School attendance is very obviously linked to achievement, and frankly taking your child out of school to go on holiday somewhere hot, whether they're a year ahead or a year behind, is a decision you make and you have to face the consequences. If you send your child to a school, I think you have to be supportive of that school and what they're offering your child - not just decide that some weeks are of no value and you'd be better on a beach.
This is just not true. Missing one week or even two is not linked to lower achievement, missing substantial portions of school is linked to poor achievement but it is also linked to chaotic lives, poverty and general issues with coping with life (unless due to illness). So- yet again the government targets the wrong group.
Secondly, class sizes are huge, the entire school my dd's are in is at capacity, 30 in every classroom, all those small boxy low ceilinged classrooms suited to 20 children and with no storage space. The system is creaking at the seams. I think having two or three children (10%) missing due to illness or authorized absence is probably a blessed relief!
I agree with everyone who thinks that state interference with previously normal everyday activities (what you give your children to eat, attending a wedding, going abroad to see grandparents) is unpleasant and creates further upset.
And of course it effects the poor most, we went in the holidays last year to my children's home country to see the other half of their family and it cost us so much we are still in debt over it, a year later. The year before it was just within our budget as went for a few days in the middle of November when it was extremely cheap. Now we can't afford to book for next year at all- bad for us, huh, having a family in another country.
I hate this system and what it says about our country. Their target obsession is driving the NHS and the education system and those that work in it to the brink.