So here's the thing, High Court judges ........

A father has won an appeal in the High Court against a fine for taking his children out of school during term time.  Let's forget the chaos caused to education if the 30 parents of children in one class take the children out of school at different times in addition to generous holiday dates.  Let's forget the arrant nonsense of school holidays being  controlled by the old 'harvest time' and remember these are kids and a full year at school is too much for a young mind.  Let's forget the stupidity of assuming that teachers are lazy and want long holidays.  Only the intellectually moribund would not recognise that teachers work far more hours in a week than most of the parents, and are confined to the tourist industries greed in overcharging for school holidays themselves.

For once let's look at the facts.

Children are required by law to attend school 190 days of the year.  Teachers, laughingly, are required to work 195 days of the year which is a nonsense since teachers work through the holidays.

The child had a 90% attendance before being taken out of school, so has attended for 171 days.  Let's be generous and say that the child was only out of school for 5 days to go on the term-time trip.  That means the child's attendance is now 166 days which is 87.368%.  This does not take into account any future genuine absences such as for medical or family bereavement.

In my days as a manager in industry, the schools provided the first employment reference for the school-leaver including attendance record.  Would I employ a school-leaver who only turns up for 87% of the time? No of course not, there are too many available students with a 90-100% attendance record.  Would I employ a school-leaver who has a D in maths because the individual missed the start of new topics all through the school year?  No of course not, there are too many available students with GCSEs at A* to C.