Decision
of the Complaints Committee – 00517-22 Various v The Daily Telegraph
Summary
of Complaint
1. The
Independent Press Standards Organisation received various complaints that The
Daily Telegraph breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice
in an article headlined “Schools prioritise holidays over learning”, published
on 29th December 2021.
2. The
article reported that “SCHOOLS are increasingly giving pupils a two-week break
in October, despite warnings that the move could harm efforts to help children
catch up on tuition they lost to the pandemic”. It included a quote from a
co-founder of a parent campaign group, who had said: “This is absolutely not
the year to increase the number of days off school for pupils. Children have
already missed so much school. It’s just a mad thing… it could set back
catch-up plans.” The article went on to state that schools can set their own
holiday timetables, but they must offer the “statutory minimum 190 teaching
days each year”, and that “[a]ll the local authorities and multi-academy trusts
that have moved to a two-week October half-term will maintain the statutory 190
days by adding extra teaching time elsewhere in the year”.
3. The
article also appeared online in substantially the same format, headlined “State
schools increasingly adopting two-week half term for the ‘mental wellbeing of
teachers’”.
4. IPSO
received 129 complaints about this article, all of which raised similar
concerns. The complainants said that the headline was misleading to claim that
schools were prioritising holidays over learning and that this was not supported
by the text of the article, in breach of Clause 1. The complainants said that
the headline gave the misleading impression that schools were spending less
time teaching overall due to the introduction of the two-week break in October.
They said that this was contradicted later in the article, when it was
clarified that all schools who had chosen to move to a two-week October
half-term would maintain the statutory 190 days and add extra teaching days
later in the year. Complainants further said that the quote “[schools] are
increasingly giving pupils a two week break in October, despite warnings that
the move could harm efforts to help children catch up on tuition they lost to
the pandemic” added to the misleading impression that students would receive
fewer days of teaching overall.
5. Complainants
also said that they considered the quote given by the co-founder of the parent
campaign group was inaccurate in breach of Clause 1 to state that “[t]his is
absolutely not the year to increase the number of days off school for pupils”.
They said that this inaccurately claimed that students would be getting more
days off school in total, which was not the case.
6. The publication said it did not accept that
the article had breached the Code. The publication defended the headline and
noted that the article explained that an increasing number of multi-academy
trusts and local authorities had decided to move to a two-week half-term break
in October. It said that therefore, there would be one less week of teaching in
2022, and that while the number of teaching days over the whole academic year
would remain the same, this could be described as schools ‘prioritising’
holidays over learning. It made clear that it did not dispute that over the
course of the academic year the number of teaching days would remain the same.
The publication further said that prioritising something over another does not necessarily
mean that there will be less or more of either over a period of time, but
rather one thing is treated as more important than the other. It added that
many teachers, pupils, and parents consider the autumn term to be the most
important part of the school year. It went on to state that for pupils who will
sit their GCSE and A-levels in summer 2023, an extra week off in October would
mean that teaching time has been lost, as the summer term mainly consists of
revision and exams, and in this respect, it was again accurate for the headline
to summarise that holidays are being prioritised over teaching. The publication
went on to say that care had been taken over the article, which was written by
the Telegraph’s Education Editor, who spoke to experts for the article as well
as asking another reporter to carry out a survey of every local authority and
the major multi-academy trusts to see which implemented a two-week October
half-term. The publication also added that the sentence outlining the point
about the 190 statutory teaching days was marked as a “must keep” when it was
sent to sub-editors, to ensure it appeared in print.
7.
Regarding the quote: “[schools] are increasingly giving pupils a two-week break
in October, despite warnings that the move could harm efforts to help children
catch up on tuition they lost to the pandemic”, the publication said that this
was not misleading. It said that it was reasonable to suggest that in 2022
schools should carry on with the process of catching up and keep up the
momentum, rather than having an extra week out of school at an important point
in the academic year. It said that it did not consider the reader would be left
with the impression that there would be fewer days teaching overall, where the
article made clear that the statutory teaching days would be maintained by
adding extra days of teaching later in the year.
