INCREASINGLY high prices for half-term holidays could be one reason more parents are taking their children out of school.

In today's Bolton News we look at the exceptionally high numbers of students missing days during term-time - but parents are trapped between paying fines and paying huge sums for their holidays.

In some situations, where many schools in the country are taking their half-term or seasonal holidays around the same time, costs can rise to twice as high for trips abroad or accommodation.

The issue seems to be worse in Bolton where the council has issued more than double the number of fines to parents in this academic year than it did in the whole of 2017/18.

But these fines may just be causing further animosity between parents and teachers.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, has called this system of fines a "blunt instrument".

He pointed instead to the price of holidays as the "real problem" and called on the government to bring in new measures to curb the rising prices for trips during the school holidays.

It is hard to see what this kind of legislation would look like and how it would be enforced on the myriad travel companies in the UK offering holidays but with absences causing increasing problems for schools or parents, pressure is building for something to be done.