I know I’m setting a bad example, but I won’t stop taking my kid out of school for a day at the beach

It’s a beautiful weekday morning. The sun is already shining at 8am, and the forecast shows not one cloud in the sky all day.

It’s unseasonably warm for September, and very probably the last fine day of summer, so what a shame it’s the first week back at school for my ten-year-old daughter Olivia.

But then, why should she miss out?

All it takes is a simple email from me to the school attendance officer, after all. A headache is the best ‘reason’ to give, I’ve discovered, because, unlike a cough or upset tummy, it only lasts a day.

A headache means she can go back to school tomorrow with no questions asked.

I don’t want her to have to lie to adults herself though I have no qualms at all about my lies.

“We can go to Whitstable, we can get fish and chips, and a special ice cream at the new gelateria,” I tell her.

“‘We can play in the sand, and I bet it will be hot enough to swim!”

And, I add to myself, parking will be easy, and the beach will be, if not empty, then emptier.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve taken Olivia out of school for the day just for fun.

I am one of the mothers Education Secretary Bridget Phillips took direct aim at last weekend, when she vowed to clamp down on the ‘absence epidemic’ in Britain’s schools and issue ever steeper fines to parents who allow children to skip classes for the sake of ‘cheaper holidays’, to avoid ‘unpopular subjects’, for ‘birthday treats’ or a ‘runny nose’.

According to Phillipson, feckless mums like me, quite happy to take kids out of school for no ‘good’ reason, are ‘significantly diminishing their future earning potential’. But what ludicrous hyperbole.

As if the entirety of a child’s life turns on a couple of school lessons. Little Johnny definitely won’t land that high-flying job in the City if he misses six days of Year 5 maths! Education is at best a torch shone into the darkness.

The idea that there is a complete set of knowledge that can only be achieved by sitting behind a desk every single day is rubbish.

The curriculum is carefully planned by those on high and handed down to us all as if it’s the final version of a rounded education ... until the next government changes it all. School is important, but there are other important lessons in life, too.

I rarely do it more than three days a term. Though of course add that to the days on which she is genuinely poorly, and I confess our attendance percentage seldom creeps over 85 per cent.

Not that it’s affected Olivia’s academic performance. Last term her report card showed her reading and maths both at the longed-for ‘greater depth’ marker.

I truly believe that by skipping school, I am helping her on several crucial levels – academically, but also mentally and socially. I am teaching her how to be a happier, more self-assertive person. Indeed, one of the reasons I do this is to show Olivia that breaking the rules is not always a bad thing.

At the moment, like most little girls, she is too good and socialised to obey the rules in a way that little boys are not. In among general glowing praise, her report said: “Olivia places too high expectations on herself to do well.”

She is, in other words, on her way to becoming a perfectionist and we all know that perfectionism in girls is often a curse. I don’t want her to grow up a people-pleasing young woman who never puts herself first.

I know I am setting a bad example – that is the very point. By taking my daughter out of school when I feel like it, I am instilling a lack of respect for the institution of school in general.

The Education Secretary would no doubt think me deeply irresponsible.

I don’t want to make it harder for Olivia’s teacher to meet attendance goals or push kids through tests – I like her and recognise how hard she works – but I don’t see bureaucratic government targets as my problem.

I don’t agree with them.

At school, I too felt the pressure to be good, until I snapped in my teenage years and spent the next decade rebelling against every form of authority I encountered.

My 20s were a disaster. But now I have learned how to assert myself without being self-destructive.

I have a creative job and more freedom than most people. I am still a rule-breaker, and I want Olivia to know it’s okay to break the rules too. If Olivia is a bit naughty for a day, I am convinced it will do her good.

Increasingly, society needs creative thinkers as well as people who do whatever they are told. If she learns to navigate a way through school, university, and later the office, while prioritising her mental and physical wellbeing, then that’s better than showing up to work every single day when she doesn’t feel like it.

And so, when we go to the seaside and Olivia worries about being seen by teachers, I tell her we’re driving an hour and a half from school and, unless they’re skipping, too, her teachers won’t be there.

Soon she throws off her fears and we spend the day improving her breast-stroke and paddling in the sea looking for fish and seashells.

Last winter Olivia and I went to the Natural History Museum and wandered around hand in hand.

It was quieter than at the weekends, at least before the school trips arrived (I’ve been a parent helper on one of those and let me tell you, not much learning goes on; it’s all about crowd control).

It was amazing to tiptoe past the first T Rex skeleton ever discovered, just the two of us.

It was even better in the Rothko room at the Tate Modern, one of my favourite places. As we sat there together in the gloomy light, gazing at the huge paintings bearing down on us from every wall, I could see that Olivia was feeling the power of them too.

“They make me think of sunsets and war,” she said.

“I don’t know why, but I feel sad.”

It would have been quite different on the weekend with all the crowds.

At other times during term time, I have taken her to the Lido where we played being mermaids, and to London Zoo, where we stared for hours at the Leaf-cutter ants.

Wherever we go, Olivia peppers me with questions. Her thirst for knowledge is unquenchable, but I give it a go.

She may be off school, but she is still learning. And our relationship is even closer now, thanks to our covert “Mummy and me” time.

Yes, she might be unlucky and skip a day in school that she can’t catch up: Last term she missed a Roman workshop. But that was the day I took her to her grandmother’s 94th birthday lunch in Wiltshire.

I didn’t receive a reply from the Headmistress when I emailed to ask in advance, so the absence was unauthorised.

Since my mother is in poor health, this birthday is likely to be her last.

Olivia did feel left out at school the next day when she had to listen to her friends talking about throwing spears and looking at real Roman coins. But I’d argue that she’d feel even more left out at missing the birthday party.

In this climate, after Phillipson pledges to get tough, I doubt days off will be granted for anything, even grandma’s last party, but that means I simply won’t ask for permission in future but will tell one of my white lies instead.

Olivia is slowly becoming less biddable. Nowadays, when she wakes up with a sniffle, she looks at me hopefully (although she is not allowed to stay home for a cold).

Compared to her friend who is never allowed off – even with a broken ankle – she sees going to school as negotiable.

This friend’s mother works for the NHS and looked askance at me when I mentioned, in a whisper, one of our recent days at the beach.

The mum cannot go to the beach on a whim. She is a much better person than me and lets me know it by the looks she sends in my direction.

If my mother knew, she would be horrified, too. She would think I was being irresponsible and disrespectful, but I don’t care.

She would accuse me of being selfish, and she would be right. I make no apology for putting Olivia and myself first.

Interestingly, the Government is concentrating on money in all of this. The bigger fines. The focus is on future earning potential.

Money is important, especially if you don’t have it. But it is also true that there is more to life than money.

There are rare sunny days at the beach, there is familial closeness, and there is the joy of spontaneity. And there is rule-breaking.

That those things are important, too, is a lesson I intend to teach my ten-year-old before it’s too late.

And if I have to invent a few more headaches to get around the Education Secretary’s ever-stricter edicts, then that is what I’ll do.