposed that officials prepared a report in response to the petition for a future meeting of the committee. She was seconded by Councillor Phillips and supported by the committee.
