The newly launched Great British PAC is absolutely flying, capturing the attention of the Telegraph, The Mail and even one Elon Musk. If you haven’t joined, please do sign up to save the country – it’s free!
One area that is attracting a lot of attention is the Policy Platform. Policy Platform is GB PAC’s brand-new forum for the people’s favourite ideas.
You can add your own ideas, upvote your favourites, and comment on any of them. The PAC will then be sharing the best of these with the Biggest Names on the British Right, to get them ready for the new government.
Barely a week in and GB PAC Policy Director Andrew Hunt says he’s already going through dozens of fantastic ideas. One that caught his eye today was from ‘Ruby’, who suggests:
Families should be allowed to take their children out of school, even if they are giving 5 days annual leave for holidays during term time.
Or holiday companies shouldn’t be allowed to inflate prices during school holidays!
It’s always low income families that suffer – we all went on holidays and it never did us any harm. Family time & experiences are just as important as education if not more.
It’s a fantastic idea and an increasingly common complaint among hard pressed parents. In fact, polling shows over half of parents support the right to take their children out of school for trips and holidays. Meanwhile greedy councils are making record sums from fining hard-up parents for taking kids out of school during term time.
Obviously, a balance needs to be struck. Children do need to attend school for their welfare and education, but this war on parents does seem to be going a bit far.
Often parents have no choice. A week at Centre Parcs can cost over £3000 during school holiday time or £700 off-peak. Flights, ski holidays, hotels and accommodation all have the same surge pricing. That means many low- and middle-income children are missing out on enjoyable holidays and vital experiences.
Moreover, because everyone tries to take holiday at the same time, many working parents simply cannot get the leave during holiday time.
There are two solutions. The first is to stagger school holidays by Region. Practically, this is not too difficult. Different regions also have different examining boards, so exam season can be on different dates as well. Given our population explosion and broken infrastructure, we may have to do this so the system can cope.
The second, more whizzy idea is to create an AI-driven school absence app. Parents could download the app and apply for up to two weeks of leave a year, except during exam years. Providing their child was performing well and there were no safe-guarding concerns, that leave would be granted. Along with it, would be some interactive AI teaching modules so the pupil can stay up to date on the bit of the curriculum they are missing. The technology would include questions and interactive elements to ensure the child grasps the material.
In addition, we could learn from our Antipodean cousins. In Australia and New Zealand, taking a break during term time is almost encouraged: the argument being that children will often learn more on a well-structured holiday than in the classroom.
BUT there is one stipulation: when the child returns from holiday, they have to do a short presentation, telling their class where they’ve been and what they’ve learned. Again, interactive AI could help them create and format this.
It’s not just holidays this could help. Sometimes parents want to take children out of school for important events; such as marriages, graduations or funerals. Again, the app could help here. It could also help children who miss school because they are sick or are members of itinerant families (such as Roma or Travellers). That could be a lot of valuable extra support for children and parents.
Thanks Again Ruby for your fab idea.
This is just one of dozens of ideas to save the country that the PAC are gathering on their Policy Platform.
If you like it, you can vote for it, and add your own ideas, upvote your favourites, and comment on any of them. The Great British PAC will be sharing the best of these with the Biggest Names on the British Right, to get them ready for the new government.
Join the PAC, share your thoughts, and save the country.
My only concern with this idea is that holiday companies would increase all of their prices to cover for any lost revenue during the peak times.