PARENTS of pupils in a village school near Wellington which is among the best performing in the county have been warned to stop taking their children on term-time holidays.

Stawley Primary School, which has won accolades for pupil achievements in reading, writing, and mathematics key stage two tests, has seen ‘unprecedented’ absences in recent months.

Now, headteacher Jacqui Collier has written to parents reminding them of Government policy and expectations.

Ms Collier said in her newsletter: “We have had an unprecedented number of parents over the last term and into this term who are taking their children out of school in term-time.

“As a school we do all we can to support children on their return and catch them up with the learning they have lost, but please know this takes much-needed resources away from other children in the class.

“While we completely appreciate the lure of low-cost travel and opportunities which are available in term-time, your child deserves a full education, and this right is one the Government have determined will be a priority.

“The absence codes available in school are very limited and we are not able to change this locally, this is a much broader priority than our school alone.

“In Somerset, the monitoring team are fining parents and repeat absence cases, where a child is repeatedly having holidays in term-time, are being prosecuted.

“This is out of our hands.”

Ms Collier said she was aware of ‘a nasty cough and cold’ going through the school, but all absences were monitored and would automatically count toward the absence total if a child was then taken on holiday in term-time.

She said the Government had high targets for attendance for all schools and was no longer accepting absences for holidays of any type, even if there were special occasions or one-off reasons.