I can’t understand why schools don’t solve the issue of whether to show it on human rights grounds by just not showing it on the grounds that, you know, it’s the school day and we don’t watch football during the school day. Simple. Kids don’t attend? Implement the normal non attendance sanctions
So no sanctions at all then?
DDs current secondary, and her previous primary, school would not put a sanction in place for one unauthorised absence for a single afternoon session so anyone missing the afternoon classes would get no consequence for missing their work (beyond catching up, which half the kids never do anyway, even when they miss a class for a genuine reason).
It's the only England game that happens in school hours, it's hardly like they're suspending learning for the whole tournament.
Schools know that people will use the football as a reason to bunk off if they don't show it, either because they have genuinely gone to watch it at home/out at a pub or fan space with friends and family or in some areas it's more likely because they'll use the game as a reason to bunk off and then go out and be antisocial with their mates.
So the schools have looked at the options - don't show the game and have multiple kids across all years miss the afternoon session as they know there will be no consequences for their absence and also potentially have kids off causing trouble; or show the game and keep all the kids in school, have a 90 minute break to lessons for the game with a plan put in place for those kids who actively don't want to watch the game and have the opportunity to use the game as a focus for learning (depending on the age of the students).
It's something that has happened once or twice every couple of decades, hardly like they're taking hours out of lessons every single week.