A school headteacher has come up with a novel plan to help parents save up to £1,200 on their family holidays - by putting the whole year’s inset days in the same week.
Schools in Wales are allowed to have five inset days during the school year, but it is up to individual schools when they are taken.
They are normally scattered throughout the year and are often tagged on to half term and other holiday weeks.
One week in June
But parents at Eveswell Primary School in Newport were told this week that the five days would all be taken during one week in June next year to allow them to book cheaper holidays, as it is during term time.
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And the move could save a family of four anything up to £1,200 on a holiday.
A midweek break at Bluestone for the week for a family of four in June is £329 but that rises to £799 for the same holiday during the school summer holidays.
It is a similar story at Center Parcs where a midweek break for a family of four is £459 during that week, compared to £999 during the summer school holidays.
Any families going abroad could make even greater savings.
A study of prices both in and out of term times by the Nationwide Building Society in June this year revealed household budgets are being hammered with the cost of a week in Spain for a family of two adults and two children rocketing from £1,872 on June 24 to £3,136 on August 5 – a massive difference of £1,264.
Those hopping over the Channel to Disneyland Paris pay £2,512 in August compared with £2,341 in June, a saving of £171.
Added to Whitsun holiday
Parents were sent a letter at the end of this term from headteacher Mrs Barnett saying: “There will be five training days for staff where the school is closed to pupils.
“It has been decided to take these as one whole week with the hope that cheaper holidays can be booked and therefore holidays will not affect attendance at other times in the year.
“This will be Monday 6th to Friday 10th June 2016.”
The days add an extra week to the whitsun half-term holiday.
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Clampdown on school term holidays
It is a help to parents at a time when local authorities and schools have been clamping down on parents taking their children out of school during term time.
Parents in some areas of Wales have been fined around £60 per child for taking their children out of school as it is marked down as unauthorised absence.
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It is a move that has been welcomed by many parents.
Gemma Thomas, from Abercarn, said: “If every school did this but chose a different week to other council areas it would be completely fantastic for families.”
'Great to see more schools doing it'
Ceredigion mother of three Bethany Walpole-Wroe, of campaign group Let Children in Wales Have Holidays During Term Time, said: “It is great to see a school taking the initiative to enable families to take a holiday during a cheaper time of the year, and it would be great to see more schools doing the same.
“However, it will not solve all instances of needing absence during term time, as families have a whole host of other pressures to prevent them taking time off during school holidays, such as work commitments. It can also be a case of a family wedding or funeral, the timing of which the immediate family may have no control.”
Parent Terri-Anne Millar said on Facebook: “Maybe if the travel industry didn’t triple their prices during the school holidays we wouldn’t have to worry about consolidating all teacher training days.
“I have in the past taken my kids out of school because it was cheaper to go abroad. I saved around £400. The travel industry make it really difficult to be able to afford school holiday prices.”
Plenty of notice
A spokesman for Cardiff council said schools in the city were asked to take September 1 as an inset day but that after that it was up to individual schools when to take them.
Mum-of-two Amanda Millar, 41, from Radyr, Cardiff, said: “It costs so much for a family of four to go anywhere during the school holidays. This us a great way of getting round it and the week is planned for the right time if year.
“The head has also given parents plenty of notice for parents to get organised. It’s a great idea on so many fronts.”
Dr Philip Dixon, director of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in Wales (ATL Cymru), said: “The primary factor here is that children’s education must be treated as an absolute priority because it equips children to go on to lead healthy and hopefully wealthy adult lives and missing out on any of it puts children at a big disadvantage to others.
“Having said that it is a shame the way market forces work it means that parents taking their children on holiday in what are traditional out-of-term times means they have to pay a lot more.
'If all schools do it market forces come into play'
“It will be interesting to see the feedback from parents if this school goes ahead with its plan, finding out for instance how much money was saved and how it worked out for them.
“Also equally interesting will be the feedback from staff. We will have to find out from them if holding inset days all in one week helps them develop as teachers as these days are designed to do.
“It may well be some teachers may not like the idea but that remains to be seen.
“One thing that strikes me about this proposal is of course is that if all schools do this market forces might well come into play again and holiday prices may rise on weeks when these inset days are being held.
“At the end of the day we must have assurances children’s education will not suffer as a result of this.”
Travel industry body Abta has called for staggered school holidays to ease what it called “yo-yo prices” over the academic year.
In a statement it said: “The reason prices rise during school holidays and other busy periods is due to supply and demand.
“More people in the UK and across Europe want to take holidays in July and August, at Easter and at Christmas, therefore prices rise during these times as there is increased demand for a limited number of hotel rooms and flight seats.”
Only 17% would not take children out
Earlier this week the campaign group Let Children in Wales have a Holiday During Term Time presented the results from a survey of more than 1,000 parents based in every region of Wales at the Senedd.
According to the survey, only 17% of parents would not take their children out of school during term time and 38% have already done so, since the guidelines came in.
The survey also highlighted that in the last week of term, only 12% of schools continued to work hard until the last moment, with 45% playing games and 42% watching videos.
Whilst the campaign group has stated it is not against the end of term wind down, it believes that taking children on holiday in the last couple of weeks of term will not mean missing out on important schoolwork in most cases.
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