Sarah Baxter quoted our chief executive Lee Elliot Major in her Sunday Times column on term-time holidays

Every child longs to visit the Magic Kingdom at least once in their life (well, I did anyway). With that in mind, I booked a week’s holiday at Walt Disney World in Florida when our daughter was seven and our son turned five, hoping they would be young enough to have the time of their lives and old enough to remember the hellish queues. Then with any luck they would never want to go again.

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The unceasing clamour from parents for their children to be licensed to play truant (usually for the benefit of the adults) was the backdrop to Michael Gove’s decision as education secretary in 2013 to toughen up the discretionary powers of head teachers. Even after the new regulations were introduced, nearly 64,000 fines for unauthorised absences were issued during the 2013-14 school year. A teacher friend tells me that pushy parents not only insist on travelling at their convenience, but also expect her to provide homework for their offspring on their luxury ski breaks.

It’s not just a question of what’s good for darling Roland or Artemis. As Lee Elliot Major of the Sutton Trust, the educational charity promoting social mobility, argues: “One of the biggest determinants of doing well in school is being in school.” The most deprived pupils have the most to lose from this judgment.

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“We lay all our social ills at the school gates and expect teachers to address them,” says Elliot Major.

Not all teachers, frankly, are capable of that level of responsibility. But nor should they have to be as long as parents behave properly.

Read her full column here (£)