A recent study has found that more students, in comparison to previous years, are taking time out of school to go on holiday. A report by the BBC has claimed that ‘Term-time holidays accounted for a quarter of unauthorised absences from schools in England’. That being said, the article has already contradicted itself. This is because it goes on later to say that, in fact, term-time holidays accounted for 27% of all missed school “sessions”. Hence the statistics do not correspond to what was said prior, as 27% is not the same as a quarter, 25%. Additionally, the article fails to mention the number of ‘other unauthorised circumstances’ or ‘children arriving late’, adding up to 2,116,710 days missed of school. In comparison, the number of term-time holidays accounted for only 801,980 of absences in 2015/16, which are 1,314,730 absences less. For example, it is stated that ‘there were 2.6m children with at least one unauthorised absence, compared with 2.4m in 2014-15’, yet these figures also include pupils who arrived late for school. Therefore, the statistics do not truly support that the number of term-time holidays is the reason so many students take time out of school.
Furthermore, the article states the areas that have missed school sessions the most due to holidays. This includes Cornwall, Devon and Liverpool. However, these areas notably have the largest population size in comparison to other areas mentioned. This confirms that they would have more pupils not attending school sessions as they have more schools and students in general.
Overall, despite the sample size being largely representative of their selected population, the statistics can be slightly misleading and do not consider the other reasons why children may miss school days.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39380529
Student post: Term-time holidays – Where most children were absent
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