CHILDREN in Tunbridge Wells skipped school on more than 15,000 occasions last year – equivalent to 79 academic years.

The figures revealed the number of unauthorised absences at primary and secondary schools in the borough has more than doubled since 2000.

It is a similar picture county-wide, with children in Kent missing more than 295,000 days of school last year due to unauthorised absences – again more than double the number 11 years earlier.

Although the number of children missing school has more than doubled in Tunbridge Wells, the school population has increased by just 3.4 per cent.

Keith Marden, Sherwood Park Community Primary School head teacher, said: "These figures are pretty shocking, especially in light of the amount of publicity focused on the subject in recent years."

Under the Education Act 1996, it is the parents' responsibility to ensure children are registered at a school and attend regularly or they face being taken to court or fined.

Unauthorised absences include children playing truant as well as them being taken out of school for family holidays during term time without the head teacher's permission.

The policy on family holidays sparked a mixed reaction from parents at St James' CE Junior School when approached by the Courier on Monday.

Mother-of-two Anabel Johnson, of Ravenswood Avenue, said parents should be able to take their children out of school to experience "life-changing" holidays and trips because going away during school holidays is expensive.

On the issue of penalties and fines for parents who take their children out of school, she commented: "Kent County Council is over-zealous, fining middle-class families as a way of taxing people and not tackling the real problems of truancy."

But Gill Court, of Fairfield Avenue, said: "I wouldn't take my children out of school because I think they have enough holiday."

The 47-year-old sheltered housing manager said unauthorised absence figures for the town seemed high.

Parents can be fined or prosecuted for failing to ensure children attend school. Penalty notices are issued to the parents of a child who is absent for five school days without permission.

Mr Marden said holidays during term time at his school were not authorised and his staff worked closely with the council's education welfare officer to hold register checks and to carry out home visits with the parents of any child whose attendance dropped below 95 per cent.

He added: "This very rigorous approach is backed up in school by a number of positive strategies, such as weekly awards of 'Attendance Ted' to the class with the least absence and 'Punctuality Pup' to the class with the least late arrivals.

"End-of-term certificates are awarded to all children with 99 percent and 100 percent attendance."

A Kent County Council spokesman said it would be "inaccurate" to compare today's figures with those a decade ago because there has been a "national change of emphasis in measuring and recording pupil absence".

Since 2007, schools in Kent have focused more on reducing overall absence and targeting persistently absent pupils, the spokesman added.