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Brighton and Hove considers school holidays shake-up to help families

Brighton and Hove City Council is considering plans to change school term times to make it more affordable for families to go on holiday.

An extra week could be offered in the autumn by reducing the six-week school summer holiday break.

Calls to group inset days into one week are also in consultation by the council.

A new week’s holiday would have to sit around exam timetables leaving only a select number of dates available.

Plans will be discussed by the council next week with any changes not expected to be implemented until September 2017.

Such a move would make the council the first in the country to act to change school term times to offer an alternative to the summer peak.

Councillor Tom Berwick told ITV News Meridian: “A six week holiday is a very long time to be off with your children. In fact, this holiday harks back to the 19th century and even before that when we needed our children to bring in the harvest at that time of year.

“We need to respond to changing work shift patterns and the fact that holidays during that peak time of year are four times as expensive as the non-peak period.”

The number of families fined in Brighton for unauthorised absence has risen from 127 in 2012-13 to 434 a year later and 983 last year.

The rise is thought to be in part because schools are being stricter in how they impose government rules over taking holidays in term time.

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