http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-29744465

It really is a nonsense.

My brother and his family have just been away on holiday (landed back in the UK within the hour in fact). They took my five year old nephew with them in term time, because while the 'fine' was £100, moving the holiday out of term time would have cost them an extra £400.

The problem is the holiday prices vary so radically now that the only way to make the 'fines' work would be to make them so big as to be utterly nonsensical in terms of the actual transgression committed.

Why not get the airlines and travel companies to stop penalising people with children in the first place?

Because the airlines/travel agents etc lose money. I went on holiday three times during term time. Once when I was around five, again when I was ten and and finally when I was around twelve. In each cases I was probably away for something in the region of three or four weeks. The first two times were during primary school and the third time was I think supposed to be during Easter hols and overlapped.

In any case, missing school did not seem to harm my future path. I managed to pass my 11+ and enter grammar school, completed my A-levels, and went to University to read Medicine. In any case, those three holidays were the only times we could afford to go abroad somewhere. The next time I went abroad on holiday was when I was at university.

Its simple supply and demand - in school holidays there is more demand, the supply is broadly fixed so the price goes up

im just thankful my kids have left school so now we can have a holiday every year as opposed every 2/3 years

and we don’t go overseas just to Weymouth
in the school holidays it was £750+ for the week after the school holidays its £290 for the week ...