P-04-576 Allow Children in Wales to Have a Family Holiday During Term Time – Correspondence from the Petitioner to the Committee, 13.04.17

Dear Petitions committee,

This farce has to end, there needs to be some honesty, on the part of the Assembly Education department, Every time we tell them there is a problem with the way the Consortia are dealing with parents and head teachers and present evidence of the misuse of Welsh Assembly legislation, we get told there is no problem and that head teachers in Wales have the right to allow Holidays during term time. This is a lie, in just a couple of hours I had all these responses, when I asked for schools that are still operating blanket bans, this means there are many more, I have also attached documents that are representative of those being given to parents across Wales. We keep getting told that the situation in Wales under Labour is different to England, as far as I can see, the only difference is that in England the government tells the truth about the situation and stands by it, whilst in Wales the Assembly hides the real situation, with lies and falsehoods, do you have no shame? It is despicable to hold the threat of reporting parents for putting their child's welfare at risk, when all they want to do is take them on holiday, this disgusting cowardly bullying behaviour has to stop. Families are put under strain and are being permanently damaged, you need to stop messing around, telling lies and being ineffective cowards in general, and do something about this now.

Bethany Walpole-Wroe