A mum-of-three has begun home schooling her children after being fined £480 in January for taking them to Portugal in term time.
Jewellery designer Rachel Smith, 43, and her husband Stuart Smith, 41, who runs Airbnb properties, took their children to Portugal during school term-time.
But, after they had booked two future family breaks with their children – Owen, nine, Ruby, seven and Zac, five – which involved missing four days of the school term, they received the first fine for the Portugal trip for missing a week of school.
Rather than live in fear of incurring further fines or court action and a criminal record, the couple deregistered their children from school for a term, to teach them at home and go on the holidays. They plan to reregister them so they can go back in May.
Rachel told The Mirror: “It’s so that we can go on a couple of affordable holidays. We’d be missing a total of four days off school this term.
“I never intended to homeschool my children, but we had no choice – we’d already been fined £480 and we were worried about getting a large fine and possible criminal record if we didn’t.
“I was really worried about court action, because I know of lots of people this has happened to. My anxiety was so high I couldn’t sleep.
“We went on holiday to Portugal earlier this year – we’d planned to come back the day after they were due at school but we ended up extending it by a week – and got fined hundreds of pounds.”
The family’s upcoming holidays is an overnight trip to Legoland and the other an Easter holiday to Lanzarote
“Going to Legoland for one night during term time will cost £400, but going in the Easter holidays is £700,” she said.
“By going to Portugal in January we managed to get flights for just £20 per person. You can never get flights for anything like that in the school holidays.”
If fixed penalty notices go unpaid, or have been previously issued, parents face court. Rachel says: “I think the government has been very heavy-handed – it feels like a dictatorship.
“How should the government be allowed to be in control of your children? The government is choosing to make it so that people can’t have a holiday.
“I don’t think holidays are a luxury – they are so important for the wellbeing of the family.
“And the kids learn so much from having these experiences that we couldn’t afford to do at other times.”
Rachel is not alone in her views, as a petition urging the government to allow families to take their children on term-time holidays for up to 10 days a year, which has gathered 100,000 signatures.
Backing the petition, Rachel, of Bridgewater, Somerset, adds: “I understand that the government needs to crack down on truancy, but we are just wanting to give our kids educational experiences. There shouldn’t be a one-size fits all approach.”
To register her children for school in May, Rachel has to first reapply and wait for a decision, which can take up to three weeks.
“In order to homeschool, I had to write a letter saying I was deregistering them,” she says. “I was told that the school couldn’t guarantee that there would be places available when they tried to come back. But it’s a small school and not oversubscribed, so we should be ok.”
Meanwhile, she says homeschooling has made life far more flexible.
(Image: Submitted/the Mirror)
Rachel, who shares the responsibility with Stuart, does times tables and spelling at 8.15am, followed by a walk from 9am to 11am. After lunch, between 12.30 and 2pm, the children have free time, playing, with a bit of TV.
At 2pm, they have art, until 3.30pm when they visit family or friends, or go to a kids’ club, followed by dinner at 5pm, one TV programme at 6pm, then reading for an hour at 6.30pm and bed at 8pm.
“We might do half an hour of maths in the morning and then go for a walk or we might do it at 6pm,” says Rachel. “We fit the learning in when it is right time for them. If they are not in the mood to do maths one day then we won’t do any that day.
“We used to go to an Airbnb for the weekend and have to rush back on Sunday night for school, but now we can do things on the beach the next day and create family memories. There is so much more flexibility.”
Rachel, who reckons they save between £3,000 and £5,000 a year by taking holidays in term time, adds: “We will have no hesitation in doing it again – either later this year or next year – if I feel the kids would benefit from a holiday.
“Children are only little once.”
