Parents should 'send children to school with sniffles'

Charlie Taylor also called for a clampdown on term time holidays warning that youngsters who regularly have time off can end up missing a year of schooling by the time they reach 16. Absence rates for pupils in the reception year (ages four and five) are also set to be published in a bid to get primary schools to pick up patterns of poor attendance early on. Mr Taylor, who is head of The Willows, a special school in west London for children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties, said schools must do more to teach parents about the importance of good attendance and to pick up those who are falling into ''bad habits''. And he warned that time missed in nursery or primary school was as important as time missed in secondary schools. Speaking as he published his review into attendance in schools, ordered by ministers in the wake of the riots last summer, Mr Taylor suggested that parents can be ''trigger happy'' in keeping children off sick. At one West Bromwich school, he said, parents are taught ''what represented a sniffle, and what represented something that was genuinely serious enough to keep a child off from school for.'' ''Some parents think they're being a good parent by keeping their child off school, but actually sometimes they can be a bit trigger happy, particularly with young parents and young children,'' Mr Taylor said. He added that there was a tendency to ''be more precious'' with younger, or first children. ''I think it's just an education job, it's helping parents to understand what's the difference between a bit of a sniffle and 'don't worry well look after him and if there's a real problem we'll give you a ring' and something that's really serious and the kid needs to be at home. ''I think it's about if in doubt send them to school, and we say that a lot with our parents. Send them to school, because, you know, sometimes the kid is just playing it.'' In his review Mr Taylor also recommends a crackdown on term time holidays, saying there is often an ''automatic assumption'' that pupils can have two weeks off a year. ''There's a big concern about some parents feeling they've got the entitlement to take two weeks holiday a year,'' he said. ''And actually if you add the two weeks holiday a year and you factor in the average eight to 10 days that children have off for sickness and medical appointments, you're then looking, by the time a child leaves school, at the age of 16, having effectively missed a year of their education.'' Mr Taylor added: ''We do need, and I think particularly at primary school, to be firmer about term time holidays. I think sometimes in primary schools we undersell the work we do. But actually a day missed in primary school or a week missed in primary school, is no less important than a week missed in secondary school.'' He said he was not calling for a ban on term time holidays, because there are ''exceptional circumstances'' when a pupil may need to be taken out of school. The decision should be at the discretion if the headteacher, Mr Taylor added. ''What's important in terms of the recommendations is that it's the exception rather than the rule, and there isn't this automatic entitlement.''