8. The publication
said that the quote given by the co-founder of the parent campaign group where
she said that “[t]his is absolutely not the year to increase the number of days
off school for pupils. Children have already missed so much school. It’s just a
mad thing… it could set back catch-up plans” was a reasonable opinion held by
her. It said that the quote did not suggest that pupils would be getting more
days off school in total, and that the co-founder made no mention of academic
years. It said that she was expressing her opinion that following a period of
unprecedented disruption, schools should maintain momentum and focus on the
teaching, and that this is not the time to extend a school holiday. The
publication further added that the ordinary reader would not be focused on the
fact that the article was published at the end of 2021 and that the
co-founder’s position was that this was not the moment, nor the time to be
taking more holidays. It said that the fact that the teaching days are made up
later in the academic year did not mean that the co-founders quote was
inaccurate.
Relevant
Code Provisions
Clause 1
(Accuracy)
i) The
Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted
information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.
ii) A
significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected,
promptly and with due prominence, and — where appropriate — an apology
published. In cases involving IPSO, due prominence should be as required by the
regulator.
iii) A
fair opportunity to reply to significant inaccuracies should be given, when
reasonably called for.
iv) The
Press, while free to editorialise and campaign, must distinguish clearly
between comment, conjecture and fact.
Findings
of the Committee
9. The
Committee first considered the complainants’ concerns that the headline was
misleading. The print headline had stated that schools were “prioritis[ing]
holidays over learning” and the article quoted the co-founder of a parent
campaign group’s criticism of reducing the number of teaching days “this...
year”. The complainants considered that this headline, in combination with the
article, suggested that the two-week October break would reduce the overall
number of teaching days in the 2022/2023 school year. The publication said that
the article made clear that schools which had decided to introduce a two-week
October half-term would maintain the statutory 190 teaching days by making up
the teaching time in the subsequent terms. It considered that it was entitled
to report criticism of the disruption posed by the extended October holiday.
10.
Considering the headline on its own, the Committee noted that it did not state
that learning was being replaced by holidays, rather that schools were
‘prioritising’ holidays. The Committee noted that it was the publication’s
characterisation that schools were ‘prioritising’ holidays over learning, and
that warnings had been given that this move could affect children catching up
on teaching after the disruption of Covid. It was the Committee’s view that
where additional holiday time was being allotted to the autumn term, which the
newspaper said was widely viewed as the most important part of the academic
year for learning, there was a basis for this characterisation. The Committee
then turned to the article as a whole and considered whether the headline was
supported by the text of the article. It was the Committee’s view that the
article made clear that there was not going to be a reduction in the overall
amount of teaching days over the course of the academic year. The Committee did
not consider the headline misleadingly suggested that schools were to increase
holidays in total, and there was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.
11.
Complainants had also expressed concerns about the claim that “[schools] are
increasingly giving pupils a two-week break in October, despite warnings that
the move could harm efforts to help children catch up on tuition they lost to
the pandemic”, as they considered it added to the misleading impression that
students would receive fewer days of teaching overall. The Committee noted that
neither the above claim nor the rest of the article, made any claim that
students would receive fewer days of teaching overall, and, furthermore, it was
explicitly stated in the article that adjustments would be made over the
subsequent terms to accommodate all the statutory teaching days. The
publication was entitled to report that more schools were moving to a two-week
break in October, and that this move had been criticised. There was no breach
of Clause 1 on this point.
12.
Lastly, the Committee turned to the complainants’ concerns that the comment
given by the co-founder of the parent campaign group was inaccurate. The
Committee noted that her reference to “this… year” in referring to additional
“days off school” was somewhat ambiguous, as she did not specify whether she
referred to the academic year or a calendar year. However, in considering this
point, the Committee had regard for the timing of the article: it was published
shortly before the beginning of a new calendar year and was referring to
changes to the autumn half term, which would occur in the next academic year,
rather than the current one. As such, the Committee was satisfied that the
“year” referred to in the quote was the forthcoming calendar year – 2022 –
rather than the 2022/23 academic year. While the Committee acknowledged
complainants’ concerns, it noted that it was not in dispute that 2022 would see
fewer teaching days for the schools due to the longer half-term. While these
days of teaching were to be moved later in the academic year, they would fall
within the following calendar year, 2023, and therefore it was neither
inaccurate nor misleading for the co-founder to state that “this is… not the
year to increase the number of days off school for pupils”. For this reason,
there was no breach of Clause 1.
Conclusion(s)
13. The
complaint was not upheld.
Remedial
Action Required
14. N/A
Date
complaint received: 29/12/2021
Date
complaint concluded by IPSO: 01/06/2022