It is now a criminal offence to take your child on holiday during term time without the headteacher’s permission.

Whatever next? Once your child is born, even though YOU are responsible for him or her, the law takes over. You HAVE to register the baby.

If you are a single mother and have had a difficult birth, do the authorities come to your bedside to help? No.

Later, when your child is old enough, you have to send him or her to school. Really? So many parents apply to the school that they know would best suit their child and they are refused entry. Is the authority concerned fined over this inadequacy or forced to allow the child to enter that school? Of course not.

So many times the authorities claim to be able to care for our children better than us. Do our social services people really know our children better?

There are so many reports of families and children being let down by social workers. Most children enjoy a one or two-to-one relationship with their parents.

I have yet to hear of a social worker who has responsibility for only one or two children. It is commonly known that social workers have far too many ‘cases’ on their books.

Every day living is now constricted because of so many cuts. There are very few families that can afford to go on holiday.

Travel firms take advantage and hike up the prices in the school holidays, so families can only afford to have a break in term time.

Missing one week of school is a crime huh? How arrogant of the education providers. Who are they to say that one single week would destroy the child’s education forever? If the teachers are so set on the child not missing lessons – there are worksheets you know – much of the learning material could be given to the family to do while on holiday.

Instead of feeling pressured to sit in the classroom, children should be out, enjoying life and developing family relationships that will stand them in good stead for the rest of their lives.

We all know how much better we feel after a holiday and we usually find we can do much better work immediately afterwards.

It is time the education bigwigs got real, took on board current research that says children only learn when they are happy and allowed them to enjoy experiences in life that they will remember much more than any boring lessons in stuffy classrooms.

Lessons delivered by tired teachers who are duty bound to tick boxes rather than inspire the children are worthless when compared to a holiday experience of a life time.