Headteacher could face sack for taking cycling holiday during term time

A Burnley headteacher has been accused of double standards after taking time off during term time to go on a two-week charity cycling tour in Brazil. Ian McCann, the 58-year-old head of Rosewood Primary School in Burnley, has since been suspended while an investigation takes place.

The Sun reports that McCann asked for special permission to go on the trip last month only for the request to be rejected. He subsequently appealed, but failed to have the decision overturned, and so handed in a sick note saying he was stressed, missing the last week before the half-term break.

One parent said: “What sort of example does it set? He's told he can't go on holiday when he wants, now he goes sick and goes anyway. If parents take kids out of school in term time we face fines. What'll happen to him?”

Lancashire County Council topped a recent list of 71 education authorities that handed out fines to parents who took kids away during term. It issued 3,907 penalty notices to parents from September 2014 to last July. However, McCann has not had to report a single pupil.

He has now been suspended by school governors with his dismissal described as being ‘a worst case scenario’ by a school source.

School absences have been prominent in the news since Jon Platt was taken to court after refusing to pay a £120 fine for taking his daughter, aged six, to Florida. He argued that the law only required children to attend school regularly and the court decided there was no case to answer. Isle of Wight Council has since launched a High Court appeal.

Last month, Paul Abeledo, the head of Rush Green primary school in London, came under fire for taking five days off to compete for Great Britain in a duathlon in Australia. It wasn’t the first time Abeledo had been granted term time leave for sporting activities, after also taking time off to compete in a Triathlon in Austria last year.