Parents are rightly concerned that their children are losing precious school days as a result of unscheduled closures of schools.

It is, as Coun John Ruding says, unacceptable that delays in completing building work is leading to schools having to open late.

In the last academic year, the district lost 518 days in primary and secondary schools because of various factors, including contractors’ work over-running, as well as weather problems and strikes.

That figure could end up even higher when the summer term finishes next July, with 11 schools opening late because of overrunning building work. One primary school saw its reception class lose a total of ten days schooling at the start of the year.

The suggestion that teachers – and pupils – should be forced to give up their holiday time to try and make up some of these days may ultimately be unrealistic. But it may be some flexibility can be applied at local level at schools affected to come up with solutions to help pupils catch up with school time they have missed; many no doubt already do this.

More importantly from the point of view of stopping the problem happening in the first place, something needs to be done about the underlying issue of contracts not being completed in school holiday time.

Bradford Council seems to be accepting there is a problem with procurement in terms of getting school contracts finished within the holiday period, and leader Ian Greenwood said it was something he was very much aware of, adding that significant changes have already been made to the system.

Let us hope we see some impact of those changes quickly. Parents have enough to worry about in terms of their children’s education without having to be concerned about building work being finished on time.