A DAD has slammed his children's school after he received a £480 fine for taking his kids on holiday during term time.
Paul Benson and his wife Jessica were slapped with a £480 fine after taking their children Ruby and George to Florida last September.
The couple have taken their children on holiday during the school term on two occasions and have been fined £240 each time.
But the dad from Redcar in Yorkshire has recently slammed the fine as "unfair" because family holidays are "significantly cheaper" in September after children have gone back to school.
Paul told Yorkshire Live: "It’s not like they are truant students, they might have had a two-week holiday and two or three sick days.
"A family of four like us to go to Florida during the summer holidays – we’d never be able to afford it.
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"To go in August you can be looking at twelve grand, but then a week or two later in September it's £3,700, so you think: ‘Well we’ll take the fine’.
"If you can’t afford to go during the holidays, you are penalised for it, that’s how it makes you feel."
Events manager Paul said: "It wasn't so much the fine that bothered us, but because of the fine, it meant it was a criminal activity to be able to spend time with our family.
"Teachers would remind us and say it's affecting their education, and their education would suffer as a result.
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"But our eldest child was one of the top performers in her SATs. So it contradicted what they were saying all the way along.
"We just found it a massive blow to us.
"My wife said to me it feels like only the privileged people can have a holiday – the super earners who can afford to go. It's not an equal opportunity."
By holidaying in term time, the family of four saved £8k on their most recent holiday to Florida.
Paul said he had first taken his two kids, Ruby, and George, out of school in September for a trip to Disney World, Florida, in 2018.
And he then repeated the trip last year during the same period when the pair, now aged 12 and ten respectively, were accompanied by his new baby Olive, 2.
But on both occasions, he said teachers had warned him about taking the time off before informing Redcar and Cleveland Council about their unauthorised trips.
He said: "Our school is quite hot on attendance. The school basically informed us that they are going to pass it on to the local authority.
"And it's the local authorities that issue the fine. Both of them we got them in the first week of December.
"We'd got to parents evening and they say 'Your child is not doing as well as you've gone on holiday and that's going to have a massive impact on their learning.
"And in September, the head teacher pulled me aside.
"They said: 'I hope you're not planning to go on any trip to Florida or trips abroad this year as it's going to impact your child's education'."
Paul said his wife, who is an operating department practitioner in the NHS, was limited in the time that she could take off during normal school holiday periods.
And he said the time away was also a form of education that gave his children valuable insights into different cultures and experiences.
He went on: "My wife works for the NHS, so obviously during the pandemic, there was a massive backlog for operations. It's very competitive when staff want to take holidays.
"She couldn't really take time off during the holidays.
"And they're learning about travelling abroad and the different culture over there, different ways of doing things."
Paul said it wasn't nice to receive fines for taking his two kids out of school, which each arrived in the first week of December, just before Christmas.
He also called for councils to be more "fair" with parents after learning that friends of his at different schools had not been fined for doing the same thing.
He added: "It was a massive sting trying to get Christmas presents, and then you get that massive £240 fine coming through the door.
"So I think it needs to be done more fair. I've got some friends with kids at different schools and councils and the teachers have a different approach."
Redcar and Cleveland Council, who issued the fines, said they would review the current criteria for issuing fines after looking at this case.
Meanwhile, another mum in Texas has revealed that she saves thousands by taking her kids out of school during term time to go on holiday.
Faith Skeen, 33, from South Texas, takes her two children Chris, 15, and Zach, 11, out of school to go on holiday and attend music concerts.
She told Sun Online Travel: "We've used sick days for many vacations and trips over the years.
"Most recently, I took my 15-year-old to a Twenty One Pilots concert.
"Flying on a Friday was double the price of flying on a Wednesday, so we took three days for that one. I would do that again in a heartbeat.
Last year, Faith spent $7,000 (£5,800) on trips and holidays.
She said: "We're usually able to cut the price of airfare and lodging in half by shopping dates, so I'd say we've saved at least $7,000 (£5,800) this year alone.
"Travelling outside of school breaks and holidays saves us a ton of cash, not just on airfare but on goods and services at our destination as well.
"We couldn't afford half of the things we do if we waited for summer, spring, or half-term holidays."
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