A BASILDON secondary school is offering parents the chance to take children away for a week’s holiday during term time.

Next year, Years seven, eight, and nine pupils at Woodlands School, will be allowed an “enrichment week” in July, when their parents can take them on holiday.

The new proposal is aimed at giving parents the chance to take their kids on holiday when it is “more affordable”.

But any pupils getting time off school will still be expected to complete school work.

Headteacher Simon Cox said if the pupils are taken out of school that week they must complete an educational booklet covering a number of areas showing what they have learned while they were away.

In his letter to parents, he said 15 to 19 July 2019 will be set aside for an “enrichment week”.

“It is hoped that this will allow you to provide opportunities that are more affordable as they are out of the school holidays,” the letter says.

“A full list of enrichment activities will be provided in school during this week and full attendance is expected unless the enrichment week documents have been completed.

“Holidays at any other time of the year will not be granted and this enrichment week is not transferable to any other week in the school year.”

For those pupils who remain in school that week, Mr Cox said “a full list of enrichment activities will be provided that week”.

Elsewhere in the country, children being taken on holiday by their parents during term time have been facing fines.

Mr Cox said that holiday work book would cover modern languages, history, geography, maths and English.

He said: “If, for example, a family went to Greece, we’d need to see that they have mastered some basic communication, for geography we’d need to see key information around GDP and population, for history, the type of place and how the past has impacted, English would be about literature and maths will centre around currency.

“We get an awful lot of holiday requests - well over 150 a year.

“Our authorised holiday is already 1 per cent and we’ve got 2.9 per cent unauthorised absence.

“We’re the second highest finer in Essex for unauthorised absence.

“We need to give our pupils an opportunity to do enrichment activities and encourage families to do something worthwhile.

“We’re trying to work with our families.

“It’s all about building relationships.”