There was an image circulating on social media last week showing the price of staying at a Lodge in Wolburn Forest Center Parcs in February for a family of four. 

For the week commencing 10th February, it cost £429.  For the week commencing 24 Febuary, it cost £599.  For the week in between it cost £1449.  Guess which week is half term? 

What we are seeing here is price discrimination, more often called ‘dynamic pricing’ or ‘surge pricing’ where prices rise (or fall) to meet an increase (or fall) in demand.  It is the law of supply and demand, as taught to me by my economics lecturer at Leeds Poly in the 1980s.  Whilst the higher prices during school holidays always catch the headlines, the corresponding way of looking at the same picture is that the prices outside of holidays are lower than they would otherwise be.  The market equilibirum price is somewhere in between the two but the nature of the product (family holiday) and the irregular demand means that this demand has to be rationed in some way, hence the price rises during school holidays. 

There is no solution other than some form of price capping by the Government who would never engage into such a potentially hazardous market intervention.  Price discrimination happens in all markets every day, from concert ticket pricing to the wide range of different versions of similar products that you find on your supermarket shelves.  

I do not quite share the view of one headteacher that I once met who said, “It’s tough.  If you want to have kids, you need to cough up more for your holidays,” but I do believe firmly that the right place for children to be is in school.  It is hard enough for young people to maintain high levels of attendance just accounting for the daily illnesses that occur but to make this harder by taking children out of school for days and weeks for a holiday does risk the development of youngsters as well as their academic progress.  My flexibility in allowing term time holidays is extremely limited to very unique circumstances and this is set out in law.  This is sadly one of those situations in life that we just have to live with but please also consider how the same issue affects teachers who – for their entire career, whether they have children or not – always face much higher travel and holiday costs by virtue of their profession. 

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This week we have invited our Year 11 students into early morning revision club held in the canteen.  From 8.15 students can get free tea and toast and have a period of time where they can get their revision books out and do an extra 15-20 minutes of work before the school day starts.  From next week we will also be introducing revision classes in place of the tutor period for three days per week.  We are pleased to see so many of our older students now taking these opportunities and taking personal responsibility for their upcoming examination preparation.   

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Thank you as ever for your support.  Have a lovely weekend. 

Mr Groak

Headteacher