Teachers say holidays in term can be worth more than time in school

Teachers have so little belief in the importance of pupils’ full school attendance that they would take their own children on term time holidays if they could, staff have told a three-year research programme. Frontline staff do not believe the school system is set up to deal with an ongoing attendance crisis in England and Wales, where nearly one in five children are now missing at least 10% of school, according to a report based on in-depth conversations with teachers. Despite a hardline approach from schools to tackle the crisis, evidence from focus groups containing teachers from schools in low-income areas suggests many share the same scepticism as parents and pupils about the efficiency of holiday fines, according to the report by youth charity Impetus and policy and polling research firm Public First.

Another noted: “If it’s the only holiday you get to experience in a five-year period, I think that’s probably worth more than a week in school in January.” The report comes as the children’s commissioner warned of tens of thousands of hidden Neets (young people not in education, employment or training), with analysis suggesting that an estimated 42,000 16- and 17-year-olds enrolled in colleges in England are attending less than half the time. Rachel de Souza warned that the number of Neets is almost twice as large as official figures indicate, according to a new analysis of 262 of England’s 290 college groups, which are not included in Department for Education attendance figures. They spoke of the work of chasing pupils’ attendance as “relentless” and expressed the view that an occasional holiday or minor absence was less worrying than sustained disengagement.

While some staff saw fines as a necessary tool, many believed they damage trust and undermine the relational work needed to support pupils and families to re-engage with school. Researchers have previously warned of a “seismic shift” in attitudes to attendance since the pandemic, with concern that some parents no longer believe children needed to be in school full-time. The absence rate for pupils in England in 2025-26 was 6.93%, significantly above the 2018-19 pre-Covid level of 4.7% Teachers and senior leaders in schools also argued that gaps in mental health support for struggling students, unmet special educational needs and a paucity of social workers was making their jobs more difficult with schools seen as “the one-stop shop for everything”.