On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled on the case of Jon Platt - who took his daughter out of school in order to take her on holiday - finding that the Isle of Wight Council was correct to fine him.

On 24 April, MPs will debate the new closed-book exams for GCSE literature after more than 100,000 people signed a petition calling for texts to be allowed in the exam room.

This democratic country is ruled and governed by the MPs whom we elect. Their excesses in turn can be curbed by the presence of the Supreme Court. I have no problem with either of those facts.

But should the legislature determine the nature and style of an exam for 16-year-olds? Is it the place of the highest court in the land to decide on parents’ right (or not) to take their children on holiday in school time? To me, both represent grotesque misuses of their function and time.

The law has, since 1944, obliged parents to see that their children are educated (not necessarily in school, by the way): again, I’ve no reason to disagree with that law. Nor do I object to local authorities prosecuting parents who fail to ensure their children’s attendance at school: we must protect the right of the child to a proper education.

But to confuse truancy with the odd holiday seems to me heavy-handed and even oppressive.

Call me a wishy-washy liberal (I’m proud of being one): but these are quite different and separate issues, which should not be lumped together.

You could argue that the Supreme Court’s judgement (if you read the small print) merely upholds the fact that the Isle of Wight Council issued the penalty notice properly: it didn’t actually tangle with the rightness or otherwise with the law lying behind the penalty notice.

Mr Platt commented that the verdict would mean “that regularly attending school means attending every day whenever the school demands it - 100 per cent attendance”.

That government’s natural tendency towards nanny-statism is turning into Big Brother authoritarianism disturbs me.

Indeed, it worries me almost as much as the thought of parliamentary time being given to debate how we sit an English Literature exam.

By no stretch of the imagination should our legislature determine a small detail like this: so, if the scale of that petition imposed a legal obligation on Parliament to debate that issue, the law has become an ass.

Time was when exam boards used to listen to the professionals, the teachers and school leaders who prepare children for those exams. Now boards are browbeaten by ministers and civil servants.

That’s bad enough: but what do MPs know of the detail of exam procedure, let alone the study of English Literature?

What will follow? MPs debating the size and shape of scalpels that surgeons use?

Let’s invite their views (which might be legally binding) on other issues of public service: how long should a fireman’s hose be? Should every police officer be trained to say “’Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello!” and bend their knees three times before accosting any suspected criminal?

We could go further: once they’ve debated it, hold a referendum on the detail. Let’s ask the people what they think about open- or closed-book exams. If there’s a narrow result, we can argue about it for ages.

When I was first a headteacher in 1990, Ken Clarke (now the poster-boy for Remoaners) was education secretary. He proved a bully-boy, but mercifully moved rapidly on to health where he complained that doctors treated the NHS as a “secret garden” whose gate he quickly kicked open.

It’s been downhill ever since. Yet another former previous education secretary, Michael Gove, derided “experts” during the Brexit campaign. Government scorns professionals: it wants apparatchiks.

It’s been a bad week for education: the implications for the future of such interference in exams and denial of parental responsibility will be severe and damaging.

It might have been better if MPs had debated a history exam instead. But then, politicians never learn from history.

Dr Bernard Trafford is headteacher of the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne, and a former chair of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference. The views expressed here are personal. He tweets at @bernardtrafford

To read more columns, view his back catalogue

